Brian Mowll

Anxiety, phenibut, toxins and cold showers for detoxification

March 19, 2017 By Trudy Scott 10 Comments

Anxiety, phenibut, toxins, cold showers for detox and more. All of this and more is being covered on the upcoming online Diabetes Summit.

Starting Monday March 20^th

I’m really pleased to be a speaker on this summit this year. I cover the anxiety diabetes connection. Anxiety is very common in diabetes – some research shows it’s as high as 25%, and women with diabetes are twice as likely to be affected with anxiety and depression. I also cover how and how GABA helps reduce physical anxiety AND how new research shows GABA is also a promising treatment for diabetes!

Dr. Mowll asked me about using phenibut instead of GABA:

I’ve seen a number of papers that talk about tolerance. I’ve talked to practitioners who’ve said they’ll rotate. They’ll have people be on Phenibut for five days, two days off. And I’ve seen some really scary drug forums where people are using Phenibut as a sort of mood enhancing and performance enhancing drug. They are using very high doses and there are protocols on how to safely taper off Phenibut.

So when I see things like that it concerns me. I’ve had a handful of people, who’ve had some pretty bad side effects from Phenibut. So with someone who’s going through anxiety I just don’t want to add anything else into the mix that may cause problems.

The concern is it does seem to work really well for anxiety and sleep, so that’s why I think a lot of practitioners are drawn to using it. And it may be that they’re not recommending the GABA/ Gamma Amino Butyric Acid sublingually. And they may not be doing a trial to find the optimal dose [so that’s why they are not seeing the results they’d hope to see]. So I would steer clear of phenibut.

We also cover the following (all relevant if you have diabetes AND if you don’t have diabetes):

doing a GABA trial and the blood brain barrier controversy
benzodiazepine tapers and nutritional support during a taper
rooibos tea for metabolic support and adrenal health

On day 2 of the summit, Razi Berry shares this about the toxins in our environment and the impacts they have on our health:

Out of the 80,000 chemicals that we have in our world, we have barely studied any of them. A couple presidents ago, the Environment Protection Agency was supposed to study the first 300 of these 80,000 chemicals. And so far they’ve only studied one, which is BPA. And BPA is all around us

She had to get rid of the toxins in her environment to help her fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue.

I had to stop using the body sprays that I love from Bath and Body, and the perfumes

I got rid of everything fragrant. And I didn’t use essential oils at first either because you still want to use them judiciously and in the right way. So I switched to everything unscented. And I found a lot about beeswax candles. Beeswax candles are so not only beautiful, and they have this honey like scent to them, but they actually neutralize odors and toxins in the air. They don’t just cover it up. So you actually can clean the air by burning beeswax candles. For centuries churches could not burn tallow or paraffin. They could only burn beeswax.

She covers tons of other everyday toxins we are exposed to and how we can safely avoid them. And then importantly, how we can detoxify from these toxins. One approach she covers is hot and cold showers or hydrotherapy (very powerful and very easy to do at home):

Hydrotherapy is a really old technique. It became really popular in the last turn of the century, the late 1800s, early 1900s. And it’s this use of water and/or temperature to help prime your body to get rid of toxins.

So one of the ways that you can do hydrotherapy at home is through what’s called a constitutional hydrotherapy shower. And it’s basically taking a hot and cold shower where you alternate. You start with the water as hot as you possibly can handle it. And you do that for like 12 seconds. Then you turn it to as cold as you can take it.

And the first switch from hot to cold is the most important because it really creates this pump in your lymphatic system, the hot, cold, hot, cold, and really helps to move toxins through your body so it can be eliminated by your kidneys, by your liver, through your respiration.

As you can see there’s plenty to learn from these experts!

Here are just a few of the topics being covered (general topics and applicable if you have diabetes):

How food allergens can trigger blood sugar problems, and how to detoxify the body safely
Understanding the stress continuum and how children trauma, adverse life events, and daily stressors can lead to diabetes (all of this is applicable to any health condition)
Natural strategies to balance blood sugar including new supplement recommendations, essential oils, and using food as medicine
Breaking down various eating strategies including the ketogenic diet (vegan diets and raw food diets are also addressed but I must add that I don’t endorse this way of eating if you do have anxiety)
Menopause and blood sugar issues (insulin, cortisol and oxytocin)
How to get your sleep right to balance insulin and blood sugar

And some topics taking a deeper diver into very specific diabetes areas (if you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes):

Developing a deeper understanding of peripheral neuropathy – how to test for it and how to treat it, naturally and effectively
Important strategies for those dealing with type 1 diabetes in themselves or a child
Autoimmunity and diabetes

I hope you’ll join us to learn from these experts on the online Diabetes Summit. My friend and diabetes expert, Dr. Brian Mowll, is hosting this life-changing event for the fourth year, and this year’s event looks amazing.

You can register for this online event here.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments below.

Diabetes, anxiety and GABA

February 24, 2017 By Trudy Scott 21 Comments

Anxiety and depression are common in patients with diabetes. In this 2016 paper: Prevalence and predictors of depression and anxiety in patients of diabetes mellitus in a tertiary care center, it was found that a significantly larger proportion of diabetic patients had

Anxiety: 27.6% vs. 12.7% as compared to healthy controls and
Depression: 26.3% vs. 11.2% as compared to healthy controls
Both depression andanxiety: 21.0% vs. 7.3% as compared to healthy controls

The paper also reports that diabetic women had higher rates of anxiety than men (17.6% vs. 10.0%) and higher rates of depression than men (17.1% vs. 9.3%).

GABA is one of the calming amino acids I used with much success with my clients who have the physical type of anxiety (with stiff and tense muscles). As well as addressing this type of anxiety it also helps them to end their sugar addiction, reducing cravings dramatically. Melissa shares her results after using GABA on this blog: GABA for ending sugar cravings (and anxiety and insomnia)

I was cool as a cucumber at the airport and was much calmer when visiting family and friends compared to last year! The true test of its efficacy will be in two weeks when the semester starts. For now, I notice a general calmness and am sleeping well.

An unexpected result was that I stopped craving sweets after about a week of taking it! I didn’t even realize this until I was grocery shopping and out of habit walked towards the ice cream – I stopped and realized I didn’t want ice cream. So I walked toward the chocolate – same reaction. For once in my life, I was not craving sweets.

Now there is some interesting recent research showing how GABA may play a role in diabetes treatment too.

This February 2015 paper, GABAergic system in the endocrine pancreas: a new target for diabetes treatment explains the role of GABA in regulating islet-cell secretion and that it exerts β-cell regenerative effects:

Excessive loss of functional pancreatic β-cell mass, mainly due to apoptosis, is a major factor in the development of hyperglycemia in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes (T1D and T2D).

In T1D, β-cells are destroyed by immunological mechanisms. In T2D, while metabolic factors are known to contribute to β-cell failure and subsequent apoptosis, mounting evidence suggests that islet inflammation also plays an important role in the loss of β-cell mass. Therefore, it is of great importance for clinical intervention to develop new therapies.

γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA), a major neurotransmitter, is also produced by islet β-cells, where it functions as an important intraislet transmitter in regulating islet-cell secretion and function. Importantly, recent studies performed in rodents, including in vivo studies of xenotransplanted human islets, reveal that GABA exerts β-cell regenerative effects. Moreover, it protects β-cells against apoptosis induced by cytokines, drugs, and other stresses, and has anti-inflammatory and immunoregulatory activities. It ameliorates the manifestations of diabetes in preclinical models, suggesting potential applications for the treatment of diabetic patients.

This paper published in November 2015: Study of GABA in Healthy Volunteers: Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics also reports potential therapeutic benefits for those with diabetes:

Our data show that GABA is rapidly absorbed and tolerated in human beings; its endocrine effects, exemplified by increasing islet hormonal secretion, suggest potential therapeutic benefits for diabetes.

You can read more about this in the blog post: GABA rapidly absorbed and tolerated – benefits for anxiety and diabetes

A paper published in December 2016 on GABA and diabetes: Long-Term GABA Administration Induces Alpha Cell-Mediated Beta-like Cell Neogenesis states that

This newly discovered GABA-induced α cell-mediated β-like cell neogenesis [or the regeneration of tissue] could therefore represent an unprecedented hope toward improved therapies for diabetes.

So here we have the amino amazing acid GABA that when used as a targeted supplement:

we know reduces and often eliminates sugar cravings completely
calms the anxious mind and reduces physical tension and stress within 5 to 30 minutes
has much potential in offering therapeutic benefits for diabetes

I’m proposing oral GABA as a much better option for diabetic patients with anxiety – better than benzodiazepines which have been shown to contribute to cognitive impairment. Using GABA sublingually seems to be most effective.

Do you have diabetes and has GABA helped you with your cravings and anxiety? And enabled you to reduce your diabetes medication?

If you’re a practitioner I’m curious if you commonly see anxiety and depression in your diabetes patients/clients? And do you currently use GABA (and other amino acids like tryptophan and glutamine) to help reduce their anxiety and sugar cravings? And reduce their diabetes medication?

The Diabetes World Summit and the anxiety-diabetes connection

March 16, 2015 By Trudy Scott Leave a Comment

The Diabetes World Summit (ONLINE) from March 23-30, 2015!

The mission of The Diabetes World Summit is to change lives. This incredible, online event has the potential to improve the health of tens of thousands with diabetes or pre-diabetes!

387 million people in the world have diabetes, and nearly half of them don’t know it. In the United States alone, type 2 diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death. The statistics are alarming, especially when we’ve proven that type 2 can be prevented and reversed!

Dr. Brian Mowll, The Diabetes Coach™, created The Diabetes World Summit to share the expertise of the world’s leaders in natural diabetes care to help you regain blood sugar control, live the highest quality life and even reverse type 2 and pre-diabetes. The 40 powerful, expert sessions at The Diabetes World Summit will benefit anyone with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, pre-diabetes, metabolic syndrome, as well as those who want to avoid blood sugar problems and achieve optimal health.

You may wonder: what is the connection between anxiety/depression and diabetes? In this study: Frequency of depression and anxiety in patients attending a diabetes clinic, they found “almost 50% of patients were found to have anxiety and depression.” The study concludes with this: “There is a high incidence of depression and anxiety in patients with chronic type-2 diabetes and clinicians must screen regularly for better care of these patients.”