Archives for September 2015

Balance Neurotransmitters for Pain and Anxiety: The Healing Pain Summit

September 11, 2015 By Trudy Scott 20 Comments

Joe Tatta is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and he is putting on The Healing Pain Summit which is focused on healing pain of all kinds using an integrated approach. Having practiced Physical Therapy for 20 years, Joe knows first-hand that pain is THE thing that will stop you in your tracks … completely. To help people with pain of all kinds Joe has brought together experts on:

Healing joint pain and muscle pain
How the foods you eat can cause you physical and emotional pain
Healing spiritual pain
Healing sexual pain

Here are just a few of the summit topics that may interest you:

Natural Ways To Heal Fibromyalgia
Your Adrenals and Pain: What is the Connection?
Solutions for Cancer Patients and Cancer Survivors

My interview will be: How Balancing Neurotransmitters Can Help Pain and Anxiety. I’ll be sharing new information on pain and the amino acids – something I don’t often talk about but can be a very powerful addition to a pain management program. I’ll cover how GABA, DPA/Endorphigen and tryptophan/5-HTP can help with various types of pain (and anxiety). I’ll also discuss some of the many mood and anxiety side-effects we can see with pain medications.

Here are some reasons for concern when it comes to pain medications:

Glucocorticoid medications like cortisone and prednisone can actually contribute to mood and cognitive issues. A 2014 paper titled Adverse consequences of glucocorticoid medication: psychological, cognitive, and behavioral effects reports that

Severe neuropsychiatric consequences (including suicide, suicide attempt, psychosis, mania, depression, panic disorder, and delirium, confusion, or disorientation) have been reported to occur in 15.7 per 100 person-years at risk for all glucocorticoid courses, and 22.2 per 100 person-years at risk for first courses

NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) such as ibuprofen are well known for causing injury and bleeding throughout the GI tract, but there now new evidence of an increased risk of a brain bleed when someone is also taking an SSRI. According to a Medscape article

The combination of antidepressants and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) is linked to an early increased risk for intracranial hemorrhage, regardless of the type of NSAID or antidepressant, new research shows.

Most worryingly, conditions requiring NSAIDs and antidepressants commonly coexist; 65% of adults with major depression also have chronic pain, with both morbidities sharing common psychological risk factors and neurobiological processes.

The good news is that amino acids can be a very powerful addition to a pain management program. One example is 5-HTP, an amino acid that raises serotonin levels. Anxiety, depression and increased pain can all be caused by low serotonin.

A paper published in 1998 and called 5-Hydroxytryptophan: a clinically-effective serotonin precursor reports that 5-HTP

easily crosses the blood-brain barrier and effectively increases central nervous system (CNS) synthesis of serotonin. In the CNS, serotonin levels have been implicated in the regulation of sleep, depression, anxiety, aggression, appetite, temperature, sexual behaviour, and pain sensation. Therapeutic administration of 5-HTP has been shown to be effective in treating a wide variety of conditions, including depression, fibromyalgia, binge eating associated with obesity, chronic headaches, and insomnia.

You can register here https://gc182.isrefer.com/go/hpsreg/trudyscottcn/

Oral GABA supplementation allows better prioritizing of planned actions: new research

September 4, 2015 By Trudy Scott 43 Comments

gabaexamples — Prothera 500mg GABA and Source Naturals GABA Calm (with 125mg GABA) are examples of GABA products I use with my clients

A paper recently published in Scientific Reports: γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) administration improves action selection processes: a randomised controlled trial provide the first evidence for a possible causal role of the GABA-ergic system in modulating performance in action cascading:

In order to accomplish a task goal, real-life environments require us to develop different action control strategies in order to rapidly react to fast-moving visual and auditory stimuli. When engaging in complex scenarios, it is essential to prioritise and cascade different actions.

A good example of when we may do something like this is driving a car in busy traffic:

you are fast-moving
there are noises all around you – for example: wind, hooting horns, big trucks, rain and water, passengers talking etc.
you are seeing things all around you – for example: the steering wheel, the speedometer, the other cars, the road, road signs, billboards, the scenery, your passengers etc.

The findings of this study, which involved the administration of 800 mg of synthetic GABA (compared to placebo), found that study participants were better able to prioritize planned actions (for example: make safe driving decisions).

I’m really pleased the study addressed the GABA-blood brain barrier controversy:

In the literature, there are controversial findings about GABA entering the brain through the blood brain barrier (BBB). The BBB is a tightly sealed layer of cerebral endothelial cells that form continuous tight junctions and prevent most solutes from entering the brain on the basis of size, charge, and lipid solubility. However, as pointed out by Shyamaladevi and colleagues, recent studies have demonstrated that the BBB is much more dynamic than assumed in the past, and some passage of solutes can occur by transcytosis, carrier-mediated transport, or simple diffusion of hydrophobic substances

While there is some evidence in favor of only a limited penetration of GABA into the brain, a more recent study with rats has shown that the administration of GABA alone increased brain GABA concentration, when compared to untreated rats.

In addition, the synthetic GABA-like agent gabapentin, which mimics the chemical structure of GABA, leads to an overall increase in central GABA levels and a recent study using 7-T MRS reported an increase in GABA concentration in the visual cortex of healthy participants after gabapentin administration.

Michael Jurgelewicz, DC, DACBN, DCBCN wrote this Designs for Health article about the study: GABA supplementation may help improve ability of prioritizing planned actions, mentioning two possible mechanisms of action as to how GABA supplementation may improve prioritizing planned actions as well as reducing anxiety:

Oral GABA supplementation can act directly on the CNS in a peripheral aspect through the gut. There is definitely a gut-brain relationship between nutrition and the gut microbiome and how they support brain health and function. The gut and brain communicate through the nervous system, immune system, and hormones.

In addition, the hypothalamus (emotional neuroendocrine control center of the brain) is outside and not protected by the blood brain barrier, so these two factors can explain how GABA affects the CNS. It is clear in the research that GABA is helpful with anxiety, and there are many case studies which demonstrate its effectiveness.

Here are some comments from 3 different people on facebook, demonstrating GABA’s effectiveness:

GABA was huge for super tight neck and shoulders! Within 5 min of taking I experienced tremendous relief of muscles and anxiety too

I like True Calm for clients that can’t wind down at night too, it has GABA in it.

GABA, definitely. It’s really helped my tight upper back and neck to feel better.

If you’re looking for more GABA info, during season 2 of The Anxiety Summit, I talked about the BBB, the GABA challenge (which I’m not in favor of) and GABA-receptors in peripheral tissues: Targeted individual amino acids for eliminating anxiety: practical applications.

I would like to add that 800mg of GABA is a much higher dose than I have my clients start with. I have them start on 125mg (as part of Source Naturals GABA Calm) and go up from there. Enzymatic Therapy has a nice 250mg GABA product and I really like the Nutritional Fundamentals for Health GABA-T SAP which has GABA 300 mg and 150 mg l-Theanine 150 mg. The Prothera 500mg GABA is a good choice if you can tolerate higher amounts. Here are links to these and other brands I like. I don’t typically use pharmaGABA but it does work for some individuals (so it may be worth doing a trial. Always consider possible histamine reactions to pharmaGABA if you have histamine intolerance or MCAS (mast cell activation syndrome).

I do not recommend phenibut under any circumstances. Even though the FDA warned companies to cease distribution in 2019 I am shocked to see it’s still available and is still recommended to children.

The promising results of this randomised controlled trial show that oral GABA intake makes a difference and does have an impact on behavior. This is big news!

Resources if you are new to using GABA as a supplement

If you are new to using GABA as a supplement, here is the Amino Acids Mood Questionnaire from The Antianxiety Food Solution (you can see all the low GABA symptoms). It has been updated with “Inability to prioritize planned actions”.

If you suspect low levels of GABA or any of the neurotransmitters and do not yet have my book, The Antianxiety Food Solution – How the Foods You Eat Can Help You Calm Your Anxious Mind, Improve Your Mood, and End Cravings, I highly recommend getting it and reading it before jumping in and using amino acids on your own so you are knowledgeable. And be sure to share it with the team you or your loved one is working with.

There is an entire chapter on the amino acids and they are discussed throughout the book in the sections on gut health, blood sugar control, sugar cravings, self-medicating with alcohol and more.

The book doesn’t include product names (per the publisher’s request) so this blog, The Antianxiety Food Solution Amino Acid and Pyroluria Supplements, lists the amino acids that I use with my individual clients and those in my group programs.

If, after reading this blog and my book, you don’t feel comfortable figuring things out on your own (i.e. doing the symptoms questionnaire and respective amino acids trials), a good place to get help is the GABA QuickStart Program. This is a paid online/virtual group program where you get my guidance and community support.

If you are a practitioner, join us in The Balancing Neurotransmitters: the Fundamentals program. This is also a paid online/virtual program with an opportunity to interact with me and other practitioners who are also using the amino acids.

Have you noticed that you can handle complex planned tasks and are better at prioritization when you are taking GABA (or have taken it in the past)?

And would you say that it’s the overwhelm factor that is being removed/lessened when taking GABA?

If you are a practitioner are you seeing results like this with your clients/patients?

If you have questions please share them here too.

No fear and no anxiety on Mt. Kenya

September 4, 2015 By Trudy Scott 2 Comments

mt-kenya

You’ve heard me talk about my climbing days and having no fear or anxiety – so here is a picture and short story!

This is me on Mt. Kenya in 1993. We had an early morning start from the top hut, heading for Point Lenana (16354 ft / 4985 m).

We were living in South Africa at the time and our gear was really not that great. In fact, my waterproof pants were homemade, I had borrowed boots and an ancient ice-axe! And check out the trendy purple “snood”/neck-face warmer I had bought in Scotland a few years earlier.

We had a blast anyway! What a trip and great “honeymoon” – we went to Kenya/Tanzania for 6 weeks and got married afterwards. It was a weather thing – good weather for the climbing trip in December/January and good wedding weather in March.

If you can relate to any of this or have your own adventures to share please share in the comments below.

Say NO to benzodiazepines for anxiety!

September 3, 2015 By Trudy Scott 61 Comments

Professor Malcolm H. Lader says it well:

It is more difficult to withdraw people from benzodiazepines than it is from heroin.

For this reason we need to say NO to benzodiazepines for anxiety (and other conditions)!

Benzodiazepines are a class of psychoactive drugs that work by enhancing the effect of the calming neurotransmitter GABA, and are used to treat anxiety, insomnia, pain, muscle spasms and a range of other conditions. They are widely prescribed, particularly among elderly patients and may even be used off-label with children with autism.

Use of this medication is very controversial. We know long term use leads to tolerance, dependence, and many adverse psychological effects and even physical effects. Short term use is generally considered safe but even using them for 2 – 4 weeks can lead to problems for certain individuals.

In this presentation I’ll be providing an overview of benzodiazepines; when they are used; who they are prescribed to; details about tolerance, dependence, and the many adverse effects; how to taper, including nutritional support during the taper; what to do instead of saying yes to a benzodiazepine prescription in the first place; and additional resources.

This will be a webinar for Hawthorn University and will be on Tuesday Sept 15 at 4pm PST. Register for the webinar here:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2859158311212769537

I’d love questions/feedback/comments/your benzodiazepine experiences and topics you’d like me to address during this presentation.