Archives for November 2015

GMO salmon approved – frankenfish?

November 27, 2015 By Trudy Scott 8 Comments

The FDA has just approved GMO salmon, which has already been dubbed frankenfish.

This USA Today story: In historic first, FDA approves genetically altered salmon reports the following:

If you want to find the latest product approved by the FDA, don’t bother with the pharmacy. Try the fish freezer.

The AquAdvantage Atlantic salmon has made history – along with a generous serving of controversy — by becoming the first genetically engineered food animal approved for sale in the U.S.

Because of its genetic modifications, the Food and Drug Administration said the new variety of salmon “meets the definition of a drug.”

It’s sad and also a little crazy – fish is now a drug!

Here is an excellent interview that Jeffrey Smith did on Underground Radio with Sean Croxton 5 years ago when the GMO salmon was pending approval: Say NO to GMO Salmon! with Jeffrey Smith. They talk more about the fact that this fish is now a drug which allows them to keep various aspects secret.

According to this Huffington Post article: FDA OKs Genetically Modified Salmon For Human Consumption

The fish grows twice as fast as normal salmon, so it reaches market size more quickly. It has an added growth hormone from the Pacific Chinook salmon that allows the fish to produce growth hormone all year long. The engineers were able to keep the hormone active by using another gene from an eel-like fish called an ocean pout that acts like an “on” switch for the hormone. Typical Atlantic salmon produce the growth hormone for only part of the year.

Boycotting the AquAdvantage salmon (produced by biotechnology company AquaBounty Technologies) won’t be easy because the salmon may not be labeled as GMO or genetically engineered/GE. And if you’re eating at a restaurant you may not know the difference.

Many big food stores like Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Aldis and even Costco have said they will not sell this GMO salmon. This is good news!

The Center for Food Safety is ready to fight back and sue the FDA challenging its approval of these untested, unlabeled, and unwanted GMO/genetically engineered salmon and you can support this effort here.

Of course your best choice is wild-caught salmon, which are never genetically modified and have many added benefits over any type of farmed salmon, GMO or not. You may recall the great interview on The Anxiety Summit where Randy Hartnell, fisherman, and owner of Vital Choice talked about the wonderful benefits for seafood. Our topic: What you need to know about seafood—the ultimate brain and mood food

What do you think? Are we being overly concerned about GMO salmon? Or should we be boycotting it? Would you be willing to eat it and feed it to your family? Or are you strictly a wild salmon consumer?

Anxiety and stress research summary: mother’s age, coffee and benzodiazepines

November 20, 2015 By Trudy Scott Leave a Comment

coffee-and-cream

I like to keep up with recent research papers and I post new studies on my facebook page each week asking for feedback, results, opinions and more. I’ve decided to try something new and I’ve gathered a few of the hot topics into a blog to share here.

Here are a few recent studies and links to the facebook discussions:

(1) Mother’s age at birth may influence symptoms of depression in daughters. Father’s age not a factor; effect not seen in sons, study says

Daughters whose mothers were age 30 to 34 when they gave birth reported significantly higher levels of stress and those whose mothers were over age 35 at the time of birth had significantly higher levels of stress, depression and anxiety compared with daughters whose mothers were under age 30.

Is this true for you, your daughters, your family? It’s not for me. My mom was under 30 when she had me and I really have to watch my stress levels and I did have really bad anxiety in my late 30s. Here is the link to the feedback on the facebook post and as you can see it’s about half and half.

(2) Drink To Your Health: Study Links Daily Coffee Habit To Longevity

In our study, we found people who drank three to five cups of coffee per day had about a 15 percent lower [risk of premature] mortality compared to people who didn’t drink coffee

Based on the all the excited and happy comments in this thread on the NPR facebook page there are many coffee addicts all self-medicating with caffeine! Sorry, but it’s the truth and one of the toughest things for most of my clients to quit.

Unfortunately coffee is not a great choice and it affects so many people with increasing anxiety and panic attacks, causing insomnia, impacting the adrenals and hormones. It’s also dehydrating, affects blood sugar levels, is loaded with pesticides unless organic, can cross-react with gluten and can be a source of mold.

Are you a coffee addict and would you like to quit? Are you a coffee addict but don’t plan to quit? Have you quit and are so glad you did? And what do you drink now? I quit about 18 years ago and I vote for rooibos herbal tea or carob!

Here is the link to the feedback on the facebook post and as you can see most commenters have embraced a life with no coffee which is wonderful!

(3) Drug driving: Are your meds affecting you?

In Australia, drivers with Benzodiazepines (used to treat sleep and anxiety disorders) levels at therapeutic concentrations and higher, were more likely to be culpable in a crash.

Many drivers think that the impairing effects of medicines only occur when they are used excessively, or taken in excess, but that is not the case.by drugs, according to (QUT) Queensland University of Technology road safety researcher Dr Tanya Smyth.

She said driving while affected by prescription and over-the-counter medications had the potential to be as dangerous as driving under the influence of illegal drugs.

The biggest problem is that research has shown drivers are unable to accurately self-assess their impairment when taking medication and are overconfident in assessing their abilities.

The concern is that drivers may be assessing themselves as safe to drive, when in fact they are not.

Many drivers think that the impairing effects of medicines only occur when they are used excessively, or taken in excess, but that is not the case.

Drug Driving is an interesting term and this is very scary considering how many people are prescribed benzodiazepines! If you’re currently on a benzo, do you feel safe driving? If you took benzos in the past, did you feel safe driving? Do you think we need better guidelines for driving for folks on certain prescription medications?

Here is the link to the feedback on the facebook post

I’d love to hear what you think of this format and if this is of interest to you? I’d also like to invite you to come on over to facebook and join in the discussion. Or feel free to post questions and comments right here on the blog.

No Grain, No Pain – audio interview with Dr. Peter Osborne

November 19, 2015 By Trudy Scott 12 Comments

no-grain-no-pain

In the tradition of Wheat Belly and Grain Brain, this new book No Grain, No Pain by Dr. Peter Osborne demonstrates the proven link between a gluten-heavy diet and chronic pain and discomfort and offers a groundbreaking, 30-day, grain-free diet plan to help you heal yourself from the inside out.

Dr. Peter Osborne, the leading authority on gluten sensitivity and food allergies (and one of the favorite speakers on The Anxiety Summit), shows how grains wreak havoc on the body by causing tissue inflammation, creating vitamin and/or mineral deficiencies, and triggering an autoimmune response that causes the body to attack itself.

I received an advance copy of this new book and read it cover to cover in a few hours. I could NOT put it down! This book is brilliant and everyone with any health issue, including anxiety and mood problems needs to read it, even if physical pain is not an issue!

As promised, here is the audio interview:

And here are some snippets from this great book:

The true definition of gluten is that it is a large family of storage proteins found in all forms of grain, including rice, corn, and many others. The bottom line is this: the majority of gluten-sensitive people who eliminate only wheat, barley, rye, and oats but continue to consume other grains don’t get better!
only one protein, gliadin, found in wheat, barley, and rye, has been extensively studied. Each grain has one or more types of gluten proteins. A recent study identified four hundred new forms of gluten, forty of which were more damaging than the form of gluten for which doctors most commonly test
Research shows that corn (and corn oil) also produces numerous intestinal and health problems for the gluten sensitive

Here is a great table from the book showing the primary form of gluten and how much gluten is found in different grains:

how-much-grain

We covered the fascinating topic of leaky brain on our interview and Dr. Osborne covers it in great detail in the book. Here is a snippet from the book:

Now that you are familiar with leaky gut and understand the interconnected relationship of your brain and your GI tract, let me introduce the concept of leaky brain. Research on gluten sensitivity has identified this syndrome and revealed a connection between gluten-induced leaky gut and leaky brain, confirming the far-reaching effects of gluten on many diseases. Leaky brain means that the blood-brain barrier is breached, just as the gut walls can be breached by damage inflicted by grain. The blood-brain barrier is designed to keep toxic compounds out of the brain’s blood supply, so its disruption could lead to a battery of different neurological and mental symptoms. In addition to schizophrenia, gluten-induced damage can create other neurological problems, including depression, bipolar disease, seizure disorders (epilepsy), facial palsies such as Bell’s palsy, ADD/ADHD, and autism and others [like anxiety – this is my addition]. You could be gluten sensitive and have leaky brain syndrome.

Details about the book and bonus (Leaky Gut Solutions Guide) here

Enjoy!

Glutamine for healing a leaky gut

November 13, 2015 By Trudy Scott 44 Comments

glutamine-powder

Glutamine is one of my favorite nutrients for healing the gut (or repairing the intestinal barrier). Here is the extract from a paper published last month: Glutamine and intestinal barrier function:

The intestinal barrier integrity is essential for the absorption of nutrients and health in humans and animals. Dysfunction of the mucosal barrier is associated with increased gut permeability and development of multiple gastrointestinal diseases.

Recent studies highlighted a critical role for glutamine, which had been traditionally considered as a nutritionally non-essential amino acid, in activating the mammalian target of rapamycin cell signaling in enterocytes.

In addition, glutamine has been reported to enhance intestinal and whole-body growth, to promote enterocyte proliferation and survival, and to regulate intestinal barrier function in injury, infection, weaning stress, and other catabolic conditions. Mechanistically, these effects were mediated by maintaining the intracellular redox status and regulating expression of genes associated with various signaling pathways.

Furthermore, glutamine stimulates growth of the small intestinal mucosa in young animals and also enhances ion transport by the gut in neonates and adults. Growing evidence supports the notion that glutamine is a nutritionally essential amino acid for neonates and a conditionally essential amino acid for adults.

Thus, as a functional amino acid with multiple key physiological roles, glutamine holds great promise in protecting the gut from atrophy and injury under various stress conditions in mammals and other animals.

I’d like to share how some well-known practitioners use glutamine for healing.

In this article by Dr. Josh Axe: 4 Steps to Heal Leaky Gut and Autoimmune Disease, glutamine is listed as one of the key gut healing nutrients:

L-Glutamine is critical for any program designed to heal leaky gut. Glutamine is an essential amino acid that is anti-inflammatory and necessary for the growth and repair of your intestinal lining. L-glutamine benefits include acting as a protector: coating your cell walls and acting as a repellent to irritants. Take 2–5 grams twice daily.

Be sure to check out the whole article for great images of leaky gut and how leaky gut can lead to leaky brain and mental health problems like anxiety, depression and bipolar disorders. What Dr. Axe states is so true: in many cases, if you can heal the gut, you can heal the brain.

Dr. Axe references a 2008 paper that discusses normalization of leaky gut in chronic fatigue syndrome with

natural anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative substances (NAIOSs), such as glutamine, N-acetyl cysteine and zinc

Dr. Amy Myers, author of The Autoimmune Solution shares this in her blog called 8 Supplements to Heal a Leaky Gut:

L-Glutamine is an amino acid that is fundamental to the well-being of the digestive and immune systems. Glutamine is great for repairing damage to the gut, helping the gut lining to regrow and repair, undoing the damage caused by leaky gut, and reducing sugar cravings. I recommend 3-5 grams a day.

Dr. David Perlmutter, author Grain Brain shares this in his interview with Dr. Tom O’ Bryan on The Gluten Summit:

Adding in nutritional supplements like glutamine to allow the gut to calm down, heal itself, and begin to rebuild those vital intestinal barriers to keep out the invaders.

Dr. Mark Hyman shares this in his book The UltraMind Solution in the gut food section:

Glutamine: 2,500 mg twice a day [this equates to 5000mg or 5g/day] You can use the powder or capsule form. This is a nonessential amino acid that is the preferred fuel for the lining of the small intestine and can greatly facilitate healing. It can be taken for one to two months. It generally comes in powder form and is often combined with other compounds that facilitate gut repair.

In an article on Leaky Gut Syndrome, Sharon Garrett shares how she loves a product called GI Revive, a product that combines glutamine with other gut-healing nutrients:

I LOVE this product and it lasts a long time. It contains L-glutamine, Slippery Elm, Marshmallow Root, Deglycyrrhizinated Licorice, Mucin, Okra Extract, Cat’s Claw, Quercetin, Prune Powder, Zinc, MSM, Chamomile, N-Acetyl Glucosamine, Aloe Vera Extract, and Citrus Pectin. This product was one of the cornerstones of my own progress to heal my gut, and I still use it today for maintenance!

And be sure to read cancer concerns and benefits if you have active cancer and talk to your doctor before using glutamine. Stay tuned for more blog posts on glutamine and the cancer debate. I’m still gathering information to share with you.

Keep in mind that licorice root/DGL (deglycyrrhizinated licorice), probiotics, zinc, slippery elm, marshmallow root and quercetin are other supplement options for gut healing if you can’t tolerate glutamine for some reason.

Have you used glutamine for gut healing? Have you used other approaches for gut healing? Please share and feel free to post questions you may have.

JJ Virgin inspires on The Unleash Your Greatness Summit

November 10, 2015 By Trudy Scott Leave a Comment

JJ Virgin, author of The Virgin Diet, The Sugar Impact Diet and the forthcoming book The Miracle Mindset inspires and motivates and changes lives. She is one incredibly gutsy woman, a true leader in the nutrition world and her interview on the upcoming Unleash your Greatness Summit being hosted by Lewis Howes, is not to be missed!

Here are some snippets from her inspiring and heart-warming interview where she talks about her son’s awful hit and run accident, his brain and heart surgery, coma and long recovery – and how she was able to finish and launch her book in the midst of all this!

She shares so much wisdom during this interview. The first one is asking for help:

one of the important lessons that I learned early on…I have always disliked asking for help. And I don’t think I am alone. I think most of us don’t like to ask for help, right. But the morning of the accident, standing in the ICU, I realized that most of my friends in the world are doctors, and not just any doctors, the biggest, best doctors around. And if they weren’t my direct friend, then they were friends with the ones. So I was like first off, if I don’t know them directly, I know their closest friends who do. So I’m going to work my network big time. I go, but I need help. There’s no way I can do this one on my own, especially with this book launch

Another one is pulling from everything that you have learned:

I think too much we play it safe. And then when something like this happens, you have no clue how to handle it. I looked at this whole thing, and I was like all right. I’m going to pull in from all of my lessons learned. And I’m going to go for it and do it. And I think it’s one thing if you lose your job, but when it’s your kid? It’s your kid. You’re going to do it. You’re going to do whatever it takes to save your child.

And this one – celebrating every small win:

I would look for any small win I could celebrate. His eyelash fluttered, or his pinkie. The first day in the hospital when they told me, “Oh, he’s in a deep coma. And we don’t know if he’ll ever come out,” I was holding his hand. And I said something about his girlfriend loving him. And he grabbed my fingers, squeezed them, lifted my hand up. And I’m like he’s in there. He’s so in there. So you find those things. There is a gift in every single thing that happens out there. It all depends on how you look at something, right. It’s all perspective. I think we’re never better than when we’re challenged.

She also shares many of the practical aspects of how she helped her son Grant recover from this traumatic brain injury (with the help and advice of trusted friends and colleagues) :

very high doses of fish oil (10g and then 20g/day)
no Ensure but salmon and kale instead
progesterone cream (for reducing inflammation and healing the brain)
essential oils and acupressure
probiotics and probiotic yogurt
amino acid therapy to help with muscle loss
vitamin D and much more

He is now doing incredibly well considering what he went through!

JJ also shared how she got her sleep, ate well and continued to exercise so she could be the best she could be. This is such an important point for care-givers!

Catch this and other inspiring interviews on The Unleash Your Greatness Summit! which runs from November 16-23, 2015

Discover the 8 secret principles of greatness to transform your life! The 28 expert speakers will reveal how to overcome adversity, find success and chart a new life path!

Each day will focus on one of the eight following principles of greatness:

Create a Vision
Turn Adversity Into Advantage
Cultivate a Champion’s Mindset
Develop Hustle, Master Your Body
Practice Positive Habits
Build a Winning Team
Be of Service to Others

The Unleash Your Greatness Summit was created to bring to life the eight principles of greatness that Lewis Howes reveals in his book, The School of Greatness: A Real-World Guide to Living Bigger, Loving Deeper, and Leaving a Legacy.

Anyone who is looking to change their life for the better will benefit from this summit, as the principles apply across all facets of life – from career to family to health and beyond – and we all have the capacity within us to be great.

Although this summit is a little different from some of the other summit’s I share, many of topics intrigue me so I figure they’ll intrigue you too!

I’m really looking to some of the interviews on how to turn adversity into advantage (JJ Virgin’s story is such an inspiring one and I can’t wait for her new book) and the principle of being of service to others.

Registration details here https://xh265.isrefer.com/go/summitreg/tlsug/

The Antianxiety Food Solution book index

November 6, 2015 By Trudy Scott 10 Comments

antianxiety-food-solution-index

I’m SO excited! I finally have an index in my book The Antianxiety Food Solution! The index is the first place I go to when I buy a book so this means a lot to me and I know it’s going to be a big help to you, my reader!

It’s crazy that it wasn’t in there in the first place (my publisher said it wasn’t in the budget) so I just kept asking and we finally added one in this latest printing.

It’s my birthday today and what a great birthday present for me! I also get to give you something on my birthday – a PDF copy of the index if you already have my book. You can download a copy of the index here.

If you don’t yet have a copy of my book (or would like to buy another one with an index) you can do so on Amazon here or via my website (this will be a signed copy).

If you do already have a copy of my book and have gotten value from it I would love to ask you a favor. Will you please write a review on Amazon? I’d so appreciate it.

Here is the very first review I received:

Dealing with Depression, Anxiety, Stress, Insomnia? This book is for you!

I cried my way thru this book ~ out of JOY~ for finally finding a very helpful book! I have been on a journey for 10 years trying to navigate issues with depression, stress, anxiety, insomnia and other fun things. I’ve been to doctors, psychologists and counselors. I’ve been put on medication which after many years of that left me suicidal, overweight, depressed and very angry. It is VERY frustrating trying to navigate doctors, testing and information out there that could help you. This summer I read several books that addressed depression from a dietary and nutrition standpoint. This one was the best in my opinion. It’s not too long, easy to read and understand, and well organized. And it agreed with several things I had read in other books ~ such as the use of amino acids, vitamins and issues with gluten and sugar to address depression, etc. There’s many good ‘life stories’ in it too which help you relate. Thanks Trudy Scott!

And here is one of the recent Amazon reviews (I edited out the Dr. Trudy Scott part!):

This book changed my life. I heard Trudy Scott during an interview on the Underground Wellness with Sean Croxton, and her revelations about the connection between what we ingest and how our minds work was riveting. I bought the book immediately, and it was the best $15 I ever spent. Not only have I been able to stop taking an antidepressant and sleep medication, but I now have hope I can truly balance my own biochemistry. It is really a shame most doctors do not study nutrition, for if they did I suspect we would have a much healthier population. Thank goodness Trudy has been successful in her research and her ability to disseminate her findings. If you have any issues with anxiety, depression or insomnia, I highly recommend you read this book.

You can watch a snippet of my Sean Croxton interview here – it was a great interview as was the entire Depression Sessions series of interviews.

I hope you find the index helpful! And I would love to hear back from you on how my book has helped you – either here in the comments or via an Amazon review. Feel free to post your questions too.