Archives for April 2017

NANP 2017 Bonnie Fisk-Hayden Student Scholarship Recipients

April 20, 2017 By Trudy Scott 10 Comments

Bonnie Fisk Hayden, Frances Holmes and myself at the NANP conference in 2011. This was the last conference Bonnie attended and I have great memories of a wonderful event with her.

Each year the National Association of Nutrition Professionals (NANP) has an annual conference to discuss the latest research and methodologies in the field of nutrition. With the NANP conference around the corner in May, it is time to acknowledge the recipients of the 2017 Bonnie Fisk-Hayden Student Scholarship. This scholarship originated after the passing of my dear friend Bonnie Fisk-Hayden in August of 2011 from autoimmune hepatitis. She was not only a dear friend, but we both shared the passion of nutrition. We met in 2004 at the first NANP conference and chatted voraciously all weekend.

These pictures are from our walk down to the beach at that very first NANP conference in 2004. It was held at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Marin Headlands

We continued to share, encourage and support each other from then onwards. We would meet for walks, lunches and at conferences around the country, and spend hours on the phone discussing new books, new research and anything food and nutrition-related. She even gave me constructive feedback when I presented at a big Las Vegas conference and read my book The Antianxiety Food Solution cover to cover before publication, offering input and encouragement.

Bonnie was an amazingly passionate nutritionist who went back to nutrition school when she was in her 60s. She was very active in the NANP and served as a director on the board, headed up the Publications committee and helped design the conference program and other NANP materials (she was a very talented graphic artist too!) Bonnie once said, “joining the NANP as a student was one of the best things I did for my nutrition business.”

I decided to offer a student scholarship the following year. It felt like a really good thing to do to honor Bonnie’s influence and dedication to the NANP. In 2012 and 2013 one student scholarship was offered and this has now grown to 3 students being been awarded the Bonnie Fisk-Hayden Student Scholarship, thanks to two anonymous donors (who are appreciated).

The 2017 recipients of the scholarship are: Johanna Setta, Rajesh Shah, and Celeste Burrows. I know Bonnie is smiling and cheering them on!

Johanna Setta

Johanna is a student at Bauman College and will be graduating this year. As a Food Access Coordinator for a small community hospital, Johanna has played an integral role in Northwest Vermont food systems and primary food focused prevention. Health Care Without Harm has recently elected Johanna as the Healthy Food in Health Care Ambassador for the state of Vermont.

Helping folks take their health into their own hands through whole foods and mental health has been Johanna’s life mission. Johanna is “eager to attend the NANP conference to network with other like-minded individuals and glean any cutting edge knowledge and resources.”

Rajesh Shah

Rajesh believes Holistic Nutrition plays a vital role in the healing and treatment of chronic illness and disease. After having completed two B.S. degrees in Engineering and an MBA, Rajesh decided to follow his true calling and embark on an MS in Holistic Nutrition at ACHS. Rajesh states “I am driven not only by my passion for wellness and for deeper knowledge, but also by a desire to use my gifts to help people eat and live better.”

In 2009, Rajesh became a Registered Yoga Teacher and ever since has been teaching weekly yoga classes in his hometown of Louisville, KY. Through Rajesh’s yoga practice and through leading others, Rajesh has witnessed the positive effects on the mind and body. In late 2016, Rajesh also began performing Nutritional Counseling with a number of clients whose goals range from weight management to cancer prevention. Rajesh believes the student scholarship will be instrumental in helping to achieve his goal of inspiring people through mindful eating and healthy living.

Celeste Burrows

Celeste began following nutrition and alternative medicine back in the 1970’s and was inspired by the conferences (mostly NHF) she attended then. Celeste is now a student at Bauman College and will be graduating in 2018. Celeste has witnessed the health of her older friends and associates decline rapidly from preventable causes and their treatments and medications. This observation and her desire to gain credibility led to Celeste’s decision to return to school to pursue nutrition consulting as a profession.

Celeste is involved in the Village movement (supporting seniors who want to age in their own homes) and is an active member of Ashby Village. Celeste helped with the development of the Healthier Aging Initiative where she plans to provide a series of talks on Nutrition for Healthy Aging as well as consultations with individuals.

Celeste is eager to attend the NANP conference because “I expect it will provide a good immersion in the culture and practice of nutrition consulting, and a valuable three days spent with leaders in the field, fellow nutritional consultants, and vendors.”

I’d also love to acknowledge my dear friend Frances Holmes pictured above with Bonnie and I. She knew Bonnie well and was such a comfort to me after Bonnie’s passing and her work is so fitting for those who have suffered a loss. Frances is a Certified Nutrition Consultant who has combined her real life experiences of grief and loss with her nutritional knowledge to create a recipe for balancing the somatic aspects of grief with nutrition. Her training as an Integrative Grief Practitioner and in Yoga for Grief Relief provide additional tools for managing the body centered effects of grief.

With skillful communication Frances offers simple pragmatic tools to assist in choosing foods that nourish, ground and promote well-being. She specializes in helping the bereaved address the accompanying emotional mood swings related to loss of any kind. She is passionate about assisting her clients make the connection between what they eat and how they feel.

And thanks to Susan Yuen, MS, for helping me gather this information into a blog!

If you’d like to join the collaborative community of holistic nutrition professionals, students, educators, and organizations, gathered together to learn and share how we can positively impact today’s healthcare delivery system you can find details and registration information here. This is a practitioner-only event and runs May 4-7, 2017 in Portland, Oregon.

Congratulations to all of the recipients of the Bonnie Fisk-Hayden Student Scholarship! Enjoy the conference and wonderful opportunities that the NANP offers. I wish you well and look forward to hearing how you continue to have an impact in the nutrition world!

Autism, anxiety and the gut: Microbiota transfer therapy or fecal microbiota transplant

April 17, 2017 By Trudy Scott 8 Comments

We know that one of your greatest ally in health is your microbiome – the trillions of bacteria that are the control center of your health! But sometimes your microbiome can actually cause problems. One way to improve the microbiome is via microbiota transfer therapy (MTT), also called fecal microbiota transplant (FMT).

I was recently interviewed by Dr. Raphael Kellman for the Microbiome Medicine Summit 2 (it starts May 8) and shared newly published research on this approach – Microbiota Transfer Therapy alters gut ecosystem and improves gastrointestinal and autism symptoms: an open-label study

Here are some of the details of this very promising research:

It was a small study on children 6 to 7 years old
They were given antibiotics for 2 weeks
They were given a bowel cleanse
They were given an extended fecal microbiota transplant. This was a high initial dose followed by daily and lower maintenance doses for 7–8 weeks.
By the end of treatment and 80% reduction of gastrointestinal symptoms were seen. This included: constipation, diarrhea, indigestion, and abdominal pain.
These gastrointestinal symptoms improvements persisted for 8 weeks after treatment.
They also saw behavioral autism spectrum disorder symptoms improve significantly and remain improved 8 weeks after treatment ended. These symptoms included irritability, hyperactivity, lethargy and socialization

During the interview Dr. Kellman asked what bacterial changes were observed and I didn’t have the study on hand. I looked it up after the interview and this is what they report

Specifically, overall bacterial diversity and the abundance of Bifidobacterium, Prevotella, and Desulfovibrio among other taxa increased following MTT, and these changes persisted after treatment stopped (followed for 8 weeks).

Also

following MTT, the relative abundance of Bifidobacterium significantly increased fourfold and became comparable to its relative abundance in neurotypical children

They conclude that the MTT

shifted gut microbiota of children with ASD toward that of neurotypical children … consistent with the hypothesis that gut microbiota may be at least partially responsible for GI and ASD symptoms

Research just published last month reports similar results with digestive issues and anxiety. Germ-free mice were given the fecal microbiota from healthy control individuals or IBS patients with diarrhea, with or without anxiety. They found that the microbiota profiles in the mice matched the microbiota profiles of the human donors, affecting their digestive function and anxiety levels! I’ll share more on this study in a future blog post.

I hope you’ll join us on the Microbiome Medicine Summit 2, May 8-15, 2017 to learn more

Your host, Dr. Raphael Kellman, has seen the profound healing power of microbiome medicine and how it can address many diseases.

Learn the lessons and methodologies of microbiome medicine – it could improve your health, longevity, vitality and assist with unresolved problems!

It can enhance your brain function, improve mood, reduce anxiety and depression; and address gastrointestinal illnesses, including IBS, Crohn’s and colitis; counter newly identified GI/brain syndromes; and address autism and autoimmune diseases at the root cause!

I thoroughly enjoyed my interview with Dr. Kellman and look forward to hearing all the other great interviews. You can find details and registration here

I hope you can join us!

Anxiety, depression, GABA and cortisol: effects of Lactobacillus ingestion

April 14, 2017 By Trudy Scott 20 Comments

We now know that good bacteria or probiotics have the potential to alter brain chemistry and have an impact on anxiety and depression. You may recall my interview with Professor Ted Dinan on a prior Anxiety Summit – Microbes in the gut and psychobiotics as a potential treatment for anxiety and depression. He shared his paper and this definition of Psychobiotics: a novel class of psychotropic.

…we define a psychobiotic as a live organism that, when ingested in adequate amounts, produces a health benefit in patients suffering from psychiatric illness. As a class of probiotic, these bacteria are capable of producing and delivering neuroactive substances such as gamma-aminobutyric acid and serotonin, which act on the brain-gut axis.

Research published by Dinan, Cryan and their teams also found benefits of Lactobacillus rhamnosus on stress, anxiety and depression type behaviors in mice. This is older research (published in 2011) but it’s the first time I’ve shared it on the blog. I talk about this paper in the upcoming Microbiome Medicine 2 Summit so I like to share study excerpts and links to the study.

The write up in Science Daily is a good one – Mind-Altering Microbes: Probiotic Bacteria May Lessen Anxiety and Depression

…mice fed with Lactobacillus rhamnosus JB-1 showed significantly fewer stress, anxiety and depression-related behaviours than those fed with just broth. Moreover, ingestion of the bacteria resulted in significantly lower levels of the stress-induced hormone, corticosterone.

The part that I find fascinating is the effects of Lactobacillus on GABA receptors in the brain (GABA is your main calming neurotransmitter):

The researchers also showed that regular feeding with the Lactobacillus strain caused changes in the expression of receptors for the neurotransmitter GABA in the mouse brain, which is the first time that it has been demonstrated that potential probiotics have a direct effect on brain chemistry in normal situations.

In this paper the authors discuss the vagus nerve and the three-way communication:

…the vagus nerve is the main relay between the microbiome (bacteria in the gut) and the brain. This three way communication system is known as the microbiome-gut-brain axis and these findings highlight the important role of bacteria in the communication between the gut and the brain, and suggest that certain probiotic organisms may prove to be useful adjunct therapies in stress-related psychiatric disorders.

What is even more fascinating is this:

the neurochemical and behavioral effects were not found in vagotomized mice

What does this mean? When the researchers severed the vagus nerve in the test mice – removing the communication between the gut and the brain – they found that the behaviors and stress hormone levels reverted back to the way they had been i.e. the vagotomized mice were more anxious, more stressed, more depressed and had higher corticosterone levels.

You can find the abstract of the paper here: Ingestion of Lactobacillus strain regulates emotional behavior and central GABA receptor expression in a mouse via the vagus nerve.

What does this mean for you? It means that good bacteria in your diet could well improve your anxiety and depression symptoms and even have an impact on your adrenals and cortisol levels. This could be in the form of a good probiotic and should always include fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, yogurt and kefir (if dairy is tolerated), water kefir (if dairy is not tolerated).

Have you observed an improvement in your anxiety and stress levels since adding a probiotic or fermented foods into your diet?

The definition of stress and why we need it: Global Stress Summit

April 12, 2017 By Trudy Scott Leave a Comment

I really enjoyed this interview between Dr. Heidi Hanna, host of the Global Stress Summit and guest expert Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson, author of Bright Line Eating: The Science of Living Happy, Thin & Free.

Dr. Heidi Hanna starts by asking what the definition of stress is, first sharing her definition:

What’s so crazy is if you look at that same textbook, depending on who wrote it, you can find a thousand different definitions for what stress actually is. And I think one of the things that you and I also, without knowing, really connect on is this idea that stress is not necessarily bad. My definition of stress is what happens when demand exceeds capacity. So that doesn’t have to be bad.

When we feel like we don’t have the resources we need to adapt appropriately, there’s a tension that exists. And that can actually help us grow. Or it can wear us out.

Dr. Susan likes this definition and I do too: “stress is what happens when demand exceeds capacity.” Dr. Susan goes on to say we actually need stress – all of the meaningful things in life come with stress (success, love, marriage etc.) – and how she can handle high stress because she keeps her support really high:

And I personally prefer to run high stress. I just do. I like activity. I like engagement. I like meaning. I like to stay active. I just do. So I’ve learned that I just need to keep my support really high.

And that makes my days really, really full. I’m an extrovert so I like a lot of human connection. And so for me, staying in touch with my friends on the phone is one of the best ways that I can manage my stress, just process it, process it, process it. Get enough sleep. I eat immaculately.

You put those things together. And you’re good to go. I can shoulder a lot of stress.

Later on in the interview Dr. Susan emphasizes the self-care aspect, to know how much you need and why it should be as automatic as brushing your teeth twice a day:

We all should be taking exquisite care of ourselves. Some of us just don’t get away with it when we don’t though, whether it’s because we’re highly sensitive or because we’re addictive.

For me, the consequences of not taking care of myself are really high. So I get the bounty of, therefore, meditating every morning and hopefully getting a good night’s sleep and having a wonderful support network.

But it’s definitely worth it to know what kind of person you are and to build up your self-care regimen accordingly, for sure.

….You want to be executing your self-care habits like you brush your teeth.

Dr. Susan also covers the stress and sugar addiction connections and how some of us have brains that are susceptible to the addictive pull of sugar and how some of us have brains that are just not affected.

And as a society, we need to understand. Sugar is more addictive than nicotine, more addictive than cocaine.

She shares interesting information about how a third of the population will say “Oh yeah. I don’t think that’s true. I can take a cookie or leave it alone” because that’s the percentage that doesn’t experience that addictive pull at all. And how two-thirds of the population do experience that addictive pull – there are one third who experience it mildly and then the other third find the addictive pull of sugar and carbs to be very severe.

If you’d like to hear more from Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson, tune in to the Global Stress Summit, which is online from April 24 – May1, 2017

Your host, Dr. Heidi Hanna, began her expedition into the world of stress science at the early age of 12 when she began to suffer from debilitating anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. With no medical explanation, she was forced to dive into mind-body research to try to put the puzzle pieces together. In this Global Stress Summit, Dr. Hanna interviews the very pioneering researchers and thought leaders who helped her learn how to utilize stress as a stimulus for growth rather than a trigger for burnout and breakdown, as she passionately encourages us to do the same. Here is the registration link.

Why green spaces in cities are good for grey matter, stress and anxiety

April 12, 2017 By Trudy Scott 2 Comments

I love all research that support green space and nature for anxiety and stress reduction. And I’m thrilled to see this taking a front seat in cities where people often have less access to greenery! A great example is the beautiful Central Park in New York City.

New research is reviewed in this report in Science Daily: Why green spaces in cities are good for grey matter

Walking between busy urban environments and green spaces triggers changes in levels of excitement, engagement and frustration in the brain, a study of older people has found.

Researchers at the Universities of York and Edinburgh say the findings have important implications for architects, planners and health professionals as we deal with an aging population.

The volunteers experienced beneficial effects of green space and preferred it, as it was calming and quieter, the study revealed.

Dr Chris Neale, Research Fellow, from the University of York’s Stockholm Environment Institute, said: “There are concerns about mental wellbeing as the global population becomes older and more urbanised.”

“Urban green space has a role to play in contributing to a supportive city environment for older people through mediating the stress induced by built up settings.”

You can read the study abstract here – Older People’s Experiences of Mobility and Mood in an Urban Environment: A Mixed Methods Approach Using Electroencephalography (EEG) and Interviews.

Personally I need greenery and nature and thrive on it!

How important is greenery for you? Especially if you’re a city person?

Sweet Freedom Summit: industry manipulation, mouth feel and vanishing caloric density

April 8, 2017 By Trudy Scott 2 Comments

The Sweet Freedom Summit runs April 10-17. I like to do a sneak preview of some of the interviews so I can share some highlights with you and I was blown away by some of what I learned from Damon Gameau, Australian actor and producer of That Sugar Film.

His interview: The Real Dope on Added Sugars. We know this goes on but every time I hear it I feel mad (and a bit sad) that it happens and that it’s actually allowed to happen! And that so few people even know about this! Here goes:

Nestlé, for example, have about seven hundred PhD scientists just working on their foods and understanding what the mouth feel of the food is that makes us really like them or how it triggers certain parts of our brain and releases dopamine that makes us want more.

People often talk about, “It’s freedom of choice. People should be able to decide what they want.” But that’s fair enough if you understand the playing field and it’s a very one-sided playing field because these foods are being engineered to get you liking and wanting more and more of them. So, it is very hard for some people to say no to things.

This term was new to me: vanishing caloric density!

There is a great term I learned for those kind of—we have them in Australia—they are called Cheetos or Puffs where you have them and they feel like they turn to air in your mouth very quickly. It’s called vanishing caloric density. It means that you don’t feel like you are eating much. So, you can just sit there and watch TV and demolish an entire bag because it’s tricking your brain into thinking that you are actually not eating very much because they are disappearing in your mouth. So these have been designed this way, very carefully so that they’ll sell more of those products.

Damon is shocked by the manipulation and so should we all be!

That probably shocked me in terms of the manipulation there. And just to start to understand the level of rigging of science, the paid scientists, the PR companies that are pushing the food industry’s brand, how they attack certain groups in social media; just the sort of orchestration that these companies use to make sure that there is ambiguity and doubt in the public mind.

Damon’s interview airs on day 1 and not to be missed. Be sure to listen to the entire interview! You won’t believe what he did to himself in That Sugar Film! (hint: he embarked on a unique experiment to document the effects of a high sugar diet on a healthy body, consuming only foods that are commonly perceived, or promoted to be ‘healthy’.)

On day 1 you can also hear Jonathan Landsman (what sugar does in your body), JJ Virgin (sugar’s full impact) and Ty Bollinger (sugar-cancer connection).

The first step is awareness and knowing where sugar is found – this is covered extensively during the summit.

The next step is switching to a real whole foods diet with quality animal protein (I’m not a fan of a vegetarian diet – covered by one of the speakers) and healthy fats, organic produce and no sugar.

This is easier said than done for many people. You may know you need to quit sugar but willpower gets the better of you. If this sounds like you be sure to tune in to my interview.

In case you missed it, a few weeks ago I shared some snippets from my brain chemical/neurotransmitter imbalance interview with Sherry – addressing sugar cravings as well as anxiety and depression. I talk about the BIG connection between stress eating, comfort eating, emotional eating and low levels of the brain chemicals serotonin, GABA and endorphins.

Sherry loved our interview so much she’s decided to offer it as a gift to EVERYONE who signs up for the summit! So you can enjoy it from day 1 or tune in and comment when it airs.

The Sweet Freedom Summit runs April 10-17 and when you register you’ll get immediate access to my interview and some other cool sign up gifs.

Please share with family and friends who you know can benefit from this information!

Got questions or feedback? Please share them in the blog comments below.