Lebby Salinas, The Fooducator®, certified health & wellness coach, is interviewed by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.
How Gluten Elimination Healed Me and Eliminated my Anxiety
- Lebby’s gluten story and how she nearly died
- The gluten testing she did and what she learned
- The C.R.A.P diet
- Community work and the Fooducation® Movie Series
- Buying local produce
Lebby Salinas suffered from many food allergies and illnesses that conventional medicine couldn’t diagnose or cure; at one point, becoming very ill and needing to be hospitalized. After many years and many thousands of dollars, she took her health into her own hands.
Lebby took Hippocrates at his word and began to “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” She discovered that it was more about what was wrong with the foods she was eating, not what was wrong with her body.
She shared how her healing journey is a continual journey shared this:
When you have anxiety you are told to just think positive and just change your thoughts and I like to say just change your food!
Most of her life she had been eating what is referred to as the S.A.D. diet (Standard American Diet) consisting of a lot of what she calls C.R.A.P.
C= carbonated and sugared drinks
R= refined sugar
A= artificial flavors and dyes and
P = processed foods
The first time someone suggested a connection between food and mood and anxiety she found the idea so foreign. It was only later that she figured out how bad gluten was for her health and how it made her so sick and caused anxiety and panic attacks.
Dr. Charles Parker, holistic psychiatrist, was the first doctor who recommended that she eliminate gluten and dairy, rather than prescribe her antidepressants. This was based on IgG food sensitivity testing.
Later the doctors at another hospital said she didn’t have celiac disease, could eat gluten, looked at her like she was “a bit crazy” and prescribed Xanax to calm her down. She was sent home and her husband was told to get her things in order.
Lebby shared how she was then referred to Dr. Tom O’Bryan, he did the Cyrex test and said she needed to do the elimination diet and heal her gut or she would likely die.
She shared that doing the Cyrex testing and working with Dr. Tom “literally saved my life!” And that he is going to write up a paper on her illness and great results.
You may recall my great interview with Dr. Tom on season 2 of the Anxiety Summit: Gluten’s impact on the inflamed brain: reducing anxiety and depression
Here is one of the great statements Dr. Tom made during our interview:
No human on the planet can digest gluten! Whether or not it causes symptoms like anxiety or depression or arthritis why eat anything that would cause inflammation!
Dr. Tom also talked about his new product during our interview:
Glutenza™ is a gluten pulverizing formula uniquely designed with powerful enzymes, prebiotics and probiotics to break down gluten proteins by targeting both internal and external peptide bonds. Glutenza™ goes beyond the traditional DPPIV enzyme, offering superior degradation of gluten proteins by breaking down unhydrolyzed gluten peptides.
Dr. Tom is host of the well-known summit called ‘The Gluten Summit – A Grain of Truth’ (the interviews are excellent and are highly recommended if you want to learn more about gluten issues).
The training that Lebby did once she had recovered was through Dr. Tom’s office and is called the Certified Gluten-free Practitioner training.
I love that Lebby has taken what she learned and now helps others in their healing journeys, as The Fooducator®, and a certified health & wellness coach. The more she studied health, food, and nutrition, the more passionate she became about sharing with others the power of holistic health and the power that “real food” has in nourishing and healing our bodies, minds and spirits.
One thing she has started is community effort to help improve the health and wellness of communities via the Fooducation® Movie Series that works towards “Changing lives one movie at a time.”™
Here are some of her “Fooducator approved movies you absolutely have to watch”: Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, The Future of Food and Ingredients. You can watch some trailers on her site GetFooducated
If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here: www.theAnxietySummit.com
Missed this interview or can’t listen live? Or want this and the other great interviews for your learning library? Purchase the MP3s or MP3s + transcripts and listen when it suits you.
You can find your purchasing options here: Anxiety Summit Season 1, Anxiety Summit Season 2, and Anxiety Summit Season 3.
I have been off gluten since January of this year and feel no difference. I tested low for gluten and gliaden in a food allergy test. The doctor still recommended trying to stop gluten to see how I do. I just started GI Revive by Designs For Health and hope this helps.
Cindy
As you heard Lebby say, you need to heal your gut and GI Revive is wonderful for that. And we also talked about cross-reactions to other foods being a factor. I also like to address any nutritional deficiencies you may have as a result of the likely gut damage.
You say you feel no difference – how? mood wise? anxiety-wise? if yes then I’d look into low zinc, low GABA, low serotonin, low vitamin B6, low iron etc as possible contributing factors
Trudy
How would one test their serotonin level, Trudy?
Rebekah – I use the amino acid questionnaire https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/amino-acids-mood-questionnaire-from-the-antianxiety-food-solution/ and response to supplement trials
I know I have hypothyroidism and Hashimoto thyroiditis for sure, when I said I feel no difference after being off gluten almost 6 months I meant physically and emotionally. I looked at the food allergy test and I scored low on casein, corn, all the grains,cow and goat milk,and even coffee. Maybe there are other cross reactive foods that I am not aware of. but these were mentioned in the presentation on the 18th from the thyroid speaker. You mentioned low iron and I was tested recently and do have low iron. I am going to test the RBC for zinc. I am almost postive I am low on zinc, yet I take 30mg of zinc in addition to a high dose multivitamin that contains high zinc and have done this for a year of more.
I am interested in having my vitamins and minerals tested, there are several companies that do this and would be interested to hear which company you recommend for this.
I am going to get test for the urine test for pyroluria because I scored borderline for that.
I have cirrhosis of unknown cause, but take no medication, eat organic, drink no alcohol, I do have high heavy metals and am getting those removed now. I did tell another person about this series and after listening to a talk she is starting to eat meat again.
What would be the benefit of testing IgG rather than the genetics test Dr. Osbourne recommends? Or what Cyrex Labs does with their Arrays? Ty!
Sorry, let me rephrase the question. What would be the benefit of doing a Cyrex array test over doing the genetic test Dr. Osbourne recommends? Ty!
I feel both would be helpful as they measure very different things
I have been on the medical merry go round now for years. I have found out that I had problems with gluten and have been gluten free for a couple years now. I have lots of chronic joint pain, major fatigue as well as other issues including a chronically low Vitamin D even though I chew a 50000 daily still not above 19 or 20 Summer might get up to low 20’s. Currently dealing with major systemic muscle spasms and low grade headaches and occasionally just go off for no real reason and get agitated easily. Sleep is interrupted several times per night. I’m thinking there is probably something I’m missing but Dr’s can’t explain ad say everything is”normal”. I have a ton of allergies and sensitive to chemicals, fragrance, oders, everything green & growing. If I get gluten contamination I’m sick for days worse now than before I quit the gluten. I have had gallbladder removed, full hysterectomy. How do you find help where do you go? I would love to be able to figure out why I don’t absorb vitamin D and what I’m deficient in so they can be corrected so i can feel and function better. Lots of excellent information on Summitt just don’t know where to go from here
Ann,
Sorry you have been through years of frustration on the medical merry go round. I completely understand how you are feeling having gone through for years myself. I will be happy to visit with you over the phone if you will please go to my website and sign up for a complimentary consultation. I will be happy to review supplements I found to help me and people I work with the most. Don’t give up! It takes time to heal the gut, up to 2 years if you are faithful to the elimination. It also takes time to replenish and rebuild our immune system. Sadly some of what we still feel after gluten elimination I have been told may be damage it has done in the body some of which may or not go away. I am not completely out of pain but it has relieved MANY of my mysterious symptoms I had for years especially the anxiety and panic attacks.
All my best to you for improved health & happiness,
Lebby Salinas
The Fooducator®
Ann
I second what Lebby has said and in addition would look into low magnesium as this can be a factor with low vitamin D, muscle spasms, headaches, sleep problems and agitation.
Get your RBC magnesium and check out Dr Carolyn Dean’s work. She talked about the vitamin D connection on season 2 https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/anxiety-summit-take-magnesium-melt-anxiety-away/
And Joe Tatta talked about magnesium this season
Trudy
It’s nice to hear that Lebby had a good experience with Cyrex. I want to share my experience just to balance it out since it is such an expensive test (and maybe learn from any one else who had a good or bad experience or knows more.)
I took the Cyrex test this past year and was extremely discouraged with the lack of information on the results, the price and the quality of the test. While I am greatful that they are trying to provide cutting edge tech:
~It costs almost $2000 to do 6 arrays
~The results do not come with any analysis/explanations
~You can only order through your practitioner and then you have to pay that practitioner to interpret the results to the best of their knowledge.
~Results may not be definitive (e.g. does not tell you if you have Celiac but to do a biopsy to know for sure)
~From what I’ve read, it’s not clear if the antigens are truly isolated. (e.g. Cross reactivity – if you test out of range for eggs, soy and corn, could the eggs be out of range because they also have soy and corn in them. Cyrex also tests conventional foods and not organic because they say that is what they believe most people are consuming).
Advice:
1. If you decide to test, you can have your blood drawn once and pay for just one array. You then have a certain amount of time (3 or 6 months I think?) to pay and add on any additional arrays using the same blood specimen.
2. Make sure you have a practitioner like Dr. Tom O’Brien who knows how to interpret the results well and can instruct you on how to do the gluten challenge correctly before drawing blood. Cyrex cannot and will not interface with patients and the results are not easy for a lay person to understand.
Hi Lebby – Do you heal “leaky gut through tight junctions” the same way you heal “leaky gut through the cells”? Can you help me understand leaky gut through the cells better? (I had heavy metal poisoning).
Which amino acids were you taking to heal your gut, Lebby?
What other steps do you take to heal leaky gut with your clients?
Thank you!!!
Thank you for sharing your story, Lebby!
On Cyrex, what does it mean if you have a high “Actomyosin IgA” and an out of range “Intrinsic Factor”?
Can you have false positives for food cross reactivity if you do the gluten challenge and the wheat tears open your tight junctions or cells?
Most talk about IgE as only severe reactions. But what about if you test IgE 0/1 (Equivocal/Low) , 1 (Low)…where you are not having noticeable reactions? What is happening in the gut?
In other words, do low IgE allergies cause leaky gut like food sensitivities do?
And the reverse, can leaky gut cause LOW IgE allergies or are we born with these allergies?