Events

Oxalates and leaky gut for Anxiety: Webinar replay

December 30, 2016 By Trudy Scott 21 Comments

Just a quick reminder in case you missed this over the New year weekend. You can still listen to the webinar replay from last week: Live Case studies, Q & A, and Special Diet Strategies for Anxiety – with myself and Julie Matthews

Tune in to hear live case studies on how we use special therapeutic diets and bioindividual nutrition strategies with complex clients who have anxiety, other mood issues and various related health problems.

I was my own case study and shared my own oxalate issue in detail (for the very first time) so you can learn in detail about this special diet and how these healthy foods that are high in oxalates caused me excruciating foot pain.

Here is the summary:

In 2013 I was on my feet speaking often 3 full days in a row at conferences
Exhibiting at conferences like American Public Health
Terrible foot pain (+ sharp hip pain in that same year)
- burning pain (like hot coals) and sharp (like shards of glass)
- standing on them and while lying in bed
- one event: had to crawl back to bed from the bathroom
My travel food was all high oxalate foods:
- Smoothies with berries (I took a blender when I travelled)
- Nuts to snack on
- Kale chips

Here is are the high oxalate foods:

And this is how I figured out the issue and what I did about it (with a few dietary changes):

Heard Julie present at WAPF conference
Light bulb: pain and oxalates!
Picked Julie’s brain about my feet pain and oxalates
Consult with Julie – I went salicylate free and oxalate free
It was the oxalates – I knew in 2 weeks!
Pyroluria connection – I have pyroluria and low vitamin B6 is a factor with oxalates
My oxalate results on OAT – nothing showed up
If I am exposed by mistake
- I feel irritable
- A sense of growing pain in my feet (in about 30 minutes)
I always have calcium citrate on hand – sorts me out in a few minutes
Concerns about everyone consuming green smoothies and baking with nut flours (oxalates and copper issues)
Decided to do the Bioindividual Nutrition Program to really learn about these special therapeutic diets
Julie is THE person to teach this!

During the webinar Julie shared her expertise on low oxalate diets and the lab testing, and shared a new powerful case study from her practice – Luka’s story is just heartwarming!

Julie also discusses the science behind these cutting edge therapeutic diet approaches which also include low phenol, low amine, low glutamate and low FODMAPs – and how so much of this can be applied to anxiety, depression and other chronic health conditions.

Here is a slide that covers leaky gut or intestinal permeability and anxiety – and special diets to consider:

The Q&A was excellent (thanks to all of you who attended live and asked questions).

You can register here for access to the replay (this is geared towards practitioners is open for all to listen in and learn + would be great to share with your practitioner if you’re not one)

Julie shared more about the BioIndividual Nutrition Training winter enrollment for practitioners. If you are a practitioner and already know you want to do the BioIndividual Nutrition Training training here is that link to check it out and register.

I highly recommend the training! As I mentioned, it helped me personally and now I use this information with the anxious women I work with and their families. I have also found the connection and sharing amongst the community of practitioners to be an invaluable aspect of joining the program.

PS. Even if you’re not a practitioner, many non-practitioners choose to listen in to these types of calls in order to learn. Feel free to do the same or to pass on to your practitioner so they can learn and then further help you. I also like to share this type of call with my entire community because I know many of you are aspiring health coaches, nutritionists and nutritional psychologists.

PPS. Julie also offers a version of this training to mom’s who want to learn for themselves and their families. Feel free to reach out to them at info [at] bioindividualnutrition.com if you’re interested.

Gut healing bone broth and SIBO on the Better Belly Project

December 11, 2016 By Trudy Scott Leave a Comment

A quick reminder that The Better Belly Project: Crushing the Critters, Plugging the Leaks, and Balancing the Biome for Your Best Body Ever, hosted by fermentationist, Summer Bock started on December 9th!

Here are some snippets from some of the many excellent interviews.

Kellyann Petrucci, M.S., N.D., is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Dr. Kellyann’s Bone Broth Diet and she shares this about the gut healing bone broth:

I call this my liquid gold, and this is my gold standard, this is my go-to, this is the love of my life, I have to say, is bone broth. Here’s why I love bone broth so much. We talked about your intestines, the long tubing. Well we talked about it being red and inflamed. Think about it like this. If you’ve got a sunburn, it’s inflamed, it’s red, you want to heal it, you want to get it to feel better, so the two things you’re looking for is you want to get out of pain, you want it to feel better, and you want it to heal. You put some aloe vera on there, it calms it, it soothes it, it heals it. But guess what? That’s what bone broth actually does to your gut. That’s what it does to your intestines. It goes in there and it heals it. It seals it. It provides nutrition.

To me it’s one of the most premier and best foods that you can possibly put in your body, and there’s nothing trendy about it. There’s nothing trendy about bone broth. It’s simply putting some healthy bones in a pot with some water. Celery, onions, and carrots for some flavoring, if you want. Throw them in there. Any spices that you want. You want to take that and simmer it for anywhere from 18 to 24 to 48 hours depending on what your goal is and what you’re doing. Just simmer it for a long period of time.

You want to get it gelatinous, because one of the big hitches, one of the beautiful things about bone broth is it really helps your body mainline it’s own collagen. We know that collagen, that’s the glue that holds us together, it’s super important. We lose that as we get older. Cooked collagen is gelatin. Gelatin is a big, big word, because that word means so much to gut health and gut healing. Gelatin, it heals everything so beautifully, particularly the gut. That’s why for me, that’s what I’ve used with patients, with readers, with celebrities, with everybody I work with, my go-to is bone broth. I love it because, again, I’m into the trifecta effect. I want something that I give my patients to work on so many levels so they get a lot done with a little bit of effort, and that’s why I love bone broth.

Dr. Vincent M. Pedre is author of Happy Gut and he shares about Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)

I’m excited to talk about SIBO because I feel that it is one of the most misunderstood diagnoses. In Western medicine, so regular MD’s, they don’t know how to treat it. They don’t understand the length that it has to be treated in order to resolve the SIBO. SIBO doesn’t resolve overnight. It didn’t happen overnight. It’s not going to resolve overnight.

What happens in SIBO is that you get too many of the good guys in the small intestine, so an imbalance occurs.

If you have methane-predominant SIBO, often these people have constipation because the methane causes the migrating motor complex that controls peristalsis. It causes it to malfunction. These people will develop constipation.

He covers the SIBO breath test and how it measures hydrogen and methane, and the effects of fermented foods:

What we’re looking for and measuring in those samples is hydrogen and methane. Now, this is key because we’ve been talking about bacteria up to now. The methane producers are a genus of bacteria or species that is more archaic. It’s called archaea. They’re not even sure that they’re actually bacteria. They’re very fastidious. They’re a little bit harder to treat.

If it is a methane-predominant and it is probably more Archaea, they will, more likely, do well with fermented foods. It’s not going to worsen their symptoms. It actually will help them get better. We need the lactobacillus to out-compete the archaean to keep it in control.

He covers pros and cons of antibiotics and other medications, herbal approaches and probiotics, pro-kinetics, can you treat it through diet, with fermented foods and changing the diet into a low-FODMAP diet, avoiding the foods with the short-chain carbohydrate, plus tips to improve digestion like reducing stress, having fun, tips for stimulating the vagus nerve and much more. It’s a wonderful interview!

My anxiety-gut interview airs on December 14^th and I address the following in my interview:

IBS and anxiety
psychobiotics
serotonin and the second brain
GABA and GABA-eating bacteria
the vagus nerve and the gut-brain connection
how to use tryptophan and GABA to ease anxiety (and cravings)
melatonin for gut motility and sleep
glutamine for gut healing, calming and intense sugar cravings
prebiotics to lower high cortisol
and probiotic-rich foods too of course!

Why attend?

From the bacteria and flora, to your digestion and your elimination, the way your belly is operating has a lot to do with how you are operating.
You’ll be able to customize your experience so that whether you’re a full-fledged nutrition geek, or simply interested in maximizing your belly’s efforts you’ll find the knowledge and information that is perfect for you.
With all the toxins we’re exposed to, with processed foods and the stress in our lives, it’s more important than ever that your digestion is dialed in.

I hope you’ll join me and the other experts on The Better Belly Project: Crushing the Critters, Plugging the Leaks, & Balancing the Biome for your Best Body Ever

It’s going to be a great online event and I’m so pleased to be part of it. I can’t wait for you to hear the expert speakers: other authors, nutrition professionals, physicians, fermentation specialists and cutting edge experts that are going to be teaching everything belly.

When: December 9th-14th (Put it in your calendar now!)
How much: Nothing!
Where: Here! /online

See you there!

Psychobiotics: a novel class of psychotropic for anxiety (Better Belly Project)

December 5, 2016 By Trudy Scott 7 Comments

psychobiotics

Are you familiar with the term psychobiotics and the role they play in anxiety and depression? In 2013 Dr. Ted Dinan and Dr. John Cryan published a paper titled Psychobiotics: a novel class of psychotropic and in this paper they define a psychobiotic as:

a live organism that, when ingested in adequate amounts, produces a health benefit in patients suffering from psychiatric illness.

They go on to share how these good bacteria or probiotics can impact our mood and anxiety via neurotransmitter production, sharing that they are:

capable of producing and delivering neuroactive substances such as gamma-aminobutyric acid [GABA] and serotonin, which act on the brain-gut axis. Preclinical evaluation in rodents suggests that certain psychobiotics possess antidepressant or anxiolytic activity.

We often incorrectly hear that GABA taken orally is not effective because it can’t cross the blood brain barrier and if it does work it means you have a leaky brain. This is a myth I am working hard to dispel. The authors contribute to this discussion saying the following:

Effects may be mediated [or effects may occur] via the vagus nerve, spinal cord, or neuroendocrine systems.

The authors conclude with information about how these psychobiotics benefit IBS which we now know is often associated with both anxiety and depression. They share that these psychobiotics or good bacteria:

have been most extensively studied in a liaison psychiatric setting in patients with irritable bowel syndrome, where positive benefits have been reported for a number of organisms including Bifidobacterium infantis.

They also report benefits for alleviating symptoms of depression and chronic fatigue syndrome, likely related to:

the anti-inflammatory actions of certain psychobiotics and a capacity to reduce hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity.

The impact these psychobiotics have on inflammation and the adrenals is wonderful since we know about both are closely tied to anxiety and depression, as well as digestive health.

This is older research but Dr. Ted Dinan and his colleagues continue to expand the research and our knowledge on this exciting topic, and we appreciate them for this.

The above is just one topic I cover in my interview on the upcoming online summit: The Better Belly Project: Crushing the Critters, Plugging the Leaks, and Balancing the Biome for Your Best Body Ever, hosted by fermentationist, Summer Bock!

We also cover the following in my interview:

IBS and anxiety
serotonin and the second brain
GABA and GABA-eating bacteria
the vagus nerve and the gut-brain connection
how to use tryptophan and GABA to ease anxiety (and cravings)
melatonin for gut motility and sleep
glutamine for gut healing, calming and intense sugar cravings
prebiotics to lower high cortisol
and probiotic-rich foods too of course!

Here we are during the interview, with me in my new temporary location in Australia.

And we ONLY had one plane fly over! ha ha! Ask me about this – it was hilarious and I plan to share the video…

Here are some additional reasons to attend

From the bacteria and flora, to your digestion and your elimination, the way your belly is operating has a lot to do with how you are operating.
You’ll be able to customize your experience so that whether you’re a full-fledged nutrition geek, or simply interested in maximizing your belly’s efforts you’ll find the knowledge and information that is perfect for you.
With all the toxins we’re exposed to, with processed foods and the stress in our lives, it’s more important than ever that your digestion is dialed in.

I hope you’ll join me and the other experts on The Better Belly Project: Crushing the Critters, Plugging the Leaks, & Balancing the Biome for your Best Body Ever

When: December 9th-14th (Put it in your calendar now!)
How much: Nothing!
Where: Here! /online

Please post your gut, microbiome, IBS and other related questions in the comments. We’ll see you on the summit!

Betrayal – the thyroid, brain antibodies and gluten addiction

November 19, 2016 By Trudy Scott 4 Comments

Just a quick reminder that “Betrayal – the Autoimmune Disease Solution They’re Not Telling You” Episode 6 and 7 are coming up. This docu-series is hosted by Dr. Tom O’Bryan, author of the bestselling new book The Autoimmune Fix.

The wonderful Kelly Brogan on Dr. Tom O’Bryan’s amazing Betrayal docu-series on autoimmunity shares:

I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s postpartum about nine months after my first pregnancy and had never had a health condition in my life. I’ve been living really, largely recklessly from a health perspective, literally eating McDonald’s, drinking Red Bull, and eating candy every day, and never exercised. As a resident, never sleeping. Not only never sleeping, but then I would go out clubbing several nights a week.

It was through simple changes going, gluten and dairy-free, taking a number of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals, for example, and then beginning to recommit to exercise that I watched my numbers go from the high 2000s and turning the antibodies to the normal range in a period of months. I watched my TSH go from 20 to normal in that same time frame.

So powerful! wow! I so often see these kinds of results in my clients

Dr. Tom asks Dr. Steven Masley about elevated antibodies to the cerebellum:

We found in our practice that 26% of everyone that had elevated antibodies to wheat, any of the peptides of wheat, 26% of them had elevated antibodies to their cerebellum. 22% of them had elevated antibodies to Milo. That’s the mechanism of MS. When we got them off of the foods that they were sensitive to, wait six months or a year, go back and recheck, the elevated antibodies have come down to normal. You stop the deterioration of the brain and shrinking of the brain.

This is the response from Dr. Masley:

Neurodegeneration, yes. I see that too because when we do gluten testing, I’ll see that many people, especially if they have anxiety or depression or really bad cognitive dysfunction, they have the antibodies light up on the test that are specific for brain antibodies [that would be transglutaminase 6]

They both share how by applying lifestyle principles it takes just a couple of weeks to a month for people start seeing changes.

I’d like to add my contribution to the discussion because it’s a question I hear all the time and it wasn’t addressed in the docu-series:

How do you use endorphin-boosting DPA with gluten and casein withdrawals? And do you use anything else for the addictive component of these gluteomorphins and caseomorphins?

As always I would say do the amino questionnaire, and tell me how much you LOVE bread or cookies whatever it is, and how sad you’ll be to give it up (from 1-10, with 10 being the worst i.e. devastated).

Do a trial chewing a DPA / Endorphigen or opening it on to the tongue and decide how many notches it improved. If it’s working you should be able to say

I can take it or leave it and I no longer feel so emotionally attached to the need for bread

You would then take 1-3 of 500mg DPA between meals and as needed at other times when you feel the need for comfort or a reward or treat. A free form amino with tryptophan helps boost endorphins too and makes the DPA more effective.

If you score high in other sections of the amino acid questionnaire you would do the same with each amino acid – maybe you also eat bread/cheese to destress (then it’s GABA) or to feel happy (then it’s tryptophan) or for blood sugar control (then it’s glutamine) or for energy (then it’s tyrosine).

The amino acids, when used in a targeted way like this, make it easy to quit so no willpower is required and you don’t feel deprived.

Coming up there are these final episodes:

Nov 19th: Episode 6- Autoimmune Diseases of the Brain: A New Approach to Neurology
Nov 20th: Episode 7- Case Studies: Bringing it All Together

UPDATE: The event is now over but you can check out Episode 1 here

“Betrayal” Episode 1 – teenagers with time on their hands!

November 15, 2016 By Trudy Scott Leave a Comment

“Betrayal – the Autoimmune Disease Solution They’re Not Telling You” is hosted by Dr. Tom O’Bryan, author of the bestselling new book The Autoimmune Fix.

Overview of Episode 1

What really is auto-immune disease?
The true impact of auto-immune disease in US and other countries. What is functional medicine and how is it different from conventional medicine?
The facts behind why medication is not the core solution. Inspirational personal case studies of patients being healed by the functional medicine protocols.
Who is Dr. Tom O’Bryan and what’s his purpose with the ‘Betrayal’ documentary series?

At the turn of the 20th century, autoimmune diseases were found in about 1 in 10,000 individuals. And now as many as 1 in 4 are on the autoimmune spectrum!

That’s an unbelievable change in a remarkably short period of time. It’s not because our genes have changed much over that short period of time. That’s why it is a modern epidemic. And it’s mostly accrued in the last 30 years.

In this first episode, you’ll actually learn how your body is trying to protect you, and modern therapies and medications are designed to block your immune system, instead of work with it.

Here is a snippet from the brilliant Liz Lipski, PhD, CCN, CNS, CHN about autoimmunity:

In my eyes it’s a misfire between what our immune wants to be doing and what it should be doing. When we lived in a more pristine, more traditional culture, here we lived close to the earth and where we had parasites, where we ate food that was fresh and we didn’t have refrigerators and foods spoiled, the immune system had a lot of really good things to do. And now our immune system in this modern age seems a lot to me like a group of teenagers with time on their hands, and so they get into mischief because they don’t have their old jobs to do.

We’re exposed to toxins, we eat foods that are unusual, we’re stressed out, we have molds, we have all kinds of unusual situations that are different from even 150 years ago, and the immune system just sort of overreacts. They say it’s like it’s your birthday and everyone is singing happy birthday and you have the cake and the candles are lit and everyone is just expecting you to blow out the candles and you rip out your fire extinguisher. That’s an autoimmune disease – it’s an overreaction of the immune system to a normal event

In my last email about this event I mentioned that there are 159 diseases that are on the autoimmune spectrum? I had no idea!

Some of the commonly recognized ones are Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, lupus, MS, rheumatoid arthritis, celiac and Graves’ disease. Less well-recognized is the role of autoimmunity in CFS, Alzheimer’s disease, fibromyalgia, Lyme disease, lichen planus, interstitial cystitis, endometriosis and other conditions.

And of course, we can see anxiety and depression with any of the above conditions so this series is very relevant to us all!

Here are some of the positive feedback from viewers who have watched Episode 1:

Brought tears to my eyes to know that there are clinicians out there that REALLY care.
I cannot thank you enough Dr. Tom for this series. I have been in the exercise and nutrition industry for many years and have believed the true path to healing is with food, supplements, exercise, down-time, sleep, etc. I was told that the vitamins and diet I chose to follow would kill me at an early age. Well, that did not happen. I have felt lost in our diseased world and I am so excited to get all this information. It may be overload, but it is empowering me to move forward with this cause.
Dear Tom, At last I’ve found people who know what they are talking about – I’ve been searching for so long. I’ve felt abandoned by allopathic medience and have been searching for alternatives and have tried various different system. From listening to your overview I note that I have already started to do some of the things you suggset Tom and I am now looking forward to tomorrow’s session and to gaining a healthier furture. You have given me something very important – you have given me hope. THANK YOU, Mary
This information is fantastic. I have been following the Institute of Functional Medicine for the past couple of years. I am not a practitioner but I believe in this type of medicine and was moved by James’ testimonial at the end of EP1. I am at the same place in my life, “how do I want to spend my time from here on out”. Fullfilment and purpose in life can also improve health. There is such a connection between the mind, spirit and the body. Integrative psychiatry is also a part of functional medicine. Right now we need more functional medicine doctors and psychiatrists.

Here’s each of the breath-taking episodes you’ll have the opportunity to watch each evening:

Episode 1- The Autoimmune Epidemic: Root Causes and Solutions
Episode 2- Intestinal Permeability: The Gateway to Autoimmunity
Episode 3- The Microbiome: Where Health and Disease Begin and End
Episode 4- Autoimmune Diseases of the Gut: The Role of Food and Digestion
Episode 5- Environmental Toxins: The Hidden Drivers of Disease
Episode 6- Autoimmune Diseases of the Brain: A New Approach to Neurology
Episode 7- Case Studies: Bringing it All Together

You can register here and watch episode 1.

I can’t recommend it highly enough and feel we should ALL watch this series!

Dr. Tom O’Bryan’s documentary “Betrayal: the autoimmune disease solution they’re not telling you”

November 10, 2016 By Trudy Scott 7 Comments

My colleague and good friend, Dr. Tom O’Bryan, invites you to begin a deeply personal journey with his powerful 7-part documentary series “Betrayal: the autoimmune disease solution they’re not telling you.”

This project leaves Dr. Tom’s hands after 30 years of clinical research, patient care and relationships and it goes out to the world at large to change the face of autoimmunity.

If you’ve heard my interviews with Dr. Tom on the Anxiety Summit (or any of the other online summits) you know this online documentary series is NOT to be missed!

Why is Autoimmunity so hard to cure or even diagnose? The truth is this: We cannot change what we do not understand and so little is known about autoimmune disease.

Please join us if you or someone in your life is suffering with rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, celiac disease, thyroid disease such as Hashimoto’s, dementia and even Alzheimer’s disease.

I recently reviewed Dr. Tom’s bestselling new book: The Autoimmune Fix. In this book he shares 159 diseases that are on the autoimmune spectrum:

A more comprehensive list, created by the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, includes the following. I’m showing you this list in its entirety so you can see how many different diseases are actually on the autoimmune spectrum.

autoimmune-spectrum-diseases

And I’m just sharing the first 93 diseases he lists! I had no idea how far-reaching this is until I read his book and am learning from Dr. Tom alongside you!

We invite to you to watch the “Betrayal” docuseries. Register here for access to part 1 of the series.