We can all agree how the food we eat has such an impact on how we feel and that “food is medicine.”
We know we all have specific needs, unique biochemistry and very different genes so that is there NO “one-size-fits-all diet. We need to eat according to our own unique biochemistry and this is where BioIndividual Nutrition comes in to the picture.
Customizing your diet and nutrition strategy is essential to an integrative approach.
Julie has spent the past 14 years researching and applying specialized diets and is now teaching this BioIndividual Nutrition approach to advanced clinicians.
I know Julie personally, have read her book, have heard her present at many conferences (and even supported her at a few!) and have done her training. I can assure you that her knowledge in this area takes things to the next level! She is an expert on special diets, teaching about oxalates, salicylates, amines, glutamates, FODMAPs, gluten-free, GFCF (gluten-free-casein-free), GAPS and much more!
I’m sure you remember her from our prior interviews. Here are a few reminders:
She shared this during season 1 of the Anxiety Summit: BioIndividual Nutrition and Special Diets
My book is called Nourishing Hope for Autism, but a lot of people that have other conditions get my book, particularly because I call kids with autism the canaries in the coalmine. They’re the ones that are telling us that our world is too toxic, there’s too many stressors, it’s too deficient in nutrients, and we need to change our ways by adding more nutrition, more absorbable forms of supplements, getting supplements in general, eating good foods that are nutrient dense. These principles are principles that apply, in my experience, to almost all healing. So we learn a lot from the kids with autism on how it might apply to anxiety and other conditions.
And this during season 2 of the Anxiety Summit: Fermented foods and probiotics for anxiety and depression
There was a study done by a researcher named Tillisch and published in 2013 in Gastroenterology. We know a lot about how the brain sends signals to the gut, but she explained that in the study they learned that the gut also sends signals to the brain. The researchers found that with yogurt, they found positive effects on the brain, including sensory processing and those areas associated with emotion and mood.
And earlier this year I interviewed Julie on: Customizing a Low FODMAPS Diet for a Client with Anxiety and/or Depression and we covered
- The scientific rationale for recommending a Low FODMAPS (an acronym, deriving from “Fermentable, Oligo-, Di-, Mono-saccharides And Polyols) Diet for someone with anxiety/depression
- Defining oligosaccharides (fructans and galacto-oligosaccharides); disaccharides (lactose); monosaccharides (fructose) and polyols (sugar alcohols and more)
- What are high free fructose foods and the fructose malabsorption/anxiety and depression connection
As you can see, Julie is up-to-date on the latest research and is very hands-on and super detailed when it comes to teaching and implementing special diets.
In this FREE BioIndividual Nutrition webinar on August 10, Julie Matthews and Dr. Kurt Woeller are teaming up to share what every integrative practitioner or nutrition professional would love to know and should know about customizing special diets to individual needs:
- How personalizing food and nutrition strategies help improve patient/client outcomes
- Which foods may negatively affect mood, learning, and behavior (Kurt and Julie will share wisdom from their experiences with autism)
- The most advantageous special diets for healing: including: GFCF, SCD, GAPS Diet, Paleo diet, low phenol diets, low oxalate, and low FODMAPs
- How to AVOID the 3 most common mistakes when making dietary recommendations
- How to join the upcoming September “Study Group” at the BioIndividual Nutriton Institute, with Julie Matthews and Dr. Kurt Woeller
If you’re an integrative practitioner or nutrition professional and if you’re making diet and nutrition recommendations to your patients or clients, I highly recommend this upcoming webinar on customizing special diets.
You can register here for this educational webinar on August 10th at 1pm PST:
https://az184.isrefer.com/go/imweb/TrudyScott
If you can’t make it live, register anyway to get a copy of the recording.
Have you benefited from being on a special diet? Do you currently use special diets with your clients/patients and see symptom reduction/resolution? Please do share in the comments.
I am interested in finding the right diet for a pediatric (10 YO) patient with MTHFR and COMT and MAO and DAO SNPs (histamine issues), OCD, Social anxiety, and who is GFCF.
Also for a female post menopausal patient who has phenol sensitivity and is GFCF and trying to be on a Paleo diet, and has weight issues.
Thanks,
Hi Deborah
For the special diet information, I recommend tuning in to this interview with Julie and Dr. Woeller. I know they will be discussing some case histories and specific dietary approaches they used. You may want to consider the Bioindividual Nutrition Institute training/study group they’ll be starting early September. This one will be an integrative practice group lead by Julie, Dr. Woeller and another practitioner. I did the training earlier this year and it is excellent.
For the OCD and social anxiety, in addition to looking at dietary needs, I would of course always look at specific nutrients. For OCD I would consider tryptophan and inositol. For social anxiety, I’d consider the pyroluria protocol (https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/pyroluria-social-anxiety-introversion/)
For the post-menopausal client with weight-issues, if emotional eating/stress eating is a factor, targeted individual amino acids are often the key to break the self-medicating https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/amino-acids-mood-questionnaire-from-the-antianxiety-food-solution/
I suffer from low grade depression and anxiety which is always fluctuating and I am sure it is food related but haven’t been able to discover which foods are actually causing this. I am 70 yrs old and have been like this almost all my life.
Avril
I’m sorry to hear this has been an issue for so long. I do hope you’ll be able to tune in to this webinar and get some insights.
A suggestion for you too – keep a food mood log with everything you eat and drink, the times you eat and drink and how you feel mood-wise. This can often help figure out what the suspects may be. Do keep in mind that some reactions may be delayed and may happen a day or two later.
Also, food is the foundation of good health but is just one of many possible aspects that would need to be considered. In season 3 of The Anxiety Summit I discussed 60+ possible causes https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/60-nutritional-biochemical-causes-of-anxiety/ I encourage you to look into these if dietary changes don’t work or don’t fully work
I registered for Julie’s webinar this morning because I know how food affects me tremendously for good or not. Coincidentally, I put 2 tablespoons of ground chia in my drink this morning (I had just saw Dr. Arnot’s book on doing this) and after an hour of drinking it I had a terrible face and headache and my ears were ringing so much. I googled chia and saw that it is a salicylate food. (I have always had a bad reaction to aspirin containing products) I had no idea it was in foods. How ironic this all happened on the day of the webinar. I am excited to hear this information.
Gail
Thanks for sharing and good for you for making that connection! And yes, even healthy foods can be problematic if we react to something in them such as salicylates. I know you’ll enjoy the webinar
Would like to know when your home study course will be.
Dear Trudy,
My wife and I have lived overseas for the past 20 years. It has been rather stressful but at the same time rewarding. My wife began to suffer from exhaustion and stomach pain about five years ago. We tried the bone broth soup from lamb bones and it seemed that this increased her stomach pain. It seems that she is not able to digest fat which suggests possible gallbladder dysfunction. Do you have any suggestions at this point, besides staying away from fat, to help restore energy and vitality? Walking for her is a chore, sleep and rest do not help restore energy and she suffers from constant exhaustion. Also I would like to purchase a good book on homesteading. I am a city boy and know little about surviving without or modern conveniences. I looked at Amazon but some reviews said that some of the books are inaccurate. Thank you for your help.
Sincerely,
David
Since oxalates, salicylates, amines, histamines and glutamate foods can sinificantly affect autism symptoms, behavior and healing , what do you recommend is the best food to give to avoid aggravation ? Is there specific foods that you can advise?