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GI MAP stool testing: DNA and antibiotic resistance genes

By Trudy Scott 3 Comments

Dr. Ben Lynch interviews Dr. David Brady’s on the Dirty Genes Summit (Jan 22 through Jan 29) and they cover stool testing and antibiotic resistance genes.

The section on antibiotic resistance genes is part of the discussion about the stool testing that Dr. Brady recommends: the GI Map test by Diagnostic Solutions Lab, a PCR/DNA test he helped to develop.

Before they get to the antibiotic resistance genes discussion, Dr. Brady shares more about this 2-year old test and why he has found it superior to other stool testing, sharing that it’s more comprehensive than what the gastroenterologist would do, plus the fact that other functional stool tests rely on culture technologies which has the limitation that you can only test bugs that you can grow. He shares that:

More than 95% of bugs in the gut can’t be grown on a petri dish. They are anaerobes or they are very difficult to culture.

He also discusses the process of testing for sensitivities to herbs (in some of the other stool tests) i.e. what herb will kill what bug, sharing that this is a flawed method:

While dropping specific prescriptive antibiotics on a culture has been methodically worked out to correlate with a certain dose of that antibiotic orally, it’s never been done for herbs and volatile oils.

Dr. Brady does discuss one other major advantage of the GI MAP test:

We look for antibiotic resistance genes, both phenotype and genotype of the microbiotia and looking through the genetic signatures of antibiotic resistance. So if you’re going to use a prescriptive antibiotic, we can tell you if the microbiotia of the patient harbors the genes for resistance to sulfonamide or fluoroquinolones or some others.

I see great value in this beyond finding a solution for addressing the pathogens. This is because we know antibiotics have side-effects and some like the fluroquinolones can actually cause anxiety, depression, insomnia, panic attacks, clouded thinking, depersonalization, suicidal thoughts, psychosis, nightmares, and impaired memory. We cover this in detail in the Anxiety Summit interview with Lisa Bloomquist, fluoroquinolone toxicity patient advocate: Antibiotic Induced Anxiety – How Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics Induce Psychiatric Illness Symptoms

When it comes to genetics work and testing, dr. Brady endorses Dr. Peter D’Adamo, Opus23 and Dr. Ben Lynch, recognizing the importance of science and looking at the clinical presentation of the patient rather than individual SNPs.  I would have loved hearing some examples of what he means by this.  

All in all, this is a fascinating interview and well worth listening to!

Register for the Dirty Genes Summit here – to hear this entire interview and learn from Dr. Ben Lynch and the other experts he interviews.

Hope you can join in!

Please post questions and comments below.

Smart pills: sensors, copper, silicon and EMFs in medications?

By Trudy Scott 1 Comment

Can you discuss the new copper and silicon microchip they are starting to use in Abilify and other bipolar and schizophrenia medications? This subject has been in the news.

The above question was posted on a recent blog – Copper toxicity: anxiety, phobias, ADHD on the Heavy Metals Summit

This was new to me and at first glance I didn’t like the sound of copper and a microchip in a medication, so I went looking for information.

Before I share my findings, here is a quick overview of Abilify/Aripiprazole and the FDA-Approved and Off-Label Uses: originally approved for schizophrenia and then approved for bipolar disorder, approved ‘as adjunctive treatment for major depressive disorder’ and also approved for irritability in autism spectrum disorders.

The above article also lists off-label use of Abilify which includes the following: generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, ADHD, dementia, insomnia, OCD, PTSD, substance abuse and Tourette’s syndrome.

Dr. Mark Hyman actually mentions off-label use of antipsychotics like Abilify in the Broken Brain docuseries. He discusses their use in children:

there’s pushing of medications for off-label use, which means that they’re not approved for those indications. They’re doing this for kids with antipsychotics, and they’re actually being sued. The pharma companies have been held liable for promoting these drugs for off-label uses for kids, which they’re not allowed to do. They get fined billions of dollars, but they don’t care because they’ve made umpteen more billions, and they just see it as a marketing expense.

What are these ‘smart pills’?

This article, ‘smart pill’ can help patients remember their meds explains more about these new smart pills:

Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center has become one of the few health care providers in the United States to use a grain-of-sand-sized sensor that, after being swallowed, can alert patients when they’ve forgotten to take medication.

Developed by Proteus Digital Health, the FDA-approved sensor is made from microscopic quantities of copper and magnesium. Powered by the human body (no batteries or antennas required), the tiny sensor turns on after reaching patients’ stomachs, where it begins sending signals to a Band-Aid-like, Bluetooth-enabled patch worn on the torso. The patch then decodes those signals into meaningful health information and sends it to users and physicians in an app.

Here is the press release about these ‘smart pills’- Otsuka and Proteus® Announce the First U.S. FDA Approval of a Digital Medicine System: Abilify MyCite® (aripiprazole tablets with sensor)

This was approved by the FDA for use in U.S. in 2012. The microchip is actually made of copper, magnesium and silicon, and reacts with stomach juices when swallowed along with the medication. According to the above article:

Once the microchip has done its job, it dissolves and passes out of the body along with other digested food.

However, another article on the introduction of these smart pills into the UK doesn’t seem to reach the same conclusion:

What’s not clear is how long the microchip operates inside the body, and what happens to it once it dies. Is it digested, or is it flushed out into the sewer system wholly intact? And if it’s flushed, what happens to all those millions of chips that wind up in sewage treatment facilities?

Some of my concerns

I have no idea what the long-term implications of this ‘smart pill’ technology will be and would hope patients are being informed now, will be informed in the future, and will have a choice as to whether or not they want to use ‘smart’ medications like this.

Here are some of my initial concerns I’d like to share:

  • the adverse effects of added copper in the body (implications for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and anxiety and autism)
  • the adverse health effects of Bluetooth/EMFs for the person ingesting a ‘smart pill’ and for those around them (the new book The Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs by Nicolas Pineault is the most current resource for all things related to EMFs)
  • the adverse effects of silicon in the body
  • the harmful environmental impacts once these get into the sewer system
  • the added costs of these medications
  • how quickly we’ll start to see this technology used in more and more medications
  • lack of awareness for the consumer in terms of adverse health impacts and privacy concerns

Without going into the myriad of issues with off-label use of atypical antipsychotics and all the functional medicine and nutritional approaches that can be used to address anxiety (such as tryptophan), social phobia (such as low zinc and low vitamin B6), ADHD (such as gardening or low iron), OCD (such as a gluten-free diet or inositol), insomnia (such as GABA and 5-HTP) and PTSD, we now have the added concerns of what problems these ‘smart pills’ may contribute to.

I say let’s be smart about this and rethink these ‘smart pills’ and ideally look for functional medicine and nutritional solutions instead of using antipsychotics off-label.

And even if we look at some of the approved uses of antipsychotic medications, case studies report a nutritional psychiatry approach for this. Dr. Georgia Ede, MD, shares two schizoaffective cases in her article: Low-Carbohydrate Diet Superior to Antipsychotic Medications. These were patients of Dr. Chris Palmer, a psychiatrist from Harvard’s McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. They both tried a ketogenic diet for weight loss. Here are the results the woman patient experienced:

After four weeks on the diet, her delusions had resolved and she’d lost ten pounds. At four months’ time, she’d lost 30 pounds and her score on a clinical questionnaire called the PANSS (Positive and Negative Symptom Scale), which ranks symptoms on a scale from 30 (best) to 210 (worst), had come down from 107 to 70. 

The male patient experienced similar results with “dramatic” reductions in auditory hallucinations and delusions, as well as better mood and energy. He also lost weight, losing 104 pounds over the course of a year.  As Dr. Ede writes:

These outcomes are truly remarkable: improvement by dozens of points on the PANSS, significant weight loss, and better quality of life. There simply is no psychiatric medication available with the power to accomplish those results.  

And in this instance and others like them we won’t have the ‘smart pill’ issues.

Have you ever been prescribed Abilify or one of the other antipsychotics? And for what symptoms?

Has your doctor ever offered you the ‘smart pill’ option?

Have you worked with clients or patients who have been prescribed these medications?

Thyroid disease: anxiety, panic attacks and seizures on The Broken Brain

By Trudy Scott 9 Comments

There are things that are commonly misdiagnosed as seizure disorders, panic attacks and anxiety attacks. All of these things can stem from thyroid disease and can be reversed when you get proper thyroid treatment.

~ Izabella Wentz, PharmD, author of Hashimoto’s Protocol

Here are some wise words of wisdom from one of the 57 expert speakers – Dr. Izabella Wentz – sharing about the thyroid-brain connection on Dr. Mark Hyman’s 8 -part Broken Brain docuseries.

As well as anxiety and panic attacks, some other issues with the thyroid are fatigue, brain fog, apathy, irritability, depression, bipolar disorder and psychotic disorders.

With Hashimoto’s encephalopathy there can be gait and balance problems, seizures, delusions and even hallucinations.

Izabella shares her own Hashimoto’s story and how she experienced anxiety, panic attacks, social anxiety and bad brain fog. She said she felt her mind slipping away and how scary it was but also that thyroid problems are fairly resolvable.

Some of the solutions she offers:

  • a paleo or autoimmune paleo diet
  • getting rid of reactive foods
  • including bone broth if tolerated
  • 200-400mcg selenium methionine (it reduces an autoimmune attack on the thyroid by half and also improves anxiety and reduces hair loss)
  • 600mg of thiamine (has been shown to reverse thyroid fatigue in 6 days; she has found the benfotiamine form to be the most helpful)

Save the date for the 8 -part Broken Brain docusersies, hosted by Dr. Mark Hyman – and register here. It airs January 17-25th

(I have just found out that if you watched the series during the pre-launch in October and want to watch it again this time around you do NOT need to sign up again under a new email address. My apologies for the confusion!)

Here’s a list of ALL the episodes, to showcase just some of what you will have access to. Each episode will be available for 24 hours, at no-cost!

  1. The Broken Brain Epidemic / Dr. Hyman’s Story (January 17)
  2. Gut Brain Connection: Getting to The Root of a Broken Brain (January 18)
  3. Losing Your Mind (Alzheimer’s, Dementia, MS, and More) (January 19)
  4. ADHD and Autism (January 20)
  5. Depression & Anxiety (January 21)
  6. Traumatic Brain Injury: Accidents, Sports, and More (January 22)
  7. 7 Steps to An UltraMind (Part 1) (January 23)
  8. 7 Steps to An UltraMind (Part 2) (January 24)

See you there!

Is the term ‘broken brain’ hopeful and real or too negative and scary?

By Trudy Scott 18 Comments

If you experience anxiety, panic attacks, depression, memory or cognitive issues, ADHD or poor focus and someone suggests you may be suffering from a broken brain are you intrigued and hopeful that something that is broken can now be fixed OR do you consider the term broken brain too negative and scary?

I received this feedback from someone in my community when I shared my recent Broken Brain interview with Dr. Mark Hyman:

I’m looking forward to seeing the [Broken Brain] documentaries however I dislike the title. Everything that you say and think is affecting your brain. For me Broken is not a word with healing potencies but suggests that is something very bad happening in the brain. And maybe that is the case, but how we interpret our symptoms is very crucial for healing. In my opinion it could be Healing the Brain or something like that. I think is very important that the title implies positivity not fear!

I shared this feedback with her: “Thanks for sharing – you’re the 4th person in a day to say this. Prior to your feedback and hearing from 3 mental health colleagues earlier today I had not considered the name would invoke negativity and fear. One of my mental health colleagues shared with me that “referring to people as ‘broken’ is really stigmatizing and inappropriate.”

My thinking is that just like a leg is broken, the brain can be broken and can just as easily be fixed when we address the root causes. I’ve also watched the series (during the test run late last year) and have seen the wisdom, caring and compassion of the experts and Dr. Hyman, as well as the solutions and message of hope. I suspect that has swayed my opinion too. But I do see your point on being positive and solution-oriented without the fear aspect.”

What do you think?

It’s important that I serve my community well – and that’s you! If something concerns you I want to know so I can address it.  I also want you to know that I’m offering solutions hope and not wanting to create fear and negativity, so I posed this question on Facebook (together with the above feedback from the blog):

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the title of Dr. Hyman’s new Broken Brain docu-series?

What do you think? Good title? Bad title? And why?

The positive feedback: enlightening, fixable, hopeful

The majority of responses were positive feedback. Here are many of them:

  • Mary Anne McEvoy: I rather like the title. When I read the word “Broken” it brought my awareness to: “WOW – the brain can actually get ‘broken’!” I want to see the docu-series because of the word broken.
  • Cathcart Louque: I don’t mind the title at all. I work in mental health (as a Care Manger for a non-profit mental health organization helping low income people) and see “broken brains” everyday which could be so much better by diet, exercise, meditation etc. I wish something would shake people up into wanting to have better brain health. Dementia and Alzheimer’s can be at work ten, twenty, thirty years before it manifests but people continue to make bad choices. I hope his videos will bring enlightenment to many and more will be proactive! Me included 😀! Daily healthy choices are not always the easiest but boy it’s so worth it.
  • Susan McDuffie: This title may really speak to those who feel in dire straits. ‘Have tried everything, read everything, and still struggle.’ Sometimes it’s the darker words that actually resonate with people.
  • Wyndie: I’m not afraid of the word broken – it’s true. Some things break. But broken things can be fixed. When I hear that title, I don’t hear negative, I hear reality.
  • Holly Higgins, NTP: I love the title. It’s catchy, alliterative, and it’s the exact words that so many of my clients use to describe how they feel. I’ve heard this phrase over and over by people who feel like they’ve been harmed by psychiatry or have never felt like their brain was working right. We are all going to have different reactions. It’s clear from the content of the series and the character of the people involved that this was not meant to be offensive.
  • Marthe: I actually liked the title. I thought it was powerful and, to me, it inferred that brain issues are becoming common occurrences and that there are ways to heal.
  • Leslie Montano: It’s just a title. I like the alliteration. It’s catchy, easy to remember, and certainly effective in that way for marketing. It not stigmatizing, it is not directly calling any person broken, it is speaking about a part of the body generally. Things that are broken can be repaired. There is hope. And personally, 2 years ago before I fixed my diet and lifestyle, I felt broken. Broken brain explains EXACTLY what was going on and how I was feeling.
  • Sharleen McDowall: As a psychologist, I like the title. I see the title the same way you do – just like a broken leg. I think the title conveys a strong message and it is needed to spark the conversation about how we are treating our brains. Also, Dr. Hyman’s message focuses on how the broken brain can be healed which is very positive.
  • Lee Ann Foster: First of all, it’s a good, empowering series giving people a lot of useful and hope-inspiring information to care for their brain related issues. Secondly, as a 30-year old functional neuropsychology practice, Neurosource, in which we get to root issues and help re-regulate brain function through evidence based technologies and lifestyle interventions, we find that many people are relieved when we show them through 3-D neuroimaging how their brain is dysregulated – or one could say broken. We find people feel hopeful when they see their issues are physiological in nature (and can be helped), versus giving them stigmatized and often inaccurate or unhelpful mental health diagnostic labels that mean very little aside from labeling for insurance and pharmaceutical purposes. Just my two cents.
  • Pierce: For me the first step in healing is acknowledging that I’m broken at the moment. Then I focus on moving forward and healing for the long term.
  • Deena Louise: My son has tuberous sclerosis that has left him severely disabled with autism, MR and uncontrolled epilepsy….when my daughter, who is younger than him by 6 years, was able to understand that he was “different” than neurotypical people, she asked what was wrong with him….why didn’t he talk. She didn’t understand autism, so we just told her he had a broken brain. Some things can be fixed and some things can’t. She understood it when we said it that way. I think the title is fine…broken is just a word used to describe something that isn’t working right at the moment. Dealing with anxiety, menopause, insomnia and panic…my brain definitely feels broken! I can’t wait to watch the series, I don’t care what he calls it. I am grateful for all of these lovely functional medicine docs and scientists giving of their time and expertise to help so many.

The less than positive feedback: worthless, negative, insensitive

Three mental health professionals felt the term broken brain was stigmatizing but other than this, surprisingly few people had negative feedback. A few people resonated with words like repair or mend instead of broken, saying most people think of broken as worthless and negative, and can’t be fixed. One mom felt it was insensitive to the real struggles of depression and anxiety. Here are a few specific comments:

  • Donna: Broken brains aren’t as easily fixable as broken legs. Broken brain means Alzheimer’s or stroke or something equally scary to me. I think another word could have been used to get the point across…. whatever a broken but fixable brain is…
  • Missy Ruth: Our brains are not broken. They regenerate and grow and change and are incredible. However, they certainly can feel like they are not operating like we wish they would. Labeling the brain as “broken” is an example of inflammatory linguistics, and as human beings we create fear by using terms that exaggerate. We scare ourselves. Nobody’s brain is broken.

If you don’t like the term broken brain, I’m hoping you will get some inspiration and feel some level of comfort from the positive comments above and watch it anyway. You will see there are solutions, compassion and hope!

Also, many of my clients who use words like “negative, worthless, scary and fear”, do feel better when we look into low serotonin and address low levels with tryptophan or 5-HTP. Also, addressing gluten issues, poor gut health, low GABA, low zinc and so on – everything body-related that can affect the mind and brain. All of this is covered in the docuseries, other then the use of targeted amino acids, which I cover extensively in my book The Antianxiety Food Solution, in my newsletters and elsewhere on this blog.

An apology: integrity, compassion and hope

I really want to hear your thoughts but also want to offer Dr. Hyman’s apology if you are offended by the term broken brain. As soon as his team started getting feedback they issued this statement on his behalf:

Thank you for your comment. We completely understand what you are saying and we agree. So much of this docuseries is about Dr. Hyman’s personal health crisis and how he treated his own brain disorder. During this time Dr. Hyman felt like he had a broken brain. This is why we decided to call the title Broken Brain because the foundation of the series is about his personal journey. However, we do not think that everyone who is dealing with a brain disorder or a developmental disorder has a broken brain. We know that all individuals, including those with brain conditions, are fully complete people, each with their unique spirit. We hope that you’ll watch the series and understand that more than anything it’s about hope and about moving toward our best health!

I find this very thoughtful and it clearly reflects the level of his integrity and compassion.

In case you’re just hearing about the Broken Brain for the first time, you can watch my highlights video interview with Dr. Hyman (together with the transcript).

So, what do YOU think? Is broken brain a good title or term? Or a bad title or term? And why?

(With appreciation if you already provided feedback and for giving me permission to share it here. This is a good discussion to have!)

Histamine issues: IBS, fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, depression, migraines

By Trudy Scott 10 Comments

Dr. Ben Lynch is hosting the Dirty Genes Summit Jan 22-39 and he shares this about you and your genes:

You are not a victim of circumstance… born with bad genes, destined to die of whatever your family tree has genetically bequeathed you.

The way your genes express is unique – and it can change throughout your life. 

Knowing how to create that change is vitally important and you’ll see how clear this is in his wonderful histamine interview with Yasmina Ykelenstam of Healing Histamine.

I love the bucket analogy where Yasmina shares about histamine and inflammation:

Imagine the body as a giant bucket and there is only so much inflammation you can put into it before our inflammation causing behaviors that you can fill it up with before you spill over symptoms. So let’s say you fill it with a few high histamine foods; then you feel it up with stress; then you fill it up to being exposed to animal hair (dander); then pollen season starts; and woah, we’re right, right, right at the top; and then we eat an apple which is not high histamine, it doesn’t cause inflammation, in fact, it’s anti-inflammatory; and suddenly we spill over because the active digestion itself is an inflammatory process.

We blame the poor little apple and not the hamburger we ate the week ago that started the inflammation bucket filling up. We don’t blame the puppy because we love the doggy so much. We certainly don’t blame our stress because we don’t want to take too hard a look at our lives and how difficult it would be for us to make changes, steps to take real steps to handle our stress and to start meditating or to remove stressful processes from our life because that’s just too much for us to handle

She shares how you can combat some of this by adding foods with

anti-properties: anti-histamine and anti-inflammatory properties…I just stopped eating the wrong high histamine foods, the processed ones, the sugary ones, the ones that added nothing to my life beyond the two seconds in my mouth.

Dr. Lynch asks Yasmina to list symptoms she experienced in this midst of her histamine issues (many of which are commonly seen in individuals with histamine issues)

IBS, which is mostly loose stools or being totally bound up so you can’t go to the bathroom for 8 days and they tend to go back and forth… severe swelling of the stomach – what I call basketball stomach… At my worse, it was projectile vomiting and constant nausea, and constant until it went away… chronic migraines. I once had migraines every day for six months before they went away. Common symptoms include dizziness, brain fog, low blood pressure, feeling dizzy when you stand up… really, inability to think straight is a really, really big one. It’s kind of like somebody almost puts a wet blanket over your brain. It tends to happen after you eat.

She also shares how fatigue after eating is often an issue. And how intolerance to alcohol is a factor, specifically red wine:

Most people do better with tequila, vodka, rum and gin, although alcohol paralyzes the thiamine oxidase, histamine degrading enzyme.

There is also a mental health impact from histamine issues – histamine is a neurotransmitter – and Yasmina shares how this may impact you:

…it affects dopamine, GABA, serotonin, and it can make us depressed. It can also make us manic as I discovered in my teens. It can mimic the symptoms of bipolar disorder and also schizophrenia. There’s been a few interesting studies where certain types of antihistamines that are not available on the market were able to reverse schizophrenia symptoms better than antipsychotic medications.

Anxiety is also a very, very big histamine symptom and whenever I see somebody who has a histamine problem, they do tend to be quite stressed out and kind of the chicken or the egg, which came first. But definitely histamine causes more stress and anxiety and that again is in the medical research.

This statement about symptoms rotating was new to me and may be new to you too:

It has to be consistent and then it goes away and then it comes back again. That’s what’s really confusing about histamine because: 1. It mimics many disorders, and 2. The symptoms rotate

All in all, this is a fascinating interview and well worth listening to!

Join the summit and you will learn that your genes can be turned off or on and this event will teach:

  • How Do Your Genes Impact You?
  • How to Clean Your Genes With Food
  • About Your Genes and Your Mental Health
  • How to Alter Your Genetic Expression
  • The Building Blocks of Healthy Families (and generations!)
  • An Understanding of How Your Genes Work
  • Genetic Testing and How to Clean Up Your Genes for the Long Term

Register for the Dirty Genes Summit here – to hear this entire interview and learn from Dr. Ben Lynch and the other experts he interviews.

Hope you can join!

Serotonin, leaky gut and leaky brain on The Broken Brain docuseries

By Trudy Scott 2 Comments

The Broken Brain docusersies, hosted by Dr. Mark Hyman airs January 17-25th .

Here are some wise words of wisdom from 3 of the 57 expert speakers – on the powerful gut-brain connection (covered on day 2).

And let us not forget the term Dr. Hyman uses to describe this: somatopsychic = mental symptoms caused by bodily illness. Issues in the gut – like food sensitivities, dysbiosis, SIBO, inflammation, parasites and so on – may be some of the root causes of your anxiety and/or depression. This is also known as body-mind medicine, which is different from mind-body medicine.

The relationship of the gut to the brain is physical and chemical. We talk about serotonin, dopamine and other neurotransmitters. The lion’s share of these chemicals are not made in the brain. They are made in the gut. ~ Dr. David Permlutter, MD, author of Grain Brain and Brain Maker

What most doctors don’t realize is that when you have leaky gut, the identification markers are the same identification markers that affect the blood-brain barrier. That’s leaky brain. ~ Dr. Tom O’Bryan, DC, author of The Autoimmune Fix

When our gut becomes inflamed, it produces chemicals the cross our blood brain barrier, and suppress the activity in the frontal cortex. And that produces all the telltale signs and symptoms of depression [and anxiety]. ~ Chris Kresser, MS, Lac, author of Unconventional Medicine

Save the date for the 8 -part Broken Brain docusersies, hosted by Dr. Mark Hyman – and register here. It airs January 17-25th

Here’s a list of ALL the episodes, to showcase just some of what you will have access to. Each episode will be available for 24 hours, at no-cost!

  1. The Broken Brain Epidemic / Dr. Hyman’s Story (January 17)
  2. Gut Brain Connection: Getting to The Root of a Broken Brain (January 18)
  3. Losing Your Mind (Alzheimer’s, Dementia, MS, and More) (January 19)
  4. ADHD and Autism (January 20)
  5. Depression & Anxiety (January 21)
  6. Traumatic Brain Injury: Accidents, Sports, and More (January 22)
  7. 7 Steps to An UltraMind (Part 1) (January 23)
  8. 7 Steps to An UltraMind (Part 2) (January 24)

Enjoy!