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Anxiety in autism, ADHD and sensory processing disorders

By Trudy Scott 8 Comments

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Tara Hunkin on the upcoming Autism, ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder Summit and share my expertise on anxiety since we so often see anxiety in this population. My topic is: Anxiety’s Role in ASD, ADHD and SPD and how nutrient therapy can help.

I start out sharing some of the research on the incidence and connections.

This 2009 paper Sensory Overresponsivity and Anxiety in Children With ADHD in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy, reports that:

Approximately 25% of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have a comorbid anxiety disorder.

The purpose of this particular study was to determine whether sensory overresponsivity (SOR) or sensory processing disorders are related to increased anxiety in children with ADHD. There were twenty-four children between the age of 6 to 10 with ADHD and 24 children without ADHD.

The study concluded that:

Children in the ADHD + SOR [sensory over responsivity] group were significantly more anxious than both the ADHD-only and non-ADHD (control) groups.

Occupational therapists treating children with ADHD and SOR should be aware that these children may also have anxiety and discuss options with families for prevention or treatment.

I would add that anyone working with these children should be aware of the connections: doctors, nutritionists, psychologists and anyone else on the health team.

We also discuss this 2012 paper, also from the American Journal of Occupational Therapy – Sensory Overresponsivity and Anxiety in Typically Developing Children and Children With Autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Cause or Coexistence?

Reviews of the coexistence of ASD [autism spectrum disorder] and anxiety disorders have concluded that among children and youth with ASD, anxiety disorders are highly prevalent, clinically significant, and varied as to specific type of anxiety disorder

Approximately 25% of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) also have anxiety disorder, a rate that is elevated when ADHD is seen in conjunction with conduct or oppositional defiant disorders

The paper mentions these 3 factors as models worthy of further study in order to understand the relationship between anxiety, sensory overresponsivity, autism and ADHD:

(1) anxiety caused by, or a symptom of, SOR (primary anxiety model);
(2) SOR caused by, or a symptom of, anxiety (primary SOR model); and
(3) the presence of both anxiety and SOR, linked by way of another factor

Based on what I know about anxiety I feel it could be a combination of all of the above.

My interview also covers the following around how to address the anxiety in these children and their moms (who also often have anxiety):

  • Low serotonin anxiety, symptoms, using tryptophan and 5-HTP and precautions with using them with an SSRI
  • A young girl with RAD (reactive attachment disorder) with rage/anger, anxiety, insomnia, and sugar cravings and the successful use of chewable tryptophan, addressing low iron and a gluten-free diet
  • A young boy with OCD and the successful use of both tryptophan and inositol
  • Low GABA anxiety, the use of GABA and not phenibut, and cautions about using too much
  • A young girl with ADHD and irritability and the successful use of GABA
  • Pyroluria incidence and symptoms and how it ties back to neurotransmitter imbalances

Sensory processing disorders, ADHD and autism are not my expertise and I don’t work much with children so I’m really pleased to be bringing you this information via the other amazing speakers AND listening and learning myself!

Here are some speakers and topics I’m particularly interested in

  • Brandon Brock, RN, DC: Understanding PANS and PANDAS role in ASD, ADHD and SPD.
  • Elizabeth Mumper, MD: Mitochondrial Dysfunction: What it is and how to address the underlying causes.
  • Richard Frye, MD, Ph.D.: Cerebral Folate Deficiency: and how it impairs neurological health.
  • Nancy O’Hara, MD: What you need to know about cell danger response in ASD & other neurodevelopmental disorders.
  • John Tjenos, NTP: The importance of the vagus nerve and how to build vagal tone with essential oils.

We have so much to learn from practitioners and researchers working in this area. And children affected by these conditions do recover!

The Autism, ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder Summit, hosted by Tara Hunkin, NTP, runs from June 19-28, 2017.

It will be 10 days of eye opening information into the root causes of your child’s neurological dysfunction. Imagine learning about what may have caused their symptoms and how to address them with nutrition and biomedical approaches and leverage the power of positive neuroplasticity to improve function, health and their lives.

Do also keep in mind that these topics may have relevance for you even if you don’t have a child with a sensory processing disorder, ADHD and/or autism. These children are the canaries in the coal mine and many of my clients with anxiety can benefit from the biomedical support that many of these speakers are addressing. Simply replace sensory processing disorder, ADHD and/or autism with anxiety and listen and learn.

You can register for The Autism, ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder Summit here

Feel free to ask questions or provide feedback and your experiences in the comment section below.

Anxiety is a common symptom of IBS/SIBO: breath and antibody testing at MINDD 2017

By Trudy Scott 8 Comments

I attended Dr. Nirala Jacobi’s presentation on at MINDD 2017 practitioner training and here are some highlights from her presentation on SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth) which is the leading cause of IBS and a major cause of leaky gut syndrome. It is the presence of an overgrowth of beneficial bacteria in the small intestine i.e. good bacteria in the wrong place.

She shares that:

Bacterial overgrowth has also been implicated in a host of other conditions such as developmental delay, fibromyalgia, interstitial cystitis, malabsorption syndromes and many more [such as anxiety and depression and even insomnia]. SIBO requires a methodical approach to testing and treatment in order to successfully re-establish a healthy digestive tract.

And some of the typical symptoms SIBO patients experience:

I was not familiar with all these prior surgical procedures being a possible cause but this makes sense. I’ve added gastric bypass, appendix removal, endometrial surgeries, C-section and gallbladder removal (cholecystectomy) to my SIBO questionnaire.

Other possible causes include certain medications, stress and anxiety (which affects how much HCl or stomach acid you produce and gut motility) and overconsumption of simple carbohydrates.

Going back to the #1 possible cause i.e. post-infectious due to a stomach bug, the gastroenteritis and autoimmunity connection was presented. Bacteria which cause food poisoning produce a toxin called CdtB which is similar to human vinculin which is important for nerve function.

Due to the similarity between CdtB and vinculin, the body produces anti-vinculin and anti- CdtB antibodies which lead to an auto-immune attack on the enteric nervous system. This causes damage to the MMC/migrating motor complex and contributes to SIBO.

A press release from Cedars-Sinai and Dr. Pimental: Definitive Tests for Irritable Bowel Syndrome Developed at Cedars-Sinai announce the multicenter study validating the accuracy of the new blood tests:

Dr. Pimentel and fellow researchers studied nearly 3,000 people, comparing IBS patients to those diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease and those with no GI disease. The blood tests identified the two antibodies associated with IBS – anti-Cdtb and anti-vinculin – with greater than 90 percent certainty.

The tests are marketed under the name IBSchek™ and are produced by Commonwealth Laboratories Inc., in Salem, Massachusetts.

This paper reports this autoimmunity connection: Autoimmunity Links Vinculin to the Pathophysiology of Chronic Functional Bowel Changes Following Campylobacter jejuni Infection in a Rat Model and this paper discusses the two tests: Development and Validation of a Biomarker for Diarrhea-Predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome in Human Subjects

These blood tests are available in the USA but are not yet available in Australia where Dr. Nirala Jacobi now lives and practices.

Dr. Nirala Jacobi, BHSc, ND (USA) graduated from Bastyr University in 1998 with a doctorate in naturopathic medicine. She practiced as a primary care physician in Montana for 7 years before arriving in Australia. Nirala is considered one of Australia’s leading experts in the natural treatment of small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), a common cause of IBS. In 2014, she designed the SIBO Bi-Phasic Diet to aid practitioners in simplifying their treatment approach with their SIBO patients. She is the Chief Medical Officer and Director of SIBOtest.com, an online breath testing service and educational portal for practitioners. She frequently lectures to national and international professional audiences on the topic of SIBO and founded the first Australian SIBO Summit in 2016 Nirala has had a busy private practice in Brisbane since 2008 and recently moved her clinic to Wilsons Creek in the beautiful northern rivers region of NSW, Australia.

For SIBO breath testing services in all countries check out the testing page on Dr. Siebecker’s SIBOinfo site

Keep in mind that most SIBO studies are on IBS. According to Dr. Siebecker

Drs. Pimentel and Lin originated the theory that SIBO is the underlying cause of IBS.  As with all theories, there is debate and controversy about this idea, with many who agree and many who do not.  One thing is certainly clear, the symptoms of SIBO overlap with those of IBS and a large percentage of IBS sufferers test positive for SIBO.  One study by Dr Pimentel and team, showed SIBO in up to 84% of IBS patients, though the percentage has been lower in other studies, with an average of 60%.

Here is the most recent study showing the mental health effects of IBS (which we could presumably extrapolate to SIBO and confirm with the testing discussed above) – Neuroendocrine Dysregulation in Irritable Bowel Syndrome Patients: A Pilot Study

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a multifactorial disorder, involving dysregulation of brain-gut axis

Prevalent psychological symptoms in IBS were maladjustment (60%), trait (40%) and state (17%) anxiety, obsessive compulsive-disorders (23%), and depressive symptoms (23%).

If you are not getting anxiety symptom resolution with dietary changes, the use of targeted individual amino acid, adrenal support, addressing dysbiosis and other biochemical approaches it’s time to work with a practitioner to rule out or address SIBO as a causal factor.

Depression as a black dog that comes in and lays down beside you at night

By Trudy Scott 18 Comments

Trevor King’s interview about his journey with depression – on That Vitamin Summit – is not to be missed if you are depressed, have ever suffered with depression or if you have a loved one or friend with depression. He shares how he feels a sense of complete hopelessness at times:

It descends like a black cloud that makes me almost sort of retreat into myself. And my eyes will know and I don’t want to take the world in. I don’t want to get out of bed at times. Actually, that’s one of the things that … one of the only things that actually helps me, is going to bed and lying down.

Winston Churchill famously described it as this black dog who’d come in and lay beside him at night.

“From the moment my eyes opened in the morning, I am engaged in a battle. I must protect myself with armor against ongoing, negative, intrusive thoughts that flood into my brain, while sending my prefrontal cortex, which is the home of logical thought, the green light to make decisions and take charge of my brain’s limbic system. That is, before the fear center completely spazzes out. I spend more time and energy chasing and maintaining good health than I do in any other aspect of my life. My marriage, family or work. Because I know that everything meaningful and good around me depends on a stable base. And I hope and pray that one day, I don’t have to fight so hard for my sanity.”

He talks about how he is affected by sugar and low blood sugar, and how he’s found some benefits with niacin, chromium, magnesium and tryptophan (when he’s consistent with taking them!).

Trevor actually talks about the GABA interview I did with him a few days earlier and how he’s very interested in what he learned. He is planning to do a trial of GABA to see if it can help him further.

Here is a snippet from my interview on GABA (so do tune in to this interview if you’re new to my work and the targeted amino acids):

GABA is really quite profound. When I had my anxiety, GABA was my lifesaver. It completely turned my life around. Within three days of using GABA, the panic attacks stopped and the anxiety started to go down, and then I had to look for all the other root causes. It worked immediately so I’m a complete believer, just because I’ve experienced it myself. You’ll hear a lot of people say GABA won’t work. It doesn’t cross the blood/brain barrier so it’s not going to have an impact.

We’ve now got research showing that there may be ways that it crosses the blood/brain barrier. We’ve also got research showing that we have GABA receptors in various parts of our body. We’ve got a lot in our muscles, and with low GABA symptoms you’ll have physical tension.

The beautiful thing is it works. It works quickly, and if you have these low GABA symptoms, which is the physical anxiety, which could be panic attacks. It could be stress eating, it could be drinking to calm down. If you are the kind of person who needs wine to wind down at the end of the day, that’s a big sign that you may need GABA. You take the GABA and you just feel this physical tension release from you, you know you’re onto something good.

I just wish I’d known about his struggles with depression at the time of our interview – I would have talked more about tyrosine for dopamine support (for curl up in bed depression) and DPA for endorphin boosting (for low endorphins weepy depression). 

I did discuss gluten and would consider this especially since his daughter has issues with it. I talked about low serotonin and mentioned Lidtke tryptophan.  If someone doesn’t do well on another brand I’d have them trial the Lidtke brand.  I’d also look into SIBO – I have SIBO and rice and grains make me feel flat and low and I see this often with clients.  Finally I’d look into lithium orotate for keeping an even mood. 

Trevor shares these wise words at the end of his interview:

You do find that when you actually bite the bullet and share it with people,

people are very, very understanding. And actually, you’re amazed that many people have been there themselves.

I could not agree more which is why I’ve always shared my journey with anxiety. I appreciate him for being willing to share his story with depression!

If you’re not already registered here is the registration link for That Vitamin Summit

Feel free to post questions or feedback below – and share your story with anxiety or depression if you feel drawn to do so

Children who garden have fun, eat more vegetables, and have less anxiety, depression and ADHD symptoms

By Trudy Scott 2 Comments


Little hands gathering fennel for juicing with apples and cucumber (photo: Anne Binder)

I’m sure you’d agree that children who garden have fun and that it may motivate them to actually eat more vegetables but would you expect gardening to reduce anxiety, depression and ADHD symptoms? Read on to learn more and be inspired.

My friend Anne Binder has the children at her school, Sunrise Montessori School of Roseville, participate in gardening and juicing and I just love it! She told me that the kids love gardening and that she’s been doing it with her pupils for 31 years now. They are constantly in the garden, weeding, raking, planting and reaping the benefits of their hard work.

They recently harvested some fennel that they had been growing and seeing the pictures she shared on Facebook just made my day! She kindly gave me permission to share them via a blog so here goes:

We grew the fennel and then the children picked it and we made juice with the fennel, apples and cucumber. 

This is one of my favorite pictures – the newly picked fennel with all their little feet showing! (photo: Anne Binder)

Here are just some of the things she overheard the children saying on harvest day:  

  • This is so much fun. I love fennel.
  • The leaves are beautiful.
  • Gardening is my favorite thing to do.  We have a garden at home.
  • I love tomatoes. 
  • Look at the bees

And this is some of what she heard the day they released butterflies into the garden

  • Look he’s flying into the tree.
  • Are they going to come back?
  • Oh look it wants to stay at our school!

And then it was time to juice the fennel with apples and cucumbers and they all got stuck in

They loved it. They also loved the lovely licorice smell of the leaves and fennel was new to all of them. None of them had seen it or eaten it before – but they were good sports and tried it. I also cut up slivers of fennel to taste by itself and most of them tried it too.

Anne shows them how to use the juicer (photo: Anne Binder)
Enthusiastic little hands working the juicer (photos: Anne Binder)

What fun! What joy! And what a wonderful learning opportunity for these kids!

Other than the fun factor, this type of activity has far-reaching impacts in terms of their future vegetable and fruit consumption, and even their mental health and focus.

Gardening has an impact on vegetable preference and consumption as reported in this 2016 paper – Previous Gardening Experience and Gardening Enjoyment Is Related to Vegetable Preferences and Consumption Among Low-Income Elementary School Children.

Children with more gardening experience had greater vegetable exposure and higher vegetable preference and consumed more vegetables compared with children who reported less gardening experience.

And this paper – Involving children in cooking activities: A potential strategy for directing food choices toward novel foods containing vegetables concludes that these cooking activities.

can increase their willingness to taste novel foods and direct food choices towards foods containing vegetables.

As always I like to make the connection to anxiety, mental health, ADHD and overall well-being. There is actually research that supports how good you feel after spending time outdoors and in the garden.

In this 2016 paper – Gardening is beneficial for health: A meta-analysis the authors report:

a wide range of health outcomes, such as reductions in depression, anxiety, and body mass index, as well as increases in life satisfaction, quality of life, and sense of community.

In a recent blog I write about how Most children with anxiety relapse, regardless of treatment: Now is the time for Nutritional Psychiatry! Let us also add gardening to the mix!

In this paper – A Potential Natural Treatment for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Evidence From a National Study

Green outdoor settings appear to reduce ADHD symptoms in children across a wide range of individual, residential, and case characteristics.

And in this paper Home Gardening and the Health and Well-Being of Adolescents, the authors report that gardening was

positively associated with physical activity and improved mental health and well-being. Students who participate in gardening report slightly lower levels of depressive symptoms and enhanced emotional well-being and experience higher family connection than students who do not participate in gardening.

They conclude that we should be including gardening in future interventions for young people and I couldn’t agree more.

I hope these pictures and the research has inspired you to get out and do some gardening with the children in your life, either at home or at school or in a community setting.

If you are already doing some form of gardening or food activity with children please feel free to share so we can inspire more of this.

Finally, a thank you to Anne and your pupils for making my day and inspiring this blog post!

Drainage and liver-bile duct-gallbladder support for Lyme disease

By Trudy Scott 4 Comments

Dr Jay Davidson, host The Chronic Lyme Disease Summit 2 shares the powerful story of how he became a Lyme expert because of his own wife’s crash with Lyme disease when their daughter was born. I just love that he offers hope:

there is actually hope out there no matter how much crud you’ve been through and how many crazy things you went through

He shares the 5 steps from his book: 5 Steps to Restoring Health Protocol

  • Step one is detect, and that’s all about figuring out what are all the pieces to the puzzle. Because if we can’t figure out what the pieces are, we can’t create a road map of where we need to go, right.
  • The second step is drain. And I want to talk a lot about that today, because that’s something I believe that can improve any protocol, any treatment that you’re going through; drainage, drainage, drainage.
  • Step three is elimination or pathogen elimination or if you just want to think of it as like killing pathogens.
  • Step four is about rebuilding tissues, and it’s very dependent on what’s going on with your body as to where we need to focus with rebuilding the tissues.
  • Step five is detoxification.

And goes into what drainage is and why it’s so important when it comes to Lyme disease, heavy metal detox and healing in general:

Drainage, I think more of the pathways. So you could say, okay, what are the pathways? I think of the colon, like going number two, pooping, that’s a pathway. So if you are not going number two at least once a day, if not twice a day, and having good bowel movements then that’s a sign that drainage pathway is not open.

The kidneys are drainers; the skin, just the ability to sweat; the liver-bile duct system; the brain; lymphatic system; these are all drainers.

And so if we focus on the idea of draining just to make sure these pathways are open and moving. Then when we get to a point where we’re going to kill bugs or kill pathogens and/or detoxify toxins, heavy metals – get these things out of our body – if the drainage pathways are open, the body does well.

If the drainage pathways are clogged, then that’s when these things can’t move – like the metals, these pathogens like Lyme – they can’t move out of the body. So therefore, the debris or the chemical creates inflammation, and that’s what makes us to have these reactions. We call them Herxheimer reactions.

Dr Jay goes into more detail on the number one drainage area he focuses on with his patients – the liver-bile duct-gallbladder area and how it impacts:

  • the lymphatic system
  • stomach acid and digestion
  • exposure to pathogens

And he shares how to use ox bile, dandelion tea, activated charcoal, coffee enemas and castor oil packs to support the liver-bile duct-gallbladder area and improve drainage.

He’s also excited to share a liver support product that is new to me. It’s called TUDCA or tauroursodeoxycholic acid and I certainly look forward to learning more about it!

The Chronic Lyme Disease Summit 2 runs June 19-26, 2017 and Dr Jay’s interview airs on day 1 of the summit.

Lyme disease is quickly spreading across the entire globe – very few are enlightened on this troublesome condition! We know that 300,000+ people per year contract Lyme, and 2017 is predicted by some to be an incredibly risky year! And according to the CDC, every single year there are more people affected with Lyme disease than breast cancer. That’s why Dr. Jay Davidson is hosting the second summit on this topic with only 2 repeat speakers from 2016.

Last year I was interviewed on Lyme anxiety and how to use GABA and other amino acids to ease the anxiety while you are working on addressing the Lyme disease. I’m not speaking this year but last year’s summit was so good and very popular with my community so I want you to know about it in case your health challenges are due to Lyme disease. I’ve seen the line-up this year and I’m excited to learn from these experts.

This summit will help you understand symptoms (common and rare), diagnosis and testing, practical at-home health tips, healing protocol explanations and more!

So much of what you’ll learn on this summit is applicable for you if you have Lyme BUT much of it will be valuable if you’re dealing with any health issue (like this drainage interview).

Register here for The Chronic Lyme Disease Summit 2

Feel free to post questions or feedback below.

How to make sugar cravings go away without massive willpower or without feeling deprived

By Trudy Scott 6 Comments

Do you believe that you can actually make sugar cravings go away without massive willpower or without feeling deprived? I’m going to tell you that is really is possible no matter how crazy it sounds! And share how to do it!

I was recently quoted in this great article: Is our addiction to sugar a spiritual crisis? Find out how to think your life sweeter, naturally, written by the talented Lisa Sanfilippo.

Lisa shares such a great description of how we get a hit of dopamine when we consume sugar in the same way addictive drugs give you that hit. Nicole Avena’s writings and videos illustrate:

how receptors on the tongue trip off the brain to ping its reward system. A hit of the brain chemical dopamine signals, ‘Oh, that’s good.’ A warm fuzzy feeling ensues. And we want to do the thing that stimulated that feeling again. Addictive drugs such as cocaine, nicotine, alcohol and heroin also stimulate this ‘feels-good-do-it-again’ pathway. Our brains light up when we think about a treat or a ‘hit’. The wanting or craving sets it in motion, too. We may not realise it but we are in a relationship with the thing that makes us feel good, even if it damages us.

When your brain chemistry is out of whack, you self-medicate with alcohol, painkillers, street drugs, or the most socially-acceptable and readily available of all – sugar. Here is my contribution to the article:

‘We must understand why sugar affects our brain chemistry like addictive drugs. We may use sugar to concentrate better, feel calmer or get happy when we’re low.’ But, Trudy says, ‘If we get the right nutritional balance or take specific amino acid supplements, we can boost the needed neurotransmitters, so that cravings go away without requiring massive willpower or without feeling deprived.’ Her recipe? Supplements. ‘Tyrosine boosts dopamine for concentration, GABA makes you feel calmer, and tryptophan boosts serotonin for happiness.’ So, a trip to a qualified nutritionist might help us to stop drugging with sugar.

You can read Lisa’s entire article here. I really love how she describes our unhealthy relationship with sugar, how she discovered she was self-medicating with the stuff and of course, some of the other practical advice like yoga for stress reduction.

Let’s take a deeper look into the imbalanced brain chemistry and addictions or cravings. I see this all the time when you have low levels of any of the neurotransmitters and by addressing these low levels with targeted individual amino acids you really can end the sugar cravings without massive willpower or without feeling deprived. Low levels of dopamine, low serotonin, low GABA and even low blood sugar and low endorphins can be addressed in this way.

Let’s look at low endorphins. The big problem with low endorphins is comfort eating and emotional eating. It’s like: “This is my reward. This is my treat. I deserve it.” And when you consume carbohydrates or sugar like a bowl of ice cream, a bowl of cereal and milk, a chocolate chip cookie, you feel like “this is my reward. I deserve it.” The amino acid DPA boosts endorphins and ends this comfort and emotional eating and the sad, weepy mood we see with low endorphins improves too.

When it comes to low serotonin you are going to crave sugar and carbs in the afternoon and evening. And we will also have the low serotonin mood symptoms which are depression, the worry type of anxiety, the ruminating thoughts, the worry and the fear.

And if you’re looking for resources on how to use amino acids to make sugar cravings go away without massive willpower or without feeling deprived here is some additional information:

In this blog post – Neurotransmitters in food addiction: dopamine, endorphins, GABA and serotonin you can read Meme Grant’s feedback after using the amino acids after participating in my Amazing Aminos for Ending Emotional Eating program:

I still am amazed at how quickly the panic attacks, binge eating, and mood swings disappeared. Tyrosine enabled me to focus and gave me energy to do things again, glutamine allowed me to walk past the gluten and dairy free junk foods, d-phenylalanine [DPA] stopped my comfort eating, tryptophan enabled me to stop my negative thoughts and helped me sleep but the best was when GABA was introduced, the panic attacks disappeared.

You may notice that the amino acids eliminated her cravings AND helped her mood, anxiety and panic attacks.

How have the amino acids helped eliminate your sugar cravings and addictions? Were you surprised that you were able to quit without massive willpower or without feeling deprived?

If this is new to you what questions do you have and what have you already tried for reducing your sugar cravings?