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Pyroluria and chronic fatigue syndrome: is there a link?

By Trudy Scott 21 Comments

pyroluria and chronic fatigue

Last week I blogged about the social anxiety condition called pyroluria (Pyroluria, high mauve, pyrrole disorder, malvaria, elevated kryptopyrroles and social anxiety) and received some great comments on this and the other pyroluria blogs.

One question on this blog: The Anxiety Summit: How zinc and vitamin B6 prevent pyroluria and social anxiety was related to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/CFS so I’ve decided to share this and some additional information I was able to find.

Hi Trudy, I’m calling from Melbourne Australia, I was wondering if you have had any of your clients present with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as well as pyroluria. I have just recently been diagnosed with CFS, I also have ADHD. Someone on a CFS forum that I belong to told me about pyroluria and said it is common in ADHD and CFS sufferers. While the link between ADHD and pyroluria is well documented, I haven’t been able to find any information regarding a connection between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and pyroluria. I notice that there is an overlap of symptoms in the two conditions. I have all of the symptoms of CFS and many of the symptoms of pyroluria. I’m very interested in hearing your views about CFS and how it relates to pyroluria if at all. — Tom

I was not aware of a CFS/pyroluria connection until now but see there is some research showing how CFS and mood disorders/anxiety can have related causes and one of them is inflammation:

An intriguing and hitherto unexplained co-occurrence: Depression and chronic fatigue syndrome are manifestations of shared inflammatory, oxidative and nitrosative (IO&NS) pathways

Low zinc is a factor in pyroluria and depression and of course we may also see low zinc in CFS:

Lower serum zinc in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS): relationships to immune dysfunctions and relevance for the oxidative stress status in CFS

I find this paper very interesting since many of these same nutrients are commonly low in folks with anxiety and depression: Nutritional strategies for treating chronic fatigue syndrome

A detailed review of the literature suggests a number of marginal nutritional deficiencies may have etiologic relevance. These include deficiencies of various B vitamins, vitamin C, magnesium, sodium, zinc, L-tryptophan, L-carnitine, coenzyme Q10, and essential fatty acids.

I’m surprised the above paper didn’t mention iron anemia.  This is very common with pyroluria.  This paper: Iron insufficiency and hypovitaminosis D in adolescents with chronic fatigue and orthostatic intolerance found this

In patients presenting with chronic fatigue and/or orthostatic intolerance, low ferritin levels and hypovitaminosis D are common

These are just a few of the links I found by doing a very quick pubmed search. There are likely many more.

Everything is so connected and inter-related! And it’s interesting how certain deficiencies can manifest in certain ways – one person may find themselves with a CFS diagnosis, someone else with arthritis and yet someone else with heart disease. I think we need to be thinking about addressing nutrient deficiencies, balancing biochemistry and getting healthy, perhaps more just than addressing a diagnosis.

If you score high on the Pyroluria Questionnaire I would suggest simply addressing the pyroluria which may have some ripple down effects and actually improve the symptoms of CFS.

Now the next post will have to dig into the link between ADHD and pyroluria. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I’d love to see your comments/questions if you can relate to any of this. Also, please do share in the comments if you know you have pyroluria and find the nutrients have eliminated your social anxiety and inner tension symptoms, and have also helped your CFS.

 

The surprisingly dramatic role of nutrition in mental health: Julia Rucklidge at TEDx

By Trudy Scott 29 Comments

Julia Rucklidge

Julia Rucklidge, PhD, researcher from New Zealand, recently did this amazing TEDx talk called: The surprisingly dramatic role of nutrition in mental health

I love how she opens with:

what I’m going to share today may sound as radical as hand-washing sounded to a mid-19th century doctor and yet it is equally scientific. It is the simple idea that optimizing nutrition is a safe and viable way to avoid, treat or lessen mental illness. Nutrition matters. Poor nutrition is a significant and modifiable risk factor for the development of mental illness

Here are some real gems from her talk:

A well-nourished body and brain is better able to withstand ongoing stress

When people get well they get well in all areas: improved sleep, mood stabilization, reduction in anxiety and less need for cigarettes/cannabis/alcohol.

My research and other research from around the world show 60-70% of people respond to micronutrients – this shows just how powerful this intervention is

We should focus on food and lifestyle changes and exercise first, then therapy and save medications for when these approaches don’t work

I’d like to share the ending of Julia Rucklidge’s talk. She shares the story of how limes on ships in the 1600s eliminated deaths from scurvy but that it took 264 years for the British government to mandate the use of citrus on ships. She closes with this profound question and challenge:

How long will it take us to recognize that that sub-optimal nutrition is contributing to the epidemic of mental illness? Nutrition matters!

Bravo Julia! And thank you for all the great research you’re doing! We appreciate you!

UPDATE: June 8, 2018

I have decided to update the blog and share it again because Professor Rucklidge is sharing powerful research-based evidence about food-as-medicine for mental health and her talk is being flagged/censored by TEDx and this is not acceptable!

Professor Bonnie J. Kaplan, PhD, from the University of Calgary shared this information with me via an email:

There have been almost 900,000 views of Julia Rucklidge’s TEDx talk on nutrition and mental health, with many complimentary comments. Last week, however, the TED organization inexplicably “flagged” the video with the following comment:

“NOTE FROM TED: We’ve flagged this talk, which was filmed at a TEDx event, because it appears to fall outside TEDx’s curatorial guidelines. There is limited evidence to support the claims made by this speaker.”

Julia has attempted to educate the TED people regarding the fact that over 35 peer-reviewed publications could hardly be described as “limited evidence,” and that her interpretations do not go beyond the data. But they are not interested in her evidence.

The whole thing seems so strange: isn’t TED supposed to be all about innovation? But clearly, some lobbyist has convinced them that a non-pharmaceutical treatment should not be respected.

I’m sharing it again and updating the blog so you can watch it again or watch it for the first time and be inspired and have hope!

We’d like to ask for your help in please sharing too. Let us support her work and all the nutritional psychiatry researchers at ISNPR and around the world!

  • Even if you have already watched it, please click on it again and watch again (click on the video link above or use this link)
  • Share the youtube video and/or this blog with others, through Facebook or email or twitter or word of mouth (or all of the above)
  • Comment below the youtube video and/or comment on this blog of mine
  • Ask your friends, family and colleagues to do the same

More about Professor Rucklidge’s research interests

Professor Rucklidge’s research interests are centered on the role of nutrition in the expression and treatment of mental illness, from ADHD to depression to stress following natural disasters. Research methodologies include single case research designs, open label trials and randomized controlled trials.

  • ADHD
  • Child and adolescent clinical psychology
  • Clinical psychology
  • Learning disabilities
  • Young Offending
  • Earthquake research
  • Nutritional interventions
  • Mood Disorders

Some of her publications on micronutrients

Overall, people from the general population who suffer from mood and anxiety problems may benefit from improved nutritional status achieved with nutritional supplements.

Micronutrients improved overall function, reduced impairment and improved inattention, emotional regulation and aggression, but not hyperactive/impulsive symptoms, in this sample of children with ADHD. Although direct benefit for core ADHD symptoms was modest, with mixed findings across raters, the low rate of adverse effects and the benefits reported across multiple areas of functioning indicate micronutrients may be a favourable option for some children, particularly those with both ADHD and emotional dysregulation.

 

 Nutritional medicine as mainstream in psychiatry

Professor Rucklidge is also a contributing author to Nutritional medicine as mainstream in psychiatry which I blog about here

Psychiatry is at an important juncture, with the current pharmacologically focused model having achieved modest benefits in addressing the burden of poor mental health worldwide. Although the determinants of mental health are complex, the emerging and compelling evidence for nutrition as a crucial factor in the high prevalence and incidence of mental disorders suggests that diet is as important to psychiatry as it is to cardiology, endocrinology, and gastroenterology. Evidence is steadily growing for the relation between dietary quality (and potential nutritional deficiencies) and mental health, and for the select use of nutrient-based supplements to address deficiencies, or as monotherapies or augmentation therapies.

As you can tell I’m a big fan of her research work and what an honor it was for me to interview her on one of the Anxiety Summits: What if… Nutrition could Treat Anxiety and Depression? She shared wise words then than seem very relevant to this censorship of her TEDx talk:

How long is it going to take our society to pay attention to the research that shows that suboptimal nutrition is contributing to the epidemic of mental illness? Are we just going to sit around and ignore this evidence to our peril? Or are we going to start paying attention and start to invest in the really important research that needs to happen?

It was a thrill to then finally meet her in person last year at the ISNPR conference.

Julia Rucklidge and Trudy Scott
Meeting Julia Rucklidge at the ISNPR conference

This nutritional psychiatry work is widely supported by many practitioners

This nutritional psychiatry work is widely supported by many practitioners. Last year I interviewed Dr. Mark Hyman MD, creator of the Broken Brain series and author of What the Heck Should I Eat? In our interview he talks about somatopsychic medicine i.e. mental health symptoms caused by bodily illness and shares this about when he started to make this connection years ago:

I was just treating people’s physical systems, fixing their gut, helping their immune system, cleaning up their diet, optimizing their nutritional status, balancing their hormones, and all their mental problems would get better.

Their anxiety would get better, their depression would get better, and I wasn’t actually treating the depression or anxiety. Autism, ADD, memory issues, dementia, all these things would start to get better

And I began to realize that the body was driving a lot of this brain dysfunction, and that if you fix the body, a lot of the brain disorders would get better, that it wasn’t a primarily a mental problem, but it was a physical problem.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens, clinical psychologist and board-certified nutrition specialist, shares this about the talk:

This is an extremely important evidence-based talk on a topic that is moving the field of mental health forward. As a clinical psychologist and board-certified nutrition specialist, I see daily the positive impact that nutrition can have on mental health for children and adults. More than medication and talk therapy is needed to reduce symptoms for many people with these challenges, and nutrition is an accessible research-based option. I often recommend this video to patients and their families.

Dr. Beurkens is also speaker on a prior Anxiety Summit. It’s now in it’s fourth season and I’ve the wonderful opportunity to interview and share the nutritional psychiatry wisdom from over 70 practitioners, researchers, mental advocates and clients.

So much wonderful feedback from study participants

There is so much wonderful feedback in the comments below the youtube video. I love this comment from a study participant from New Zealand, Deidre Fraser:

I’m a pretty ordinary Kiwi, not particularly alternative. I don’t have a big appetite for risk. But I have participated in one of Julia Rucklidge’s studies and my family has benefited hugely from the introduction to, and continued use of micronutrients. Could we have achieved the same result using a pharmaceutical medicine? Some behaviours would have likely been addressed, but and it is a big BUT, one of the side effects (unexpected) would NOT have been improved happiness and self-worth, which resulted in better friendships – pretty basic things we all want from life!

We also got increased focus and the noticeably different academic performance that we thought we wanted (We just hadn’t realised that should be the secondary objective).

I don’t really understand the science behind it all, but the empirical research and published journals are there to support micronutrients as a valid option with verifiable research outcomes.

And SP Hancock shares these compelling results:

I’m so grateful for this presentation. It compelled me to find a medical doctor who looks at symptoms of mental illness from a perspective other than traditional psychiatry. He helped me heal my gut so that I can get the micronutrients I need from my food choices. 2 years ago I was using the micronutrient supplement Dr. Rucklidge had diligently researched for more than a decade. Today, I no longer need supplementation because my gut can absorb micronutrients from my food. I have been off medications for three years now–completely stable using only food after having lived for nearly two decades with acute symptoms of refractory schizoaffective disorder bipolar type with catatonia. Thank you Dr. Rucklidge for your structured, independently funded studies. Your hard work and sound research methodology gave me the courage to find a doctor willing to look at my symptoms from a fresh perspective. Keep up the exceptional work!

I hope this has inspired you to keep seeking a solution if you are still on your healing journey or and even if you have found your solution. Either way we’d love your help in getting this message out to more people so please share share and share!

Professor Bonnie Kaplan says: “Let’s see if we can quadruple the views to 5 million or so.” I’m sure we can! Thank you!

Organic foods, Stanford study, pesticides and the brain

By Trudy Scott 9 Comments

Conventional peppers are highly sprayed with pesticides

We should be concerned about non-organic produce and pesticides despite the recent research published by Stanford: Smith-Spangler C, Brandeau ML et al. 2012. Are Organic Foods Safer or Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives?: A Systematic Review. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2012;157(5):348-366

There are two parts to this study:

  • the study states there is no difference between the nutrient values in organic vs non-organic produce : “The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods.” However it appears some studies that do show differences were not included in the review – see Jeff Cox’s blog below
  • the study recognizes that pesticides are present in non-organic produce but that they are possibly nothing to be concerned about. I disagree with this and will show you the evidence.

The focus of this article is to address this statement in the conclusion: “Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues…” and why it’s important.

Let’s look at the some of the research around pesticide exposure and how this can affect the brain, cognition, ADHD, anxiety and depression in particular.

Mearns J, Dunn J et al. 1994. Psychological effects of organophosphate pesticides: A review and call for research by psychologists. Journal of Clinical Psychology 50(2):286-294.

Organophosphates (a commonly used toxic pesticide) “act directly on the nervous system by inhibiting the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.” They have “acute psychological and behavioral effects, such as anxiety, depression, and cognitive impairments.” The researchers suggest that long-term psychological effects of low-level exposure have not been determined satisfactorily.

Mackenzie Ross SJ, Brewin CR et al. 2010. Neuropsychological and psychiatric functioning in sheep farmers exposed to low levels of organophosphate pesticides. Neurotoxicoly and Teratology.32(4):452-459.

In this study sheep framers exposed to low levels of organophosphate pesticides experienced increased anxiety and depression, as well as worse cognitive function and memory.

Bouchard MF, Bellinger DC et al. 2010. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and urinary metabolites of organophosphate pesticides. Pediatrics 125(6):e1270-1277.

More recently, this study found that even low levels of pesticides in conventionally grown vegetables and fruit increased the risk of developing attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in 8 to 15 years of age.

Cherry N, Burstyn I et al. 2012. Mental health in Alberta grain farmers using pesticides over many years. Occup Med (Lond) 62(6):400-6.

When it comes to elderly grain farmers in Alberta those “with mental ill-health in hospital discharge records were more likely to have been exposed to phenoxy compounds for ≥35 years.”

Coleman MD, O’Neil JD et al. 2012. A preliminary investigation into the impact of a pesticide combination on human neuronal and glial cell lines in vitro. PLoS One. 7(8):e42768.

This study found that certain fungicides (pyrimethanil, cyprodinil and fludioxonil), alone and also in combination “showed significant reductions in cellular ATP.” “The effects on energy metabolism were reflected in their marked toxic effects on mitochondrial membrane potential.” There was also “evidence of oxidative stress.” The authors conclude: “This report suggests that the impact of some pesticides, both individually and in combinations, merits further study in terms of their impact on human cellular health.”

Braquenier JB, Quertemont E et al. 2010. Anxiety in adult female mice following perinatal exposure to chlorpyrifos. Neurotoxicol Teratol. 32(2):234-9.

In this study “chronic perinatal exposure to low doses” of insecticides led to an increase in anxiety in the offspring of female mice. The authors suggest that “the routes of administration and the duration of exposure during brain development may be factors to consider when studying the development of anxiety.”

Malhotra A, Nair P et al. 2011. Efficacy of zinc as a nutritional supplement in ameliorating chlorpyrifos-induced neurotoxicity in rats. J Environ Pathol Toxicol Oncol. 2011;30(3):225-33.

This animal study found that pesticide exposure resulted in an “increase in the levels of lipid peroxidation and reactive oxygen species in both cerebellum and cerebrum.” Also, glutathione (a potent detoxifier) was decreased and anxiety levels were increased. The interesting thing is that researchers concluded that zinc (one of my favorite nutrients for anxiety and depression) “has potential to act as a neuroprotectant against pesticide-induced neurodegenerative and behavioral disorders but further investigations need to be conducted to understand the exact mechanism of neuroprotection.”

I’m encouraged by this research and look forward to further studies that will examine the impacts of pesticides on the nervous system. So yes, we obviously do need to be concerned about pesticides in the produce we consume. This August 2012 Neurotoxicology paper states it well: “The association between pesticide exposure and neurobehavioral and neurodevelopmental effects is an area of increasing concern .”

Footnote and additional reading:

This is the headline of one of the original Stanford blogs: Little evidence of health benefits from organic foods, Stanford study finds.

Much of the media used this and ran with it. Here is the article on ScienceDaily.com  NPR’s food blog, The Salt took the same approach as did Huffington Post and others.

Thank you France Moore Lappe for your wisdom: Stanford Scientists Shockingly Reckless on Health Risk And Organics.   And Mike Adams, the Health Ranger writes: Flawed organic foods study really just a media psyop to confuse the public about organics while pushing GMOs.   Jeff Cox, shares some of the nutrient research that seems to be missing from the Stanford study in his blog:  Monsanto’s Tricky Plan to Defeat GMO Labeling?