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Tryptophan for my teenager: she laughs and smiles, her OCD and anxiety has lessened, and she is more goal oriented and focused on school.

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tryptophan teenager

A mom posted wonderful feedback on a recent blog post on ADHD and 5-HTP, sharing how how tryptophan has helped her daughter in ways that didn’t even realize were an issue. She was shocked to see so many improvements and she called it a miracle experience. Here is the feedback Kathy shared:

We had a “miracle” experience with adding L-Tryptophan 300mg at bedtime for my teenager. I was shocked to see how much it improved my child, especially in ways that I didn’t even realize were an issue.

  • The results were like my teenager coming out of a fog, and also like my child was when she was younger.
  • She became more engaged with the family and did a lot less isolating.
  • She suddenly had interest in activities she had never pursued before. For instance, she wanted to start playing team sports after having played nothing for years. She wanted to do family game night! Before, we couldn’t force her to do it, and now it was her idea.
  • Her thoughts seemed to quiet down and were more organized.
  • Her OCD [obsessive compulsive disorder] and anxiety symptoms lessened.
  • She became more goal oriented and focused on school.
  • She laughs and smiles more!

We were most shocked because what we thought was normal teenage development was actually depression that we had no idea was there.

Tryptophan has been the most effective supplement we have ever used, and we have used a lot. We experimented with the dose until we ended up on 3 at bedtime. The brand we used was the Lidtke L-Tryptophan.

This did not cure her ADD [attention deficit disorder], but definitely improved her executive functioning. We tried GABA and saw no improvement with that. We have tinkered with L-Tyrosine, but haven’t been able to get on a steady dose of it yet to see if it will also help.

Thank you for giving us the idea to try!

I thanked Kathy for sharing the wonderful results her daughter has experienced with the Lidtke Tryptophan and how happy I was for both of them! I love all the surprise benefits she saw and appreciate this feedback: “This has been the most effective supplement we have ever used, and we have used a lot.” I hear this a lot – tryptophan and GABA are game-changers for so many of my clients.

I have these questions I posed to this mom and hope to hear back as I feel these answers may be helpful for other parents and practitioners who work with children and teens:

  • Did she use 3 x chewable 100mg tryptophan or did they open the 500mg capsule
  • What did the trial look like for them to end up with 300mg at night?
  • What made her decide to trial tryptophan instead of 5-HTP?
  • What made you decide to even trial tryptophan – was it her daughter’s anxiety and OCD?
  • Was her daughter willing to trial tryptophan initially or was there resistance?

I’ll report back once I get Kathy’s feedback.

Updated Feb 26, 2021: Kathy’s additional feedback

I read all your blog articles and listened to some of your talks. I made a chart of symptoms and then decided to try GABA Calm first.

Since that didn’t help, the next logical choice for us was Tryptophan. My daughter has a lot of anxiety, intrusive thoughts and other OCD symptoms. The reason I didn’t trial the 5HTP first was because my daughter has some PTSD like startle responses, and since you said it isn’t good if you have high cortisol, I just made the guess that she might due to her startle response.

With the Lidtke brand, we used the [500mg] capsules and I did not open them up. My teen would not have gone for that because she already takes a lot of supplements and medication because she is being treated for Lyme and Bartonella. She is cooperative with taking all the supplements/medication. We started at 1 capsule a night for probably 5 days and saw no difference, then went to two for another 5 days, and then landed on 3 when we noticed the dramatic change.

Even her LLMD [Lyme literate MD] was shocked at how differently she interacted with her in our last appointment.

Normal teenage development or really depression?

I also have to wonder how many other parents would say this after addressing low serotonin levels in their daughters and/or sons: “We were most shocked because what we thought was normal teenage development was actually depression that we had no idea was there.” I suspect the number would be high, especially given the growing incidence of anxiety and depression in teens.

Also, according to the ADAA/Anxiety and Depression Association of America “80 percent of kids with a diagnosable anxiety disorder and 60 percent of kids with diagnosable depression are not getting treatment.”

Now that Kathy has seen these wonderful changes in her daughter, I’d love to know – if she could go back in time – what questions would she have asked her anxious and depressed daughter so she could help her with solutions sooner?

And what would she suggest to other parents to be looking out for in order to identify anxiety and depression in their children (who often cannot adequately articulate that they do feel anxious and/or depressed)?

If you’re new to tryptophan and low serotonin symptoms

In case you’re new to tryptophan, it is an amino acid that is used as a supplement to support low levels of serotonin. With low serotonin we the worry-in-your-head and ruminating type of anxiety, panic attacks and phobias, lack of confidence, depression, negativity, imposter syndrome, PMS, irritability, anger issues, insomnia and afternoon/evening cravings.

My thoughts on addressing the ADD/inattention issues

Here are my thoughts for her as a starting point for helping to address her daughter’s residual ADD/inattention symptoms:

  • When someone does well with tryptophan at night, we often trial 5-HTP in the day too. As I shared in a recent blog, this mom shared how 5-HTP melts helped with ADHD symptoms one of her adopted kids was experiencing. She also called it a miracle!
  • A tyrosine trial may also be worth considering because low catecholamines lead to poor focus and feelings of calm focus are reported with tyrosine. However we also see low energy, low motivation and depression with low catecholamines which no longer seem to be an issue – so I’m not sure if tyrosine would help.
  • L-theanine may work better than the GABA they tried. Research shows it helps with cognitive function specifically improvements in verbal fluency (especially letter fluency) and improvements in executive function (planning, multi-tasking etc).
  • With inattention issues it’s also key to look at low blood sugar, gluten and sugar consumption, low iron, low zinc and low omega-3s.
  • If there was hyperactivity with the inattention then we’d look at salicylates in the diet as they can cause behaviour issues. This doesn’t seem to be the issue but a big clue would be red cheeks and ears that are not from the heat.
  • Consider the Ayurvedic herb Bacopa monnieri which has been shown to improve “visual perception, impulsivity, and attention” in children and adults.
  • Consider the herb saffron (Crocus sativus) which has “memory-enhancing and antidepressant effects” and has been shown to be as effective as Methylphenidate/Ritalin.

I love hearing heartwarming stories like this and I am sharing it here to inspire and offer hope!

Please do share your success story on the blog so we can all learn from each other, as well as inspire and offer hope.

How has tryptophan helped you or your child? What has helped with inattention?

Feel free to post your questions and feedback in the comments below.

ADHD and psychiatric meds in children/teens on the rise, and benzodiazepine use increases mortality in adults (including suicide)

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meds teens children

Registration for my Anxiety Summit 6: Toxins/Meds/Infections is now open and in the spirit of continuing to share valuable snippets leading up to the summit, here goes for today.

(If you’ve already registered I do hope you find these snippets of value and they help you figure out more about which interviews to tune into first. If you’re only hearing about the summit for the first time, you can register here)

Today I want to highlight some aspects from two of the interviews on psychiatric medications.

In the interview Psychiatric Medications in Children and Teens with Dr. Nicole Beurkens, we discuss these results from a 2019 paper:

  • Our study indicates that the rate of presentation to child and adolescent psychiatry outpatient clinics is increasing, and rates of diagnosis and initiation of psychiatry drugs are high among the presented children.
  • The prevalence of ADHD shows an increase in males and females in our country, and psychiatric polypharmacy has reached significant rates.

Polypharmacy means concurrent use of multiple medications by a patient. The fact that psychiatric polypharmacy is increasing in children and adolescents is most concerning. There are safer solutions that address the root causes of ADHD, anxiety and depression.

Here is what we cover in this interview:

  • Increasing ADHD, anti-anxiety, SSRI and antipsychotic meds and discontinuation syndrome
  • Disparities in BIPOC communities;
  • Psychiatric side effects of acne, constipation and asthma medications
  • Nutritional psychiatry/targeted nutrients/gut, sleep, movement, screen time and play

nicole beurkens interview

In the interview SSRIs, Benzodiazepines, Alcohol and Amino acids with Dr. Hyla Cass, she shares how benzodiazepines (a class of antianxiety medications that include Xanax, Ativan, Valium and others) are:

  • strongly associated with all cause mortality, including suicide (even when used for short durations of treatment
  • the cause of many accidents even if taken the previous day

Here is what we cover in this interview:

  • SSRI and benzodiazepine side-effects
  • Discontinuation syndrome, pre-taper protocols and tapering
  • The harmful effects of alcohol and the impacts on sleep
  • The dangers of combining alcohol with benzodiazepines, and the risks of antabuse (commonly used in alcohol addiction treatment plans)
  • GABA, tryptophan, 5-HTP, glutamine, DPA, CBD and key nutrient co-factors for medication taper, alcohol addiction, carb cravings and anxiety

hyla cass interview

Dr. Nicole Beurkens’ interview is focused on children and adolescents, and Dr. Hyla Cass’ interview is focused on adults but both are invaluable resources if you want to learn more about psychiatric medications, discontinuation syndrome, tapering and addressing the root-causes with nutritional other non-medication solutions.

Other related medication interviews of interest would be:

  • GABA and Tryptophan vs Meds for Hormone Balance – one of my 3 interviews (I also cover the birth control pill and more about using the amino acids)
  • Benzodiazepines: Short-Term Benefits, Long-Term Harms – Catherine M. Pittman, PhD, HSPP
  • 5-HTP: Anxiety, Depression, Insomnia and Liver Protection – Michael Murray, ND (he shares studies comparing 5-HTP to SSRIs)
  • Neuropsychiatric Toxicity from Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics – Lisa Bloomquist
  • Your Brain on Food: Anxiety, OCD and PTSD – Uma Naidoo, MD, PCP (she also shares studies comparing psychiatric meds to NAC and inositol)

In case you missed the first few emails about the summit … as you know, anxiety can be related to your daily life experiences BUT it can also be triggered by:

  • foods you eat and what you drink (like wheat, oxalates, alcohol and more)
  • environmental toxins (like lead, plastics, fragrances, insecticides, fluoride and more)
  • many types of medications (like the benzos/SSRIs, birth control pill, acne medication, fluoroquinolone antibiotics and more) and/or
  • chronic infections (like Lyme disease, PANDAS, parasites, candida and more).

Once you identify the root causes and understand anxiety’s mechanisms you can support the liver/gallbladder, detox, address infections, implement targeted and supportive solutions, and get relief!

This is my 6th Anxiety Summit, featuring all new topics and the latest research related to anxiety and toxins, medications and infections.

anxiety summit 6

Over the course of the next 6 weeks you’ll be seeing frequent emails from me with snippets and highlights from various interviews – like this one. I do hope you continue to enjoy them and get excited about the summit! Please do share if you know someone who has anxiety!

You’ve heard me say the Anxiety Summit has been called “a bouquet of hope!”  My wish for you is that this summit is your bouquet of hope!

I hope you’ll join me and these incredible speakers, be enlightened and find YOUR solutions!

Here’s to no more anxiety and you feeling on top of the world again!

Register here

 

If you’re already familiar with some of this information and practice some of this already please share how it’s helped you. That way we can all learn.

If you’d like to ask a question, please post in the comments below.

I’d also love to hear from you once you’ve listened to this interview. Please do come back and comment about some of the highlights of this interview and what changes you plan to make.

Even if you already receive my newsletters and signed up some time ago to be notified about the upcoming Anxiety Summit 6, you will still need to register at the new link here, because Health Talks Online is doing the production and backend work for me.

If you don’t register you won’t get access to the daily summit emails with all the interviews.

You will however, continue to get these emails from me.

This is my 6th Anxiety Summit and it is all new content!

The content is research-based and practical, and is geared to anxious individuals who are health-savvy and to practitioners who work with anxious individuals.

If you are totally new to functional medicine and nutritional solutions for anxiety, you will still learn so much so just take in what you can and know you’ll get all this eventually.

Buddy Bench for introverted adults with social anxiety, shyness and feelings of overwhelm?

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buddy-bench

Buddy Benches or Friendship Benches are being used in many countries around the world in schools to help children who feel lonely or are shy or anxious. I propose we do something similar for introverted adults with social anxiety, shyness and feelings of overwhelm or intimidation when they attend conferences.

This BBC article, How ‘Buddy Benches’ are making playtime less lonely shares this about how they are helping children fit in more:

The school playground can be a lonely place for a child if they haven’t got anyone to play with. But a special type of bench is helping pupils make friends.

The idea is simple – if a child feels lonely, they can go to the bench as a signal that they need someone to play with. Another child will see them, go and talk to them and include them in their games.

Also from the BBC article, we learn that Buddy Bench Ireland is taking it a step further and trying to do something different with them, using the bench to engender empathy and as

a reminder for children of things like communication, mutual support and opening up about feelings

Other objectives of these Buddy Benches in schools is:

  • reducing social isolation
  • improving mental wellbeing
  • end bullying

I propose we take these Buddy Benches – that work so well with children – to another level and set them up at conferences for adults too. I believe they could work very well for introverts (who make up around 50% of the population) with social anxiety and/or anyone feeling overwhelmed and/or intimidated and/or shy.

I get kickback when I talk about introverts feeling socially anxious but it’s common as you can see by these comments from introverted individuals

  • It isn’t always a comfortable place to be when I must be in a crowd.
  • The hardest aspect of living life as in introvert is we all live in an extroverted world. School pushes kids to do group projects, that are just awkward and when you don’t do well in it you’re doing something wrong or something is wrong with you. The moment I step out of the door I am no longer me, I am a character that has to put on a show in order to succeed in the work place.
  • Sometimes I can communicate with friends well and sometimes I fake it really badly. I always wonder if people can see past my half smile and fake laugh. It’s painful to be honest. But there are times when I don’t mind so much.

One big question is this: would adults use one or would they feel more self-conscious than children? Would they worry more about what others will think if they sit down at an empty bench waiting for someone to join them, essentially saying “I’m shy” or “I’m anxious” or “I’m an introvert” or “I feel intimidated”?

In the BBC article they address this stigma and worry aspect:

But do children actually use the bench? And are they worried about how it makes them look?

“They don’t see it as stigmatised,” says Sinead McGilloway, director of the Centre for Mental Health and Community Research at Maynooth University, who led a study of 117 pupils at three schools which have benches.

Forty per cent of the children she questioned said they had used the bench, and 90% said if they saw someone else sitting on it they would talk to them.

I have these questions for you about using a Buddy Bench at a business or health conference:

1) How likely are you to use a Buddy Bench as an adult diagnosed with social anxiety and/or know you have the social anxiety condition called pyroluria and you’re working to address your symptoms with nutrients but are not quite there yet.

2) How likely are you to use a Buddy Bench as an adult who identifies with being an introvert and are easily overwhelmed at the networking and mingling aspects that comes when you attend a conference?

3) How likely are you to use a Buddy Bench as an adult who feels shy and/or easily overwhelmed and/or intimidated in new settings with large groups of people you don’t know?

4) How likely are you to be the “Big Buddy” (I just made this term up because it makes me think of Big Brother or Big Sister) and go up to someone sitting on a designated Buddy Bench in order to offer moral support, conversation, connection, encouragement and kindness?

Of course, I love the idea of these Buddy Benches and would have used one for support and connection in the past. I have pyroluria and used to have dreadful social anxiety (and considered myself an introvert). But now that I’m on the pyroluria protocol I feel like a social butterfly and I am very relaxed at big group events. I would definitely go and buddy-up with someone looking for support.

And let’s not forget that Buddy Benches are just one part of the solution – for both children and adults – and we don’t want to forget food, nutrients and functional medicine:

  • While you’re figuring out the role of diet, gut health, adrenal/thyroid health, toxin exposure etc, a good place to start is to assess for and address low GABA and low serotonin with the amino acids GABA and tryptophan. This  provides quick nutritional support for worry, fear, anxiety, tension, overwhelm, lack of confidence and feelings of intimidation.
  • My next step would be to assess for and address pyroluria with zinc and B6 (and other key nutrients) to help ease and often eliminate the social anxiety completely.  Believe it or not, there is a strong connection between pyroluria and introversion and many of my clients and folks in my community no longer feel introverted when they address their pyroluria. I write about this in another blog: Am I an anxious introvert because of low zinc and vitamin B6? 

Feel free to comment and let us know what you think about Buddy Benches for adults. Do you have other ideas as to where these adult Buddy Benches could be used?

Let us know if you’ve seen these Buddy Benches work successfully with children and what ideas we could take away to get similar results for adults using them.

And do share if a nutritional approach or if addressing pyroluria has eased your social anxiety, and maybe got you wondering if you are an introvert after all.

Feel free to post your questions too.

 

The amino acids GABA and tryptophan can help to relieve anxiety in children: an interview with Dr. Nicole Beurkens

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Using individual amino acids such as GABA and tryptophan can have an incredible impact on children with anxiety, easing anxiety very quickly. I don’t often write or talk about using amino acids with children and since many of you have asked for more resources for children, today I’m sharing an interview I recently did on this topic on The Better Behavior Show. This is a podcast hosted by my colleague and good friend Dr. Nicole Beurkens.

I share specifics on how Amino acids can help to relieve anxiety in children, together with some case studies.

Dr. Nicole sums up the power of the amino acids beautifully – and this is exactly why my clients love them so much – they take the edge off quickly, provide results and help with overwhelm:

I think that the fact that these [amino acids] can work quickly is really helpful. And as you said, it helps to take the edge off, it helps to reduce the symptoms so then we can more effectively address all of the underlying things. Because often, I’ll have parents say, “Oh, you want me to change the diet and do all these things, I just feel so overwhelmed, my kid is having so many issues, I don’t know how we’re going to do any of that.” And then when you can use things like targeted aminos to help take the edge off the symptoms for the parent and the child, it makes all of that other stuff more doable, I think.

Here are some snippets from one of the stories I share – the wonderful results I had with a 11-year old girl who had been adopted, was diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder and had explosive anger issues. This young girl:

….also had insomnia, so she was not sleeping well at all. She was very fatigued in the day, had really bad anxiety about going to school and loved colored candies and she was a big bread eater.

This family didn’t have much money to spend so I really had to find an affordable solution with the biggest benefits. She was anemic so we addressed that with iron supplements and getting her eating quality grass-fed red meat again and we figured out that gluten was an issue so she went gluten-free and this made a big difference with the outbursts.

The other factor was to figure out if low serotonin was a factor and address this. The big clues were the anger, the insomnia, the anxiety and the sugary cravings:

I was talking to her about the fact that she loved candies and she loved bread, and I said — how would you feel about giving it up? She was fuming with me. She was in a swivel chair and she turned her back to me and she didn’t want to talk about it.

I offered her a 100mg chewable tryptophan to see if it would help with her sugar cravings and the fact that she was furious with me:

“How about trying this amino acid, it’s called tryptophan and it’s chewable and it doesn’t taste bad… and then we’ll talk a little bit later. Don’t worry about what I said earlier.” So I gave her 100mg of chewable tryptophan.

She chewed the tryptophan and within 5 minutes, she turned around, smiled at me and said, “I think I can do it, I’m ready to do it.”

She was calm and smiling, and ready to give up the candies and bread and other gluten-containing products. These 3 interventions – addressing her low iron levels, having her go gluten-free and supplementing with tryptophan – completely turned this little girl’s life around.

Here is the link to the entire transcript of our interview: Amino acids can help to relieve anxiety in children. You can also find the audio interview at this same link or by going directly to iTunes – simply search for “The Better Behavior Show.”

Do listen in and/or read the transcript and learn more about:

  • how I do a trial of the amino acids (this allows for quick results in 5-10 minutes)
  • how I’ve worked with non-verbal children
  • a simple trick for using the unpleasant tasting tryptophan sublingually
  • what low GABA anxiety looks like in a child
  • why ADHD symptoms in children may actually be anxiety (I share another success story in this section)
  • why I use GABA Calm with children and adults (Dr. Nicole uses this GABA product too and loves that it’s sublingual and tastes great)
  • times you may consider using tyrosine or DPA
  • and much more

It was a pleasure to be on the show of someone whose work I deeply respect. Dr. Nicole is a unique combination of clinical psychologist, nutritionist, and special education teacher, and shares these resources for help with improving your child’s behavior naturally: her book Life Will Get Better, blog, and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program.  and tune in to my interview and some of the other excellent interviews.

If you’d like to learn more about these supplements, look at my supplements blog here

There is also a “Liquid and powder options for children” section on this blog – with other products you may find useful for children.

I’d also like offer a caution about the 100mg chewable tryptophan This chewable form is both good and bad. It’s good because it’s a nice 100mg of tryptophan per tablet, is chewable, tastes good and is suitable for children and “pixie dust” individuals who need a very small amount and for when doing the initial trial. The bad aspect is that it does contain sugar and is quite sweet. Because you are continually consuming something sweet you may end up over-consuming them if sugar addiction is your issue. I’ve seen the same with children who want to eat them like candy. So, what I do most of the time is use the chewable tryptophan for the trial and then switch to the 500mg tryptophan after that. We did that with the 11-year old with anger issues, anxiety and candy cravings.

One more thing: Lidtke is the only brand of tryptophan I use and recommend because of its quality. I forgot to mention that in our interview.

Have you benefited from using any of the amino acids and then found they also help your child/children?

More kids are showing up in ERs with anxiety, depression and other common mental health problems: why isn’t nutritional psychiatry part of the discussion?

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This article on NBC news, More kids are showing up in ERs (Emergency Rooms) with mental health crises, reports large increases across the country.

Dr. Anna Abrams, a pediatrician and researcher at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, finds the numbers both shocking and disheartening.

In the 5-year period from 2012 to 2016, when looking at ER mental health admissions in 45 children’s hospitals, they found the following increases:

  • 48 % in white children
  • 64% in non-Hispanic black children
  • 77% increase in Hispanic children

with about a 55 % increase overall.

Dr. Abrams and her colleagues presented these findings at the American Academy of Pediatrics conference in earlier this month.

Other than the very large increases, there is something else to be concerned about: the researchers say they aren’t sure why we are seeing these increases, speculating it “could be due to the scarcity of mental health professionals who can help children” and “People are also talking more openly about depression, anxiety and other common mental health problems and that may make parents feel more comfortable about seeking help for their children.”

While these are very valid reasons, we really do need to be incorporating nutritional psychiatry (a term coined in 2015) and functional medicine (Dr. Mark Hyman is one of the leaders in functional medicine) into these discussions, studies and conferences. Other than poor diets and nutritional deficiencies we need to be considering stress, exposure to toxins, poor gut health and increasing Wifi exposure, to name a few.

If we look at diet alone, there is so much recent research supporting the connection between diet and mental health. Here are two of many new studies:

Despite some contradictory results, overall there was support for an association between healthy dietary patterns or consumption of a high-quality diet and lower levels of depression or better mental health. Similarly, there was a relationship between unhealthy diet and consumption of low-quality diet and depression or poor mental health.

These data suggest that Iranian adolescent females eating a pro-inflammatory diet…had greater odds of having at least moderate depressive symptoms.

And here are just a few other factors to consider:

How do we get this nutritional psychiatry research and case studies into the hands of those who can change actually policy and the way mental health is addressed? I believe it has to be a grass-roots effort from the bottom up and I have these suggestions:

  • share this blog and the research with your doctor and/or allied health practitioner
  • reach out to study authors, journalists and legislators and share research and success stories like the above, and your own personal results
  • if you’re a practitioner, write blogs like this sharing the good results you see with your clients and patients – with researchers, journalists and legislators
  • share in forums and on social media, and with your neighbors, friends and family
  • comment on blogs like this – with success stories in your family or with clients – so more people get to see what really is working

Every little bit helps! I’d love to hear your ideas too.

Most children with anxiety relapse, regardless of treatment: Now is the time for Nutritional Psychiatry!

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Most children with anxiety relapse, regardless of treatment! This is the title of a recent article on Medscape and is just heart-breaking to read. The article is reporting on a presentation from the 2017 Anxiety and Depression Association/ ADAA conference: Results from the Child Adolescent Anxiety Multi Modal Extended Long term Study CAMELS.

As a nutritionist educating and consulting with individuals with anxiety, using nutritional and biochemical approaches with great success, this is just not acceptable. I know we can do better and now is the time to be incorporating nutritional psychiatry. I’ll go as far to say let us start with nutrition.

Here is the message from the Medscape article (you will need to create a userid and password to be able to view it online)

Children treated for anxiety disorders with psychotherapy, antidepressants, or a combination of the two show no significant differences in outcomes or remission at 5-year follow-up. Furthermore, a majority of children experience relapse and chronic anxiety, new long-term data show.

Scott Compton, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University School of Medicine, in Durham, North Carolina comments on the study:

For the majority of children with anxiety, the results … suggest that anxiety might be best characterized as a chronic disorder that needs to be managed.

With that in mind, further tailoring is needed to more individually address patients’ needs

As a field, we need to shift our approach away from a ‘one protocol fits all’ to figuring out how best to sequence treatments for the sizeable percentage of children who do not respond to current evidence-based interventions.

I don’t think Dr. Compton was thinking about nutrition when he said this but clearly the current evidence-based interventions are not working for most children and this is where nutrition comes in.

I also feel that anxiety should not be seen as a condition that has to be managed, instead we should be sharing the message that it can be eliminated, and providing long-term solutions to achieve this.

Here is the comment I posted on the article (and I also reached out to the study authors and shared this via email):

Research like this further confirms that we need to be incorporating nutritional interventions and biochemical approaches. We now have the results of the SMILES diet depression trial (published January 2017): the first randomized controlled diet depression study where ONE THIRD of the dietary intervention group saw improvements in their depression symptoms.  This was just diet alone and switching from processed/junk food to real food with no specific dietary restrictions. Participants also reported improvements in anxiety symptoms.  

When we customize diet we see further improvements and examples include the removal of gluten, caffeine, sugar and the addition of quality animal protein (especially at breakfast), organic vegetables and fruit and healthy fats. Addressing specific deficiencies is key too: low zinc, low iron, low serotonin, low GABA, low vitamin B6, low vitamin D etc. And addressing gut health and balancing the microbiome is imperative. There is research supporting all of the above and it’s effective in clinical practice – it simply needs to be part of the treatment of care for all anxious individuals.

A wonderful organization is the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research (ISNPR).  Their first international conference will be held in Bethesda in July this year.  Another excellent conference is IMMH/Integrative Medicine for Mental Health. For practitioners in Australia, the MINDD forum is an excellent resource.

I would love to see more collaboration between practitioners and researchers in the nutritional/functional medicine/nutritional psychiatry space and practitioners and researchers in traditional psychiatry.  I feel we have so much to learn from each other.

My hope is that we can open communication and start to collaborate in order to serve all the anxious children and adults with all the options we have at our disposal!  

As stated in this 2017 paper – Nutritional Psychiatry: Where to Next? nutritional psychiatry is an emerging field and

offers much promise for addressing the large disease burden associated with mental disorders. A consistent evidence base from the observational literature confirms that the quality of individuals’ diets is related to their risk for common mental disorders, such as depression [and anxiety].

This is the case across countries and age groups. Moreover, new intervention studies implementing dietary changes suggest promise for the prevention and treatment of depression [and anxiety].

Concurrently, data point to the utility of selected nutraceuticals as adjunctive treatments for mental disorders and as monotherapies for conditions such as ADHD.

Finally, new studies focused on understanding the biological pathways that mediate the observed relationships between diet, nutrition and mental health are pointing to the immune system, oxidative biology, brain plasticity and the microbiome-gut-brain axis as key targets for nutritional interventions.

Here are just a few additional links with research supporting nutrition for anxiety:

And here is some feedback from individuals who have benefited from some of these approaches:

If you are a practitioner who works with anxious children or adults use these resources to stay at the cutting edge of nutritional psychiatry.

If you have children with anxiety or are someone who suffers from anxiety, use this information to be informed of the latest research and be sure to share this with your practitioner.

And please let me know if you have any questions. As always I love to hear success stories so feel to share those too.