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Can food and nutrients really help me if I have very severe anxiety and/or panic attacks and I’m using medications?

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food, nutrients and med

As I prepare for “The Anxiety Summit 5: Gut-Brain Axis” (airing in November 2019) I have been going through interviews from the first Anxiety Summit in 2014 and would like to share something that I addressed in my opening interview as a good recap for you as you are on your healing journey with anxiety (or in case this comes up again in the future) – you truly can eliminate anxiety entirely!

This is a question I am often asked: “Can I really eliminate anxiety using food, nutrients (and a functional medicine approach) if I have very severe anxiety and/or panic attacks and I’m using medications?”

Way too many folks don’t believe it’s possible but yes, you can! You can completely eliminate full blown anxiety, panic attacks, social anxiety (where you cannot go out to social event or go and feel so anxious), phobias like fear of spiders or agoraphobia (where you cannot get out of the house), and even obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Many folks believe their anxiety is much too severe and that food and nutrients couldn’t possibly help. I’m here to tell you this is just not true.

It’s not uncommon for well-known thought leaders to perpetuate this myth, implying anxiety and fears never go away.

Ali Brown, entrepreneurial guru for women, and one of my amazing business mentors, created a program to help businesswomen overcome their fears. She shared this in the program information: “Let’s not forget women’s darkest best friends: anxiety and worry” and admitted “I still have to fight it. I come from a long line of worriers.”

I say no, you don’t have to fight it. Just because you come from a long line of worriers doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to put up with it and live with it. There is something you can do to eliminate the anxiety, worries and fears.

Seth Godin, author and thought leader, says this: “When fear shows up, understand that it never goes away. Dance with it instead.”

While I really enjoy the dance suggestion – it’s fun and the joy of dancing and the exercise may help – however I really do disagree with the fact that he says fear never goes away.

In season 1 interviewed Julia Ross, MA, my mentor and author of The Mood Cure (my Amazon link), on using amino acids for anxiety and she summed it up perfectly:

On a scale from zero to 10, zero is not an unrealistic goal when it comes to anxiety. It’s really the human potential and GABA and tryptophan give us access to it.

I’m going to repeat this because I think it’s really worth repeating. Zero is not an unrealistic goal when it comes to anxiety. Bravo Julia – I totally agree with this and I want you to know this!

It starts with doing trials of GABA and tryptophan, and using food and nutrients, and finding all the root causes and addressing them.

I really want you to know this, remember this, and don’t stop looking for the answer and the root causes. It may be food changes that you need to make. It may be breakfast that you need to eat. It may be low serotonin or low GABA. It may be foods that are problems for you like gluten or dairy. It may be additives in the foods that you’re eating. It may be toxins in your environment. There are many possible root causes, and you may have one or many root causes that are causing your anxiety.

Addressing these root causes with food and nutrients (and a functional medicine approach you can completely eliminate your anxiety even if you have very severe anxiety and/or panic attacks and you’re using medications.

Resources for you

Do you believe your anxiety is much too severe for food and nutrients to be of help?

Or did you believe this and started looking at nutritional and biochemical root causes anyway and found solutions and anxiety resolution?

Help! I’m worried all the time! Soothe with supplements and tame worry with food!

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Some of my simple tips for worry were shared in the April edition of Women’s World so here they are for you to enjoy in case you didn’t see them in the magazine. I’m quite chuffed to see it’s for a piece called “Ask America’s Ultimate Experts.”

I share tips about the benefits of a B- complex vitamin (for adrenal support), vitamin B6 (especially for PMS-type anxiety and worry, the calming amino acid called GABA, plus the mood-boosting and calming benefits of a grass-fed burger (loaded with zinc, iron and omega-3s) and pumpkin seeds as a snack (because they’re rich in both tryptophan and zinc)

Here are my tips from the article:

#1 Soothe with supplements

Here are some supporting articles and research for some of the above tips. A good B- complex vitamin for adrenal support has been shown to minimize psychological stress after a natural disaster and vitamin B6 (or pyridoxine) helps with PMS-type anxiety and worry.

A paper titled Pyridoxine in the treatment of premenstrual syndrome: a retrospective survey in 630 patients, reports the following results:

The daily doses of pyridoxine hydrochloride varied from 40 to 100 mg early in the study and from 120 to 200 mg in the later period of the investigations. The response to treatment was recorded as good (no significant residual complaints) in 40 per cent or more of patients taking 100-150 mg pyridoxine daily and in 60 per cent of patients treated with 160-200 mg daily. Together with partial response (useful benefit but still some significant complaints), the positive effect of the treatment increased to 65-68 per cent and 70-88 per cent respectively. No symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of peripheral neuropathy were reported

The calming amino acid called GABA helps with the physical-tension and stiff-and-tense-muscles type of anxiety and helps with worry and inhibition of unwanted thoughts.

#2 Tame worry with foods

Professor Felice Jacka, nutritional psychiatry researcher, discusses the mood-boosting and calming benefits of grass-fed beef (loaded with zinc, iron and omega-3s) on our Anxiety Summit interview: The Research – Food to prevent and treat anxiety and depression?

Pumpkin seeds are rich in tryptophan and zinc and research shows that a functional food made from these seeds actually helps with social anxiety.

Here are a few minor discrepancies in the above sections:

  • In #1 dopamine is not a calming brain chemical but instead it’s stimulating and helps with focus and motivation. The B vitamin mentioned contain folic acid whereas methyl folate is the preferred choice.
  • In #2 the GABA product recommended is 500mg and I find starting much lower is a more effective approach with my clients.

#3 Cue calm – open a worry window

Opening a worry window is a new approach for me and I’d love to hear if it helps you now or has helped you in the past.

Anti-anxiety gummies and low serotonin

Ali Miller, RD, shares a recipe for anti-anxiety gummies (you can see it in the PDF) and I love that it includes coconut water, ginger and turmeric. I’d replace the cup of orange juice (which is high in sugar) with water and use 2 tablespoons instead. Be sure to watch that these gelatin gummies don’t make your anxiety (or depression or sleep worse). It’s a small amount of gelatin but if you’re eating a lot of them and you’re prone to low serotonin, this may be a problem for you. I write about this in a blog post here – Collagen and gelatin lower serotonin: does this increase your anxiety and depression? If it does cause an adverse reaction it doesn’t mean you can’t eat them, instead it simply means you may need to take tryptophan when eating them (if low serotonin is the issue.

If you’d like a PDF of the article you can grab a copy here.

I’d love to hear if any of these approaches have helped you or your clients/patients. Keep in mind that it’s a fun article that is by no means comprehensive in terms of addressing all the possible root causes of anxiety.

Happiness is driven by biological factors like diet, the microbiome and serotonin, plus epigenetics

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As a food mood expert and nutritionist, I believe one very overlooked way we can address the lack of happiness or joy is the biochemical aspect.

One classic root cause of depression or unhappiness is low serotonin and this low serotonin can also lead to fear, worry, anxiety, self-doubt, lack of confidence, ruminations, insomnia and imposter syndrome, all of which are classic signs of low serotonin.  

A poor diet or a diet that is not right for you is a big factor in serotonin production and therefore happiness and a sense of calm.

The biological or biochemical connections to lack of happiness

This paper, Happiness & Health: The Biological Factors – Systematic Review Article, supports the biological or biochemical connections to lack of happiness (and the other signs of low serotonin), listing endogenic (or internal) as well as exogenic (or external) factors :

Happiness underlying factors are considerable from two dimensions:

  • endogenic factors (biological, cognitive, personality and ethical sub-factors) and
  • exogenic factors (behavioral, social/cultural, economical, geographical, life events and aesthetics sub-factors).

Among all endogenic [or internal] factors, biological sub-factors are the significant predictors of happiness.

The external factors are the ones we’re most familiar with i.e. things that are going on in our lives like relationships, income, where we live and life events. It’s the internal factors that we don’t discuss.

This study looked at biological factors (one of the internal factors) that underlie happiness and optimism. Five sub-groups of biological factors were found:

  1. brain and neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin and endorphins playing a role in happiness)
  2. endocrinology and hormones (cortisol and oxytocin playing a role in happiness)
  3. physical health
  4. physical attractiveness
  5. genetic (this accounted for 35-50% of happiness)

Nutritional psychiatry and the first 4 sub-groups

The work of nutritional psychiatry, a new and growing field, shows that food and nutrients have a direct impact on the first 4 groups: brain and neurotransmitters, on endocrinology and hormones and on physical health (and thereby physical attractiveness too):

The International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research hosted their first international conference in August last year in Bethesda, MD, and I had the pleasure of attending.

The new SMILES trial was presented at the conference: the first randomized controlled diet depression study where ONE THIRD of the dietary intervention group saw improvements in their depression and anxiety symptoms by switching from processed/junk food to real food with no specific dietary restrictions.

Here I am with world-renowned nutritional psychiatry researcher, Professor Felice Jacka

I participated in the rapid fire presentation session at the conference. In my talk, Applications of the Paleo diet and Gluten-free diet for Anxiety, I shared how Paleo and grain-free diets can increase happiness and reduce anxiety.

This November 2017 review, Nutritional psychiatry: the present state of the evidence, mentions the SMILES trial and provides the latest overview of the evidence in nutritional psychiatry:

Potential biological pathways related to mental disorders include inflammation, oxidative stress, the gut microbiome, epigenetic modifications and neuroplasticity. Consistent epidemiological evidence, particularly for depression, suggests an association between measures of diet quality and mental health, across multiple populations and age groups; these do not appear to be explained by other demographic, lifestyle factors or reverse causality.

Genetics (the last sub-group), epigenetics, diet and the microbiome

It saddens me when I hear someone say: “depression runs in my family – my grandmother suffered, I suffer with depression and I don’t know what kind of life my daughter is going to have.”

Even though genetics (the last sub-group) is reported to accounted for 35-50% of happiness, we now know that “our genes are not our destiny” and we can actually switch on good genes and switch off bad genes when we change our diet and environment.

This paper, Microbiome, inflammation, epigenetic alterations, and mental diseases, sums it up perfectly, reporting that recent findings show that the onset and development of mental diseases such as autism, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and depression cannot be well described by the one-gene/one-disease approach:

Even though the involvement of many genes are likely, up regulating and activation or down regulation and silencing of these genes by the environmental factors play a crucial role in contributing to their pathogenesis. Much of this interplay may be moderated by epigenetic changes.

Environmental factors such as diet, gut microbiota, and infections have significant role in these epigenetic modifications.

The authors conclude that the potential interactions of diet, gastrointestinal microbiome, and inflammation can all contribute to epigenetic alterations in psychiatric disorders.

If the term epigenetic is new to you, here is a helpful explanation:

The word “epigenetic” literally means “in addition to changes in genetic sequence.” The term has evolved to include any process that alters gene activity without changing the DNA sequence, and leads to modifications that can be transmitted to daughter cells.

What this means is that you can change your destiny in a positive way – by changing your diet – even if you have bad genes passed on from your grandmother and mother or other family members.

And don’t forget the environmental factors (as stated in the above paper) that can change your genes in a negative way: heavy metals, pesticides, diesel exhaust, tobacco smoke, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (environmental pollutants from coal, oil, petrol, and wood), radioactivity, viruses and bacteria.

The take-aways are to eat quality real whole food, avoid sugar, caffeine and gluten, address the microbiome and nutritional deficiencies, avoid toxins/chemicals, detox if needed, address infections and the adrenals. This is exactly what my book The Antianxiety Food Solution covers so if you don’t yet have a copy, grab one from your nearest bookstore or from Amazon here (my affiliate link).

For a deeper dive into the epigenetics aspect and detoxification, I recommend Dr. Ben Lynch’s new book called Dirty Genes (my Amazon link).

Are you ready to find the biological root causes of your lack of happiness and anxiety?

Or are you already there and have seen the benefits already?

New book Food: What the Heck Should I Eat by Dr. Mark Hyman

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I highly recommend Dr. Mark Hyman’s new book Food: What the Heck Should I Eat if you are new to the world of nutrition and functional medicine.

I will be recommending it to my newbie clients who are switching from the SAD/standard American diet (that makes you sad and mad!) to a real whole foods quality diet.  

This book is well worth reading to get current trends and research

This book is well worth reading if:

  • you’re still on the fence about grass-fed red meat and eggs and still believe chicken is healthier than red meat

  • you are not current on the sugar-is-bad and fat-is-good research when it comes to cholesterol and heart disease

    Consuming lots of natural, whole food-based, healthy fats, including saturated fats, is absolutely critical for good health

  • you’re not convinced that eating only organic chicken is a must and don’t know about the chicken-arsenic issue

    Why would anyone feed arsenic to a chicken? Because it makes the birds gain weight faster, turns their flesh a little rosier, and kills parasites. Unless the poultry you buy is labeled organic, it almost certainly has been treated with arsenic. Of course, the arsenic the birds are fed doesn’t kill them it’s the organic kind, which is harmless. But once they eat it, it can be converted in the chicken’s digestive tract to the inorganic kind, which the World Health Organization classifies as a carcinogen.

  • you appreciate a research-based approach from a functional medicine doctor who has been doing this work for 20+ years

  • you are looking for a short overview of the benefits of a ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting, plus confirmation that coconut oil is actually healthy

  • you need a re-fresher on which additives to avoid and why – like calcium propionate, an additive in almost all commercial bread products and has been shown to cause autistic behavior in rats and in kids

    It’s enough to make you wonder if there’s a link between the 133 pounds of flour consumed by each American each year and the rising rate of brain disorders such as ADHD, autism, depression, [anxiety] and more.

  • you are interested in the social and environmental aspects like: how much water it takes to produce 2 liters of soda (it’s about 132 gallons); and how we only absorb 10% of the Splenda/sucralose we consume with the rest ending up polluting waterways

  • you don’t know about the superior nutritional qualities of wild or heirloom varieties of vegetables and fruit

A wild crabapple, for example, has one hundred times more cancer and inflammation-fighting anthocyanins than the Golden Delicious variety found in supermarkets. Purple carrots contain twenty times more phytonutrients than their more common orange brethren. Wild blueberries have dozens of times more phytonutrients than domesticated berries.

  • you are behind in some of the news stories like skittles and other junk-food being fed to conventional feedlot cows:

    In January 2017, a flatbed pickup truck accidentally spilled its cargo on a Wisconsin highway, creating a remarkable scene. The truck, destined for a factory farm, was carrying hundreds of thousands of red Skittles to be used as feed for cattle. The spill left a blanket of red candies scattered across the road, but what was most disturbing about the accident was that it revealed a little-known fact about factory farming: that it’s not only legal but common for producers to feed their cattle all sorts of sugar, candy, Kool-Aid powder, potato chips, and molasses.

What if you’re health savvy and are already following a real whole foods diet?

You may also wonder if this book is worth a read if you are health savvy and are already following a real whole foods diet. Here are some reasons why it’s well worth getting a copy:

  • It’s a great introduction for a loved one or friend who may be new to all this

  • It’s a great gift for your doctor who may not yet be fully on board with this approach

  • It’s great to take to school administrators so you can help effect changes in your kid’s or grandkid’s schools (and even universities)

  • It’s also a great resource for sharing with food banks, drug treatment/rehab centers, and non-profits that offer food and/or meals

Other dietary resources you may need based on your unique health issues

This book does a brilliant job of covering everything you need to know about eating a quality real whole foods diet where food-is-your-medicine. But if you have certain health issues, you’ll need other very specific dietary resources (which Dr. Hyman doesn’t mention), such as a low oxalate diet, low histamine diet, low salicylate diet, diets for SIBO (small intestinal bacteria overgrowth), an anti-candida diet,  an autoimmune diet and so on. 

The official book blurb

#1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. Mark Hyman sorts through the conflicting research on food to give us the skinny on what to eat.

Did you know that eating oatmeal actually isn’t a healthy way to start the day? That milk doesn’t build bones, and eggs aren’t the devil?

Even the most health conscious among us have a hard time figuring out what to eat in order to lose weight, stay fit, and improve our health. And who can blame us? When it comes to diet, there’s so much changing and conflicting information flying around that it’s impossible to know where to look for sound advice. And decades of misguided “common sense,” food-industry lobbying, bad science, and corrupt food polices and guidelines have only deepened our crisis of nutritional confusion, leaving us overwhelmed and anxious when we head to the grocery store.

Thankfully, bestselling author Dr. Mark Hyman is here to set the record straight. In Food: What the Heck Should I Eat? — his most comprehensive book yet — he takes a close look at every food group and explains what we’ve gotten wrong, revealing which foods nurture our health and which pose a threat. From grains to legumes, meat to dairy, fats to artificial sweeteners, and beyond, Dr. Hyman debunks misconceptions and breaks down the fascinating science in his signature accessible style. He also explains food’s role as powerful medicine capable of reversing chronic disease and shows how our food system and policies impact the environment, the economy, social justice, and personal health, painting a holistic picture of growing, cooking, and eating food in ways that nourish our bodies and the earth while creating a healthy society.

With myth-busting insights, easy-to-understand science, and delicious, wholesome recipes, Food: What the Heck Should I Eat? is a no-nonsense guide to achieving optimal weight and lifelong health [I would also add …and for providing the foundation for excellent mental health with freedom from anxiety.]

Grab your copy from your nearest bookstore or online from Amazon (my affiliate link) and find out more here.

Dr. Hyman makes this promise:

If you take the time to read through each section … not only will you walk away with new information, but you’ll also let go of the anxiety and worry that most people have around the basic question, “What the heck should I eat?”

Feel free to comment or post questions below and please do let us know what you think of the book.

International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research: 2017 conference

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This is the first major international meeting of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research and will be held July 30 – August 2, in Bethesda, MD, USA. The conference will comprise:

  • Plenary presentations from leading international researchers
  • State of the art symposia and free oral presentations from researchers and clinicians
  • Multidisciplinary workshops for psychiatrists, psychologists, dietitians, nutritionists and other health professionals
  • An exciting social program

This meeting will reflect the broad spectrum of research, from the sub-cellular to translation and implementation science. There will also be a strong focus on basic science and the biological processes and factors that underpin the links between diet, nutrition and mental health, including the brain-gut-microbe axis, immunology and metabolic processes and molecular science. The program will cater to the interests of researchers and clinicians from the fields of public health, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity and dietetics, as well as psychiatry and psychology.

I’m excited to have the opportunity to hear and meet so many amazing food/nutrient and mental health researchers, many of whom I’ve referenced in my book and shared on my blog and in presentations:

  • Food mood /microbiome researcher, Professor Felice Jacka, President, International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research
  • Microbiome researcher, Professor John F. Cryan
  • Micronutrient researcher, Julia Rucklidge
  • Sugar and trans fats researcher, Professor Almudena Sánchez-Villegas, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
  • Nutraceuticals researcher, Professor Jerome Sarris;
  • Hypoglycemia/anxiety researcher, Monique Aucoin ND and so many more!

I’ve been accepted to do a rapid fire presentation on gluten-free/Paleo diet for anxiety and will also be presenting a poster on GABA/amino acids for anxiety. What an honor!

You can find the program information here.

This is a conference for health professionals but I’m pleased to announce that the Sunday sessions are OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

More information and registration for INSPR 2017 here.

Share your diet-depression success story: SMILES study looking for your input

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Professor Felice Jacka, nutritional psychiatry researcher and founder of ISNPR/International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research posted this exciting news and important request on the ISNPR facebook page:

The SMILES RCT, which is the first randomised controlled trial to test whether dietary improvement can actually treat depression, has now been accepted for publication in BMC Medicine (publication date 31st January).

As part of the media campaign, we will be needing to identify people who are willing to be interviewed. If there is anyone who has personally experienced a benefit from improving their diet, would you please volunteer for this purpose?

It’s a very important role, as the media coverage for SMILES will be limited if we can’t provide personal, first-person experiences to journalists. Clearly – for the sake of the field – it will be important to generate extensive media in order for clinicians and the general public to understand the implications and possibilities that arise from the RCT. Your help is enormously appreciated!

You can read more about this SMILES RCT here and the Anxiety Summit interview with Felice Jacka here: The Research – Food to prevent and treat anxiety and depression?.

Although anxiety was looked at in the study, Felice shared this regarding the type of interviewees they are looking for:

  • We really need to keep a focus on the topic of the RCT, which is depression
  • And to also keep it to those who improved the quality of their diet i.e. moving from a processed food diet, to one high in plant foods and healthy fats and healthy proteins
  • Not a particular type of diet (e.g. not paleo, not gluten free).

If you’ve personally benefited from changing your diet in this way and you’d like to help by sharing your story with the media please comment on the blog (or send an email to support [at] everywomanover29.com) with details of your story and willingness to be interviewed, plus your location. Be sure to let us know how best to contact you.

Right now we’ll just be calling on those who meet the above criteria for the media interviews.

BUT if you’ve benefited from any other changes to your diet – for either anxiety or depression – feel free to share anyway, so we can inspire others to do the same.

Here is my story:

For me it was anxiety and panic attacks that resolved when I made dietary and other nutritional and lifestyle changes.   I had been eating a vegetarian diet for a few years and I suspect the non-organic/GMO processed soy products (soy milk, soy yogurt, soy “butter” etc) were a big issue for me and damaged my gut.  When I added back quality animal protein (grass-fed red meat, wild fish, pastured eggs and chicken), switched to organic produce, added healthy fats and removed gluten my mood improved dramatically.  Now I eat a combination of a Paleo/SCD /low FODMAPS/low oxalate diet. 

During the severe anxiety and panic attacks I also needed additional support in the way of the targeted amino acids GABA (this was a life-saver and stopped the panic attacks in a few days) and tryptophan, plus zinc, vitamin B6, evening primrose oil, a good multi and B complex and adrenal support.  I still continue with some of these basic nutrients today.

My health issues have been complex as I’ve also had to deal with heavy metals, poor gut health and much more so I had what I call “a perfect storm” and yet diet has had such a huge impact for me!

Thanks for sharing your story! I’ll be sharing more as soon as the paper is actually published. Stay tuned for an interview with Felice too! 

And  big congrats to Felice and her team on this ground-breaking research!

UPDATE January 30, 2017: Here is the link to the research – A randomised controlled trial of dietary improvement for adults with major depression (the ‘SMILES’ trial)