IBS

Healing Anxiety through the Gut on the Heal Your Gut Summit

December 28, 2015 By Trudy Scott 8 Comments

Gut dysfunction can be linked to virtually every disease and can cause conditions like autoimmunity, fatigue, depression, anxiety and panic attacks, food sensitivities, chronic pain, allergies and many more. These conditions are by and large preventable.

Gut issues and anxiety often go hand-in hand and my interview addresses Healing Anxiety through the Gut:

Can you relate to the following phrases? “I have butterflies in my stomach,” “I can feel it in my gut,” or “I just have this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach.” These aren’t just figures of speech.

It can be difficult to assess which came first. Is the anxiety affecting your digestion, or did poor digestion lead to anxiety or make anxiety worse? Sometimes it’s a mixture of both, and both need to be addressed.

Digestive disorders are very common in the United States. Over a third of all adults are affected by some kind of digestive disorder, and each year forty-five million people visit the doctor for reflux, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), liver disease, and other digestive complaints.

Studies have found that people with digestive complaints such IBS, food allergies and sensitivities, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and ulcerative colitis frequently suffer from anxiety and also depression too.

One study found that 50 to 90 percent of people with IBS who visited a doctor for treatment also suffered from various anxiety disorders (panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, and post-traumatic stress disorder) and major depression.

There are many factors that can be considered when it comes to anxiety and gut health: the microbiome and psychobiotics (or good bacteria), low serotonin and an amino acid like tryptophan, low levels of stomach acid, low zinc, food sensitivities and much more.

Join us for this fabulous upcoming online event that is being hosted by 3 of my favorite people: Dr. Josh Axe, who specializes in functional medicine and is on a mission to transform the health of millions all across the world; Donna Gates, the international best-selling author of The Body Ecology Diet and Dr. Eric L. Zielinski, a sought-after natural health educator, motivational speaker and author, and host of the well-known Essential Oils Summit.

I’m honored to have been invited to present with this excellent line-up of speakers that include:

Josh Axe, DNM, DC, CNS: 5 Steps to Heal Leaky Gut
Leo Galland, MD: Why Allergies Could Be Signaling Bigger Problems
David Perlmutter, MD: Heal Your Gut by Going Grain Free
Ty Bollinger: Boost Immunity with Gut-Immune-Cancer Connection

Here are some of the great speakers who I’ll be presenting with on day 5 of the summit:

I hope you can join us! You can register here https://ju127.isrefer.com/go/healyourgutreg/trudyscottcn/

Customizing a Low FODMAPS Diet for a Client with Anxiety and/or Depression

January 19, 2015 By Trudy Scott 10 Comments

Here is an excerpt from a Dec 2014 paper called Review article: the aetiology, diagnosis, mechanisms and clinical evidence for food intolerance:

There have been significant advances in understanding the scientific basis of gastrointestinal food intolerance due to short-chain fermentable carbohydrates (FODMAPs). The most helpful diagnostic test for food intolerance is food exclusion to achieve symptom improvement followed by gradual food reintroduction. A low FODMAP diet is effective, however, it affects the gastrointestinal microbiota and FODMAP reintroduction to tolerance is part of the management strategy.

We’re seeing plenty of people with digestive issues like IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) and SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth), often with accompanying anxiety and depression, and a low FODMAPS diet may need to be considered. How do we know if we should consider it and how do we help out clients make this change?

This webinar is a way for you to learn more about FODMAPS for your clients and it’s a way for me to showcase the valuable work my friend Julie Matthews is doing in her BioIndividual Nutrition™ program. And for us to share the very cool new Victus software. I’ve actually signed up for the next training and I’m just super-excited to get the word out…which is another reason for the webinar! When I learn, I like to share what I learn!

Customizing a Low FODMAPS Diet for a Client with Anxiety and/or Depression

A webinar for health practitioners
Food Mood Expert Trudy Scott interviews Julie Matthews, co-founder of BioIndividual Nutrition Institute

In this webinar, aimed at health practitioners, we will discuss:

The scientific rationale for recommending a Low FODMAPS (an acronym, deriving from “Fermentable, Oligo-, Di-, Mono-saccharides And Polyols) Diet for someone with anxiety/depression
Defining oligosaccharides (fructans and galacto-oligosaccharides); disaccharides (lactose); monosaccharides (fructose) and polyols (sugar alcohols and more)
What are high free fructose foods and the fructose malabsorption/anxiety and depression connection
How to do a low FODMAPs diet elimination/provocation
Why would you combine Low FODMAPS and SCD (Specific Carbohydrate Diet) for SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth)
How the Victus software helps you create a diet/recipes for the Low FODMAPs Diet
How to learn more about Julie Matthews’ Bioindividual Nutrition program (for practitioners), other special diets and the upcoming study group

Julie Matthews is a Certified Nutrition Consultant specializing in autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, and nutrition for pregnancy. Her approached is based on the BioIndividual Nutrition™ needs of each person. She provides dietary guidance backed by scientific research and applied clinical experience. Her award winning book, Nourishing Hope for Autism, has helped people around the world to make food and nutrition choices that aid the health, learning, and behavior of those with autism, ADHD, and other developmental delays. She presents at leading autism conferences in the US and abroad, and is the Nutrition Editor of the Autism File magazine. She is on the scientific advisory board for USAAA (U.S. Autism & Asperger Association) and the Autism Nutrition Research Center. She is the co-founder of Nourishing Hope and BioIndividual Nutrition Institute. Julie has a private nutrition practice in San Francisco, California, and supports families and clinicians from around the world with her nutrition learning tools and professional training courses.

~~Here is the link to register for the webinar. If you can’t make it at this time, register anyway to get a copy of the notes and audio:~~

Update: this event is over (it was done Wednesday January 21^st, 2015.) Sorry you missed it!

The Anxiety Summit – Microbes in the gut and psychobiotics as a potential treatment for anxiety and depression

November 5, 2014 By Trudy Scott 20 Comments

Dr_Ted_Dinan_Anxiety2

Dr. Ted Dinan, MD, PhD. Professor of Psychiatry at University College Cork was interviewed by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Microbes in the gut and psychobiotics as a potential treatment for anxiety and depression

Varied ways in which anxiety presents
Anxiety as a co-morbid condition e.g. irritable bowel syndrome
Microbes in the gut and the influence on emotional activity
Non-pharmacological approaches to treating anxiety
Psychobiotics as a potential treatment and the newest research in this area

Here are some snippets from our interview

Now the brain-gut axis is an axis that we learned more about over the decade or 2, how does the brain communicate with the gut, how does the gut communicate with the brain, and the view of irritable bowel syndrome is that it is as I say a brain axis disorder, an exceedingly common disorder, up to at least 50 percent and some studies suggest much higher rates in terms of the presence of psychiatric symptoms in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. The general view is that at least 50 percent of patients with irritable bowel syndrome have a coexistent or comorbid depression or anxiety.

We’re gradually I think learning more about the pathology underlying irritable bowel syndrome and we and others have published a number of studies show that for instance patients with irritable bowel syndrome have high levels of cytokines. Now cytokines are chemicals that are produced by the immune system and there are certain cytokines that are caused pro-inflammatory. They give rise to inflammation or are the product of inflammation. And certainly there is now good evidence that many patients with irritable bowel syndrome do have very high levels of these pro-inflammatory molecules in their blood stream. The molecules would be molecules like interleukin 6 and CNF-alpha.

Here is the quote from Dr. Dinan’s article that was co-written with Dr. John Cryan and called Psychobiotics: How Gut Bacteria Mess with Your Mind

In the 20th century the major focus of microbiological research was on finding ways to kill microbes by antibiotics. This century the focus has changed somewhat with the recognition of the health benefits of bacteria, not just from an immunity perspective but from a mental health one.

Here is some of Dr. Dinan’s research:

Do interactions between stress and immune responses lead to symptom exacerbations in irritable bowel syndrome?

co-morbidity with mood disorders such as depression and anxiety is common in IBS

Psychobiotics: a novel class of psychotropic.

Here, we define a psychobiotic as a live organism that, when ingested in adequate amounts, produces a health benefit in patients suffering from psychiatric illness. As a class of probiotic, these bacteria are capable of producing and delivering neuroactive substances such as gamma-aminobutyric acid and serotonin, which act on the brain-gut axis. Preclinical evaluation in rodents suggests that certain psychobiotics possess antidepressant or anxiolytic activity. Effects may be mediated via the vagus nerve, spinal cord, or neuroendocrine systems. So far, psychobiotics have been most extensively studied in a liaison psychiatric setting in patients with irritable bowel syndrome, where positive benefits have been reported for a number of organisms including Bifidobacterium infantis. Evidence is emerging of benefits in alleviating symptoms of depression and in chronic fatigue syndrome. Such benefits may be related to the anti-inflammatory actions of certain psychobiotics and a capacity to reduce hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity. Results from large scale placebo-controlled studies are awaited.

This is the recent resistance training anxiety study I mentioned: The anxiolytic effects of resistance exercise

This research has shown that resistance training at a low-to-moderate intensity (<70% 1 repetition maximum) produces the most reliable and robust decreases in anxiety.

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here www.theAnxietySummit.com