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Jill Carnahan

Low cholesterol, tryptophan & methylation on Hormones – A Women’s Wellness Summit

March 28, 2016 By Trudy Scott 12 Comments

women's wellness summit

Just sending you a quick reminder about the upcoming summit.

You’ll learn why you don’t have to accept anxiety, depression, mood swings, headaches, constant fatigue or dramatic periods, and how to find answers from some amazing women’s health experts!

Join me and educate yourself online and no cost from April 11-18, 2016 on Hormones: A Women’s Wellness Summit.

(you can register here https://qt247.isrefer.com/go/WWH16reg/trudyscottcn/)

Understanding your hormones may sound like an impossible mission, but it’s really not. As we learn to incorporate healthier choices into our lives, we feel better. And, as women, when we feel better, we can do anything! And as I like to say we deserve to feel our absolute best all the time!

Join health coach and acupuncturist Bridgit Danner, LAc, FDNP, and the 30+ health and wellness experts she has gathered to teach you how to keep your body in sync with your life.

Even if you’re not a woman, tune in to learn more so you can understand the women in your life – your mom, your sisters, your wife, your girlfriend, your daughter. Or share this information with the women in your life. You may even pick up some ideas for yourself, for example most of my interview is applicable for men too.

women's wellness summit

Here is a snippet about the importance of cholesterol from my interview which airs on day 3: Balance Brain Chemistry to End Anxiety

A lot of people talk about concerns with high cholesterol, but if you’ve got very low cholesterol, you don’t have the raw material to make your hormones. That’s going to affect your mood. There’s actually research showing that very low cholesterol, a total cholesterol below 150 can make you more prone to mood problems and actually increase your risk for suicide.

If I see a woman with very low total cholesterol, the first thing I think about is absorption, as you just said. Have they got a gall bladder? Maybe they haven’t got enough bile production. Have they got damage to the gut, so they’re not able to absorb the nutrients that they’re eating? And when we add in extra healthy fats, and if you’re already doing that, then I would say look at the digestive component and see if that’s a factor. I’ve seen many women with hormonal issues just get their total cholesterol up, and their hormones start to balance a lot better, which is pretty amazing.

I also talk about how to figure out how much of the amino acids you may need and how to do a trial. In this snippet I’m talking about tryptophan for the low serotonin, worry-in-your-head kind of anxiety:

once you start on the tryptophan, for example, and the starting dose for tryptophan is 500mg. You start on that and you see how much did it improve? Wow, it went from an 8 or 9 out of 10 to a 6 out of ten. But I could definitely see some improvement. So after a few days, increase it. Go from 500mg to 1,000mg, twice a day. Yes, it improved 2 more notches, great. We’re making some gains, here. Then another few days later, or maybe a week later, add another one: 1,500mg, twice a day. Wow, now I’m feeling great. This is the dosage you stay on for a while until you feel like you don’t need it anymore.

If you increase it to the 1,500mg, for example, and you didn’t get any added benefits, then you would just go back to the lower dose. So it’s very individualized, it’s very targeted, meaning it’s targeted to your unique needs. Not everyone needs the amino acids. But if you score high on the questionnaire, and you do a trial and you benefit, then you know you need them. And then you just increase until you get the point of no more benefits.

And here is a snippet from Dr. Jill Carnahan’s interview – What’s the Big Deal About Methylation?:

we generally don’t treat methylation by itself. We treat it in the context of the patient. I’ll say that over and over again today because I think what I see in the internet and what I see with responses to my blog articles and things are patients saying, “Give me a protocol. I got this defect. What do I do?” It’s so important for patients to realize that just because you have a genetic defect, it does not cause disease. It’s genetics plus environment.

What is methylation? Basically, methylation is a process that’s involved in cellular repair. That repairs your DNA and RNA. All the time, we’re getting toxic insults to our body, chemicals and environmental things, foods even, and they can damage our DNA and RNA. Methylation is one of the processes that actually repairs those things so we don’t develop things like cancer.

Number two would be helping to create neurotransmitters. This is basically involved in our thinking, our mood, our concentration, our focus, our drive, and things like sleep, and ability to have just happiness and joy [and no anxiety]. People who have methylation issues will often have trouble with neurotransmitters.

Number one, repair DNA and RNA. Number two would be create neurotransmitters. Number three/number four would be detoxification, very involved in detoxification. Your processes to basically take care of toxic chemicals. Then, also, for immune system function which is related to the detoxification process.

Dr. Carnahan shares how our neurotransmitters are affected by methylation and how this impacts anxiety and depression:

The biopterin pathway is part of the methylation cycle. It actually comes from the folic acid metabolism cycle. If that isn’t running properly, this is where you make phenylalanine which is a precursor for tyrosine, tyrosine which is a precursor of dopamine, and tryptophan which is a precursor of 5-HTP.

You can also catch these great speakers on day 3 with myself and Dr. Carnahan:

  • Keesha Ewers – Common Causes of a Low Sex Drive
  • Jen Wittman – How to Have a Thyroid-Loving Lifestyle
  • Amy Medling – How to be a PCOS Diva

Other summit speakers cover the adrenals, low testosterone in women, PMS and missed periods, endometriosis, how to have gorgeous skin, fertility, pregnancy and post-partum, perimenopause, your hunger hormones, toxins in your food, bio-identical hormones, cell phone dangers and much much more.

I hope you join us online from April 11-18, 2016 on Hormones: A Women’s Wellness Summit

You can register here https://qt247.isrefer.com/go/WWH16reg/trudyscottcn/

Filed Under: Events, Women's health Tagged With: Bridgit Danner, Jill Carnahan, Methylation

The Anxiety Summit – Is Toxic Mold the Hidden Cause of Your Anxiety?

May 10, 2015 By Trudy Scott 54 Comments

 

Dr. Jill Carnahan MD, Functional Medicine Practitioner, is interviewed  by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Is Toxic Mold the Hidden Cause of Your Anxiety?

  • An overview of functional medicine
  • How common is it for mold and mycotoxins to contribute to illness and anxiety
  • Where are we exposed to mold
  • Top symptoms associated with mycotoxin-associated illness
  • How to treat mold/mycotoxin exposure in someone who has anxiety (or depression)
  • The role of methylation and MTHFR polymorphisms in our detox abilities

We talked about the upcoming IFM conference: The Omics Revolution – Nature and Nurture, May 28-30, Austin TX

IFM’s 2015 Annual International Conference (AIC) will explore the wild and wonderful world of “omics,” including genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and other terms that describe the cascade of responses in human biology initiated by signals from the outside world washing over our genes.

It’s not nature or nurture but nature (genetic heritage) and nurture (lifestyle and environment).

I’m excited to be attending for the first time and can’t wait. I know this conference does fill up each year so if you’re interested don’t wait to sign up.

Dr. Jill talked about functional medicine so I pulled this functional medicine definition off the IFM site:

Functional medicine addresses the underlying causes of disease, using a systems-oriented approach and engaging both patient and practitioner in a therapeutic partnership. It is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. By shifting the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach, functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. Functional medicine practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.

The topics we cover on this summit and the approaches the Anxiety Summit speakers take all fall under the definition of functional medicine.

Dr. Jill shared her story and amazing healing journey with cancer. You can read about this here

mold

Top Symptoms Associated with Mycotoxin-Associated Illness per the blog on Dr. Jill’s site: Is Toxic Mold Exposure the Cause of Your Symptoms?

  •    Fatigue and weakness
  •    Headache, light sensitivity
  •    Poor memory, difficult word finding
  •    Difficulty concentration
  •    Morning stiffness, joint pain
  •    Unusual skin sensations, tingling and numbness
  •    Shortness of breath, sinus congestion or chronic cough
  •    Appetite swings, body temperature regulation
  •    Increased urinary frequency or increased thirst
  •    Red eyes, blurred vision, sweats, mood swings, sharp pains
  •    Abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloating
  •    Tearing, disorientation, metallic taste in mouth
  •    Static shocks
  •    Vertigo, feeling lightheaded

(do check out the above link for more in depth information on Dr Jill’s site)

We didn’t discuss this paper but I’m including it anyway because anxiety isn’t in the above list of symptoms: Psychological, neuropsychological, and electrocortical effects of mixed mold exposure

The authors assessed the psychological, neuropsychological, and electrocortical effects of human exposure to mixed colonies of toxigenic molds

Patients reported high levels of physical, cognitive, and emotional symptoms.

Most of the patients were found to suffer from acute stress, adjustment disorder, or post-traumatic stress

These findings indicated a hypoactivation of the frontal cortex, possibly due to brainstem involvement and insufficient excitatory input from the reticular activating system. Neuropsychological testing revealed impairments similar to mild traumatic brain injury.

This is the book that Dr. Jill mentioned – Mold Warriors: Fighting America’s Hidden Health Threat by Ritchie C. Shoemaker

ritchie shoemaker mold warriors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Jill has these Paleolicious Snack Ideas for download

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

Missed this interview or can’t listen live? Or want this and the other great interviews for your learning library? Purchase the MP3s or MP3s + transcripts and listen when it suits you.

You can find your purchasing options here: Anxiety Summit Season 1, Anxiety Summit Season 2, and Anxiety Summit Season 3.

Filed Under: Antianxiety, The Anxiety Summit 3 Tagged With: anxiety, IFM, Jill Carnahan, mold, Ritchie Shoemaker, the anxiety summit, toxic mold, Trudy Scott

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