Kurt Woeller

The Anxiety Summit: wise words on MS, oxytocin, red meat, marijuana, mercury

June 10, 2016 By Trudy Scott 10 Comments

We’re in the midst of season 4 of The Anxiety Summit www.theanxietysummit.com and here are wise words of wisdom from some of our amazing speakers on MS, oxytocin, red meat, marijuana, mercury and more.

If you have joined the summit and are loving it, this serves as a nice recap, a reminder if you missed a talk and inspiration to stay tuned in for some of the later interviews. And making sure you know that each speaker has a blog with snippets and many additional resources.

And if you’ve recently joined my community for the summit a VERY big welcome!

If you have not yet signed up I hope these wise words inspire you to join us!

Here are some snippets from some of the interviews.

Multiple sclerosis and anxiety: The Wahls Protocol

Dr. Terry Wahls shares how her MS was a gift:

And it all needs to happen this way Trudy. I had to get that disabled. I had to be on the verge of utter catastrophe to begin to feel the effects of cognitive decline to do all this work and then feel the effects of all this healing that happens when you provide a healthy habitat for the human ecosystem and all this repair happens. If this hadn’t of have happened I’d still be a conventional medicine doc thinking the latest drugs out of the New England Journal of Medicine were the way to go as opposed to seeing the gospel of food and sleep and movement and stress reduction.

The Link Between Low Cholesterol and Low Oxytocin

The Pitocin/synthetic discussion oxytocin with Dr. Kurt Woeller was fascinating:

And there’s a theory … that the Pitocin, which is synthetic oxytocin, which is given to women who are not naturally going into labor, it’s meant to action speed labor up. Pitocin being synthetic oxytocin may short circuit in some susceptible kids the natural production of oxytocin, therefore slowing down or turning off those areas in the brain that are normally being developed at that time, with regards to socialization.

Gluten and anxiety: the testing conundrum solution

Dr. Tom O’Bryan’s explanation of the limited gluten sensitivity testing that most people have done:

what happens when people have one of those peptides that the immune system is fighting that’s not the 33 [alpha-gliadin] and you do a blood test for gluten sensitivity. If your doctor orders the common blood test for gluten sensitivity and it looks for alpha-gliadin and it comes back negative and your doctors says you’re fine eating wheat. See, here’s the blood test. Well you can get a false negative meaning it says there’s no problem when there really is because your body’s fighting other peptides of wheat.

Nutrients that Fuel Brain Power and Reduce Anxiety

Dr. Drew Ramsey talks about zinc and animal protein:

Zinc is a mineral and minerals tend to be more absorbable in animal forms. I think a lot of people are very confused about meat and seafood and often intimidated and scared. And then we’ve had this message to go plant based and even vegan which is not a diet that is healthy for the brain.

Dr. Hyla Cass, integrative psychiatrist covers marijuana and anxiety later in the summit:

very often people who have been smoking marijuana for a while – when they go off it they go through serious withdrawal – anxiety, insomnia, feeling really very bad. Very much like we see in movies – we understand what it’s like getting off heroin when people go through withdrawal. Very similar, it really looks similar in appearance. Not everyone does that but common enough.

Dr. John Dempster, co-host of the Mental Wellness Summit discusses mercury as a neurotoxin in his interview later in the summit

So I kind of want to shed some light on some of these areas and how it can affect anxiety directly. One of the big areas is mercury itself is a neurotoxin. So how does that impact our biochemistry and our physiology? Well what it’s going to do it’s going to start to disrupt on an endocrine and a neurotransmitter level some of our pathways. And one of the big pathways is actually the glutamate connection and the glutamate pathway. And glutamate is something that’s known as an excitatory neurotransmitter and this is something that if we have too much of it or it’s not being reuptake properly in our synapses we start to exhibit different types of symptoms of anxiety. And of course that’s just one possible trigger for anxiety.

You can see a list of all the speakers and topics here on the master speaker blog.

You can sign up here: season 4 of The Anxiety Summit www.theanxietysummit.com

If you missed any, not to worry, we’ve decided to do an encore day with ALL the speakers. We don’t want you feeling stressed or anxious about missing out – not on a summit on anxiety!

The Anxiety Summit – Anxiety: The Link Between Low Cholesterol and Low Oxytocin

June 8, 2016 By Trudy Scott 33 Comments

Dr. Kurt Woeller, DO, integrative medicine physician, was interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Anxiety: The Link Between Low Cholesterol and Low Oxytocin

The functions of cholesterol and some of the many health consequences of low cholesterol
Fat malabsorption, and other causes of low cholesterol
Oxytocin: bonding, trust and social anxiety and why it can be low
The relationship between oxytocin and cholesterol and anxiety/depression
How to naturally raise low cholesterol and low oxytocin

Here are some gems from our interview:

As I mentioned in my practice, most of the kids that I test are anywhere between 110 to 120. Now to give you a reference point, the National Institutes of Health states that levels less than 160, with regards to cholesterol, increases the rate of cancer, increases the rate of mental health disorders and even early death in some studies. So that target zone we’re typically using is to try to get those total cholesterol levels at least above 160. I usually shoot for around 170/175 if possible. So in some of the kids the cholesterol levels come up with the Sonic Cholesterol, but not all. What was interesting when I first started using the Sonic Cholesterol in practice sometimes within a week to two weeks I would get reports back by parents of autistic kids that their kids were calmer; they were more focused; they were happier; and what was most interesting to me was that they actually had improved eye contact and many of them were just appearing to be more social. Now as you know in autism the social component is a big problem.

The Pitocin/synthetic oxytocin discussion was fascinating:

And there’s a theory Trudy, I don’t know if you’ve heard this that the Pitocin, which is synthetic oxytocin, which is given to women who are not naturally going into labor, it’s meant to action speed labor up. Pitocin being synthetic oxytocin may short circuit in some susceptible kids the natural production of oxytocin, therefore slowing down or turning off those areas in the brain that are normally being developed at that time, with regards to socialization. So essentially those nerve cells don’t reach their full potential in those areas of the brain. That’s at least a theory, but it seems to hold true if you look at the biochemistry. So one of the other effects then of oxytocin in all of us is what they call the love hormone or the bonding hormone is that it increases feelings of trust and harmony and pleasure in that it’s in involved in our ability to make connections with people on a one-on-one basis, not only through touch but facial expression recognition, voice emotional recognition.

Here is one of the studies: A link between oxytocin and serotonin in humans: supporting evidence from peripheral markers

Given the several activities mediated by both OT [oxytocin] and 5-HT [serotonin] , such a relationship might provide new perspectives and insights into psychiatric disorders and/or social relationship disturbances, as well as novel treatment strategies overcoming and/or integrating the serotonergic paradigm.

Here is information on the Sonic Cholesterol product, dosing and other relevant information.

Here are some of my blog posts on oxytocin, pyroluria, anxiety and depression:

Dr. Woeller offers extensive training programs for health professionals: Adrenal Mastery, GI Mastery and Autism Mastery.

I mentioned that we’ll both be presenting at IMMH/ Integrative Medicine for Mental Health in Washington DC in September – here are the details

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, Anxiety Summit Season 3, and Anxiety Summit Season 4.

Customizing special diets with Julie Matthews and Dr. Kurt Woeller

August 5, 2015 By Trudy Scott 9 Comments

We can all agree how the food we eat has such an impact on how we feel and that “food is medicine.”

We know we all have specific needs, unique biochemistry and very different genes so that is there NO “one-size-fits-all diet. We need to eat according to our own unique biochemistry and this is where BioIndividual Nutrition comes in to the picture.

Customizing your diet and nutrition strategy is essential to an integrative approach.

Julie has spent the past 14 years researching and applying specialized diets and is now teaching this BioIndividual Nutrition approach to advanced clinicians.

I know Julie personally, have read her book, have heard her present at many conferences (and even supported her at a few!) and have done her training. I can assure you that her knowledge in this area takes things to the next level! She is an expert on special diets, teaching about oxalates, salicylates, amines, glutamates, FODMAPs, gluten-free, GFCF (gluten-free-casein-free), GAPS and much more!

I’m sure you remember her from our prior interviews. Here are a few reminders:

She shared this during season 1 of the Anxiety Summit: BioIndividual Nutrition and Special Diets

My book is called Nourishing Hope for Autism, but a lot of people that have other conditions get my book, particularly because I call kids with autism the canaries in the coalmine. They’re the ones that are telling us that our world is too toxic, there’s too many stressors, it’s too deficient in nutrients, and we need to change our ways by adding more nutrition, more absorbable forms of supplements, getting supplements in general, eating good foods that are nutrient dense. These principles are principles that apply, in my experience, to almost all healing. So we learn a lot from the kids with autism on how it might apply to anxiety and other conditions.

And this during season 2 of the Anxiety Summit: Fermented foods and probiotics for anxiety and depression

There was a study done by a researcher named Tillisch and published in 2013 in Gastroenterology. We know a lot about how the brain sends signals to the gut, but she explained that in the study they learned that the gut also sends signals to the brain. The researchers found that with yogurt, they found positive effects on the brain, including sensory processing and those areas associated with emotion and mood.

And earlier this year I interviewed Julie on: Customizing a Low FODMAPS Diet for a Client with Anxiety and/or Depression and we covered

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

As you can see, Julie is up-to-date on the latest research and is very hands-on and super detailed when it comes to teaching and implementing special diets.

In this FREE BioIndividual Nutrition webinar on August 10, Julie Matthews and Dr. Kurt Woeller are teaming up to share what every integrative practitioner or nutrition professional would love to know and should know about customizing special diets to individual needs:

How personalizing food and nutrition strategies help improve patient/client outcomes
Which foods may negatively affect mood, learning, and behavior (Kurt and Julie will share wisdom from their experiences with autism)
The most advantageous special diets for healing: including: GFCF, SCD, GAPS Diet, Paleo diet, low phenol diets, low oxalate, and low FODMAPs
How to AVOID the 3 most common mistakes when making dietary recommendations
How to join the upcoming September “Study Group” at the BioIndividual Nutriton Institute, with Julie Matthews and Dr. Kurt Woeller

If you’re an integrative practitioner or nutrition professional and if you’re making diet and nutrition recommendations to your patients or clients, I highly recommend this upcoming webinar on customizing special diets.

You can register here for this educational webinar on August 10^th at 1pm PST:
https://az184.isrefer.com/go/imweb/TrudyScott

If you can’t make it live, register anyway to get a copy of the recording.

Have you benefited from being on a special diet? Do you currently use special diets with your clients/patients and see symptom reduction/resolution? Please do share in the comments.