liver

PQQ for Stress, Sleep, Mitochondria and Gut Health with Dr. Michael Murray: The Anxiety Summit 5

October 28, 2019 By Trudy Scott 7 Comments

Michael Murray, ND is one my guest experts on The Anxiety Summit 5: Gut-Brain Axis and our topic is: PQQ for Stress, Sleep, Mitochondria and Gut Health. What You’ll Learn –

Pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) for calm energy – what it is and how to use it
How it is protective against every known toxin
A study where participants report “improved happiness and fullness of social life”

Pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) is a fascinating nutrient that provides calm energy, helps with sleep, is protective against every known toxin and support mitochondrial health. PQQ also supports digestive health because the liver and gut is mitochondria-dense (Tara Hunkin shares more about this in her mitochondria/anxiety interview).

When I discovered that Dr. Michael Murray, ND is an expert on PQQ I reached out to invite him to speak on the summit. I was not disappointed – our interview is fabulous, meaty and exciting.

(We actually ended up doing it twice because of technical issues with the first one. There are always plenty of “fun and games” when hosting a summit!)

Dr. Murray shares some of the many benefits of this vitamin-like compound that is found in kiwi fruit, leafy green vegetables, papaya and other fruits and vegetables:

It’s been shown to be neuroprotective, protecting brain cells, it promotes nerve growth factors, it’s been shown to be memory restorative in animal and human studies. It has some interesting effects on anxiety and improving sleep quality. And it exerts many synergistic effects with Coenzyme Q10 and some of the other nutritional compounds that influence the mitochondria.

He feels that “eventually, PQQ is going to be recognized as essential for human nutrition.” And in case you’re curious about the pronunciation, this is how you say it: pyrro-lo-quin-o-line quinone.

We discuss this paper: “Effects of Oral Supplementation with Pyrroloquinoline Quinone on Stress, Fatigue, and Sleep” and Dr. Murray shares how PQQ is

really quite interesting because normally when we think of substances exerting an anti-stress or an anti-anxiety effect, we think about things that maybe calm us down and maybe even make us a little tired.

PQQ is able to promote a calming effect, an anti-stress effect, an anti-anxiety effect, but it actually enhances mental energy and physical energy.

The results in the study were pretty profound and I quote some of the findings the study authors report participants experienced (this, of course, was subjective feedback):

Fullness of social life improved
Happiness and fullness in the family life improved
Fullness and satisfaction in overall daily improved

They also found improved quality of life on measures of appetite, and pain, and obsession, as well.

The authors have this conclusion about a possible mechanism: “The anti-oxidative capacity or mitochondrial biogenesis function of PQQ might be responsible for the outcomes in this study.”

Some of the other topics we discuss around PQQ:

why taking PQQ is likely a better approach than using resveratrol
how it compares with vitamin C in terms of being an antioxidant (this really amazes me)
how it “been shown to protect against every known toxin on the brain”
possible benefits for Parkinson’s disease (by preventing the formation of alpha-synuclein) and also for Alzheimer’s disease
how “PQQ influences the microbiome in a very favorable way”
how a single dose, used one time, dramatically reduced C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation) in one study
possible concerns about oxalates
optimal dosages and when to use it with coenzyme Q10
best products and much more

Be sure to listen to Tara Hunkin’s interview to get a solid understanding of the bidirectional connection between mitochondria and anxiety: Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Anxiety

You can listen to each of the interviews (and get transcripts) by purchasing The Anxiety Summit 5: Gut-Brain Axis.

If you’d like to give feedback or ask a question, please post in the comments section. I’d love to hear from you once you’ve listened in.

Have you already used PQQ and found good results? Please share so we can all learn.

I’ll be reporting back more in the coming weeks and months based on my own personal findings and based on feedback from my clients and my community. I’ve already had this feedback from someone who has seen the speaker line-up:

Registered for the summit today. So excited about it. And excited to see PQQ, one of my favourite, must-have supplements, getting its own piece.

If you’d like to give feedback or ask a question, please post in the comments section at the bottom.

I’d also love to hear from you once you’ve listened in to Dr. Murray’s interview and the others.

Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Anxiety with Tara Hunkin on The Anxiety Summit 5

October 18, 2019 By Trudy Scott 2 Comments

Tara Hunkin, NTP, CGP, RWP is one my guest experts on The Anxiety Summit 5: Gut-Brain Axis and our topic is: Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Anxiety. In this interview you’ll learn:

The role of mitochondria in the gut, brain and anxiety
Causes (such as medications and environmental toxins), testing, and signs and symptoms of mitochondrial dysfunction
Healing nutrients: Carnitine, COQ10, folinic acid, meal timing (as well as antioxidants and many other nutrients such as PQQ)

Tara starts with an overview of mitochondria, the energy powerhouses of our bodies and why they are so important in both physical and mental health.

You can hear some of this background information in this short in-person interview we did in San Diego recently.

(Note: The dates for the 2021 Anxiety Summit 5 is November 8-14, 2021)

You’ll also hear Tara share about this new bidirectional relationship that has been identified between anxiety and mitochondrial dysfunction. One of the papers she is referring to is this 2019 review paper: Anxiety and Brain Mitochondria: A Bidirectional Crosstalk. Here are the highlights:

Despite the established link between mitochondrial dysfunction and various psychiatric disorders, the contribution of mitochondria in anxiety disorders has not been extensively addressed.
Mitochondria are emerging as modulators of anxiety-related behavior, as evidenced both in animal and human studies.
There is a bidirectional link between mitochondria and anxiety. Mitochondrial, energy metabolism, and oxidative stress alterations are observed in high anxiety; conversely, changes in mitochondrial function can lead to heightened anxiety.

Tara shares how important the mitochondria are when it comes to digestion and gut health too:

the liver is heavily mitochondrial-dense and is needed to help eliminate toxins we are exposed to (toxins that affect our mitochondria and increase anxiety)
the mitochondria are also important when it comes to digestion – the lining of digestive tract (the epithelial cells of the microvilli) contain large numbers of mitochondria

The authors also highlight that “Pharmacological manipulation of mitochondria may be a potential therapeutic approach to relieve high anxiety symptoms.” One of the objectives of this summit is to highlight non-pharmacological approaches and Tara does exactly this in our interview.

She covers both lifestyle and nutritional approaches for addressing mitochondrial dysfunction (acetyl-l-carnitine, glutathione, antioxidants, coenzyme Q10, folinic acid and many more).

I also mention two other interviews on the summit where we talk about nutrients that also support mitochondrial function: PQQ (pyrroloquinoline quinone) and TUDCA (tauroursodeoxycholic acid).

Be sure to listen to these interviews for more about these two nutrients:

Jay Davidson, DC, PScD: Parasites, Anxiety and TUDCA for Your Liver
Michael Murray, ND: PQQ for Stress, Sleep, Mitochondria and Gut Health

We also discuss testing and all the environmental factors that impact the mitochondria including medications such as risperidone/risperdal (and antipsychotic medication), valproic acid (used for seizures), fluoroquinolone antibiotics like Cipro (and others) and also benzodiazepines (the commonly prescribed anti-anxiety medications).

You can listen to each of the interviews (and get transcripts) by purchasing The Anxiety Summit 5: Gut-Brain Axis.

If you’d like to give feedback or ask a question, please post in the comments section. I’d love to hear from you once you’ve listened in.

If you’d like to give feedback or ask a question, please post in the comments section at the bottom.

I’d love to hear from you once you’ve listened in to this interview and the others.

Drainage and liver-bile duct-gallbladder support for Lyme disease

May 24, 2017 By Trudy Scott 4 Comments

Dr Jay Davidson, host The Chronic Lyme Disease Summit 2 shares the powerful story of how he became a Lyme expert because of his own wife’s crash with Lyme disease when their daughter was born. I just love that he offers hope:

there is actually hope out there no matter how much crud you’ve been through and how many crazy things you went through

He shares the 5 steps from his book: 5 Steps to Restoring Health Protocol

Step one is detect, and that’s all about figuring out what are all the pieces to the puzzle. Because if we can’t figure out what the pieces are, we can’t create a road map of where we need to go, right.
The second step is drain. And I want to talk a lot about that today, because that’s something I believe that can improve any protocol, any treatment that you’re going through; drainage, drainage, drainage.
Step three is elimination or pathogen elimination or if you just want to think of it as like killing pathogens.
Step four is about rebuilding tissues, and it’s very dependent on what’s going on with your body as to where we need to focus with rebuilding the tissues.
Step five is detoxification.

And goes into what drainage is and why it’s so important when it comes to Lyme disease, heavy metal detox and healing in general:

Drainage, I think more of the pathways. So you could say, okay, what are the pathways? I think of the colon, like going number two, pooping, that’s a pathway. So if you are not going number two at least once a day, if not twice a day, and having good bowel movements then that’s a sign that drainage pathway is not open.

The kidneys are drainers; the skin, just the ability to sweat; the liver-bile duct system; the brain; lymphatic system; these are all drainers.

And so if we focus on the idea of draining just to make sure these pathways are open and moving. Then when we get to a point where we’re going to kill bugs or kill pathogens and/or detoxify toxins, heavy metals – get these things out of our body – if the drainage pathways are open, the body does well.

If the drainage pathways are clogged, then that’s when these things can’t move – like the metals, these pathogens like Lyme – they can’t move out of the body. So therefore, the debris or the chemical creates inflammation, and that’s what makes us to have these reactions. We call them Herxheimer reactions.

Dr Jay goes into more detail on the number one drainage area he focuses on with his patients – the liver-bile duct-gallbladder area and how it impacts:

the lymphatic system
stomach acid and digestion
exposure to pathogens

And he shares how to use ox bile, dandelion tea, activated charcoal, coffee enemas and castor oil packs to support the liver-bile duct-gallbladder area and improve drainage.

He’s also excited to share a liver support product that is new to me. It’s called TUDCA or tauroursodeoxycholic acid and I certainly look forward to learning more about it!

The Chronic Lyme Disease Summit 2 runs June 19-26, 2017 and Dr Jay’s interview airs on day 1 of the summit.

Lyme disease is quickly spreading across the entire globe – very few are enlightened on this troublesome condition! We know that 300,000+ people per year contract Lyme, and 2017 is predicted by some to be an incredibly risky year! And according to the CDC, every single year there are more people affected with Lyme disease than breast cancer. That’s why Dr. Jay Davidson is hosting the second summit on this topic with only 2 repeat speakers from 2016.

Last year I was interviewed on Lyme anxiety and how to use GABA and other amino acids to ease the anxiety while you are working on addressing the Lyme disease. I’m not speaking this year but last year’s summit was so good and very popular with my community so I want you to know about it in case your health challenges are due to Lyme disease. I’ve seen the line-up this year and I’m excited to learn from these experts.

This summit will help you understand symptoms (common and rare), diagnosis and testing, practical at-home health tips, healing protocol explanations and more!

So much of what you’ll learn on this summit is applicable for you if you have Lyme BUT much of it will be valuable if you’re dealing with any health issue (like this drainage interview).

Feel free to post questions or feedback below.

The Anxiety Summit – Primal nutrition for anxiety and depression

November 16, 2014 By Trudy Scott 1 Comment

Dr. Lauren Noel, ND was interviewed by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Primal nutrition for anxiety and depression

The benefits of eating grass-fed red meat
Which healthy fats to include and why
Why include nutrient-dense bone broths and how to make them
Mineral-rich foods make a difference

Here is the blog post from season 1 of the Anxiety Summit: The Research – Food to prevent and treat anxiety and depression?

out of every single dietary food grouping that I looked at including vegetables, fruits, salads, beans, etc the strongest correlate of mental health was red meat intake (grass-fed red meat of course)

I’m glad we talked about total cholesterol that is too low because the whole cholesterol question comes up a lot. Here is a blog post with some links to studies: Total cholesterol that is too low: anxiety and depression in women

Here is some research on how trans fats make us depressed and anxious

Here is my roasted spicy pumpkin seed recipe and Magdalena’s liver pate recipe

If you can’t get your meat locally, you can mail order grass-fed meat and other wonderful products like liver and pemmican from US Wellness Meats. In the interview I mentioned their Liverwurst, which is a mixture of grass-fed beef trim (30%), liver (30%), heart (20%) and kidney (20%). I really think this “is the tastiest way to incorporate healthy grass-fed beef organs into your diet!” All of their beef products are 100% grass-fed and grass-finished. They source from family farms, and endorse sustainable farming and humane practices.

Dr. Lo is the host of Dr. Lo Radio, a top rated podcast on iTunes that has attracted over 1million listens. It’s a great podcast. Here are links to 2 shows: Death by Food Pyramid with Denise Minger and Your Personal Paleo Code with Chris Kresser

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

The Anxiety Summit – The hidden master organ: Why treating your liver is fundamental to anxiety and depression

November 6, 2014 By Trudy Scott 32 Comments

Dr. Ameet Aggarwal ND psychotherapist and author of Feel Good: Easy Steps to Health and Happiness was interviewed by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

The hidden master organ: Why treating your liver is fundamental to anxiety and depression

Why the liver is the hidden master organ and defining a sluggish liver
The role of lactate and the liver and how this contributes to anxiety
How the liver affects thyroid hormones
Dietary factors that improve the liver and the ones that make it more sluggish
A form of breathing that massages the liver
Homeopathics, antioxidants and herbs for a sluggish liver
The benefits of using a castor oil pack
The importance of organic psychotherapy, family constellations, de-stressing, meditation, and exercise

Here are some snippets from our interview:

We call the liver the master organ because it’s really responsible for most of the functions in your body, including blood purification, detoxification of drugs and toxins, and also detoxifies the toxins that are produced by your body itself. The liver also creates a lot of enzymes, produces bile, so it’s responsible for a lot of your digestion, hormone production, protein production, and it also helps with blood sugar storage and regulation. Not only that, it helps with immune cell activation and storage of vitamins and iron.

When you have a sluggish liver, less bile is produced and digestion is poor leading to constipation, toxin buildup, inflammation and less absorption of important nutrients. You can then have neurotransmitter deficiencies and be more susceptible to anxiety.

Your liver also controls hormones, so if your liver is imbalanced, you will see a progesterone deficiency and usually estrogen dominance. As you know, Trudy, progesterone deficiency directly affects the function of GABA in your brain, and so with liver qi stagnation, leading to progesterone deficiency, we will see increased levels of anxiety.

Here is the Neuropsychopharmacology paper called Neural pathways underlying lactate-induced panic where they connected high lactate levels to panic attacks. We discussed how sugar, alcohol, caffeine, food sensitivities, low levels of niacin and vitamins B6 may contribute to elevated levels of lactate in the blood.

Here is the paper that addresses the liver-thyroid connection: The relationship between the thyroid gland and the liver. Basically, thyroid hormones are processed by the liver. Some of the conversion of T4 into active T3, which is a thyroid hormone, requires healthy liver function.

Ameet shared this at the end of our interview and I want to share it here because I’m inspired by what Ameet is doing, because I love Africa and Kenya (my husband and I honey-mooned there) and because I’d love to inspire you to get involved and consider a trip to Kenya (why not!):

I actually live at the bottom of Mount Kenya right on the equator, a little town called Nanyuki. My dream was to come back to Kenya after Canada to start mobile clinics for remote communities and supervise students and doctors from around the world, which I started through a program called FIMAFRICA/Foundation for Integrated Medicine in Africa. Basically, we go to remote villages that don’t have medical services and treat them for chronic diseases or acute diseases using naturopathic medicine, mainly homeopathic medicine, which works really well, because a lot of these communities suffer from just a lot of chronic disease but all they’re given is antibiotics or antimalarials, which don’t necessarily treat the root cause of the issue. So, they love homeopathy because a lot of chronic disease is disappearing, and they really notice the difference between the two types of medicine. So it’s my passion, and yeah, I hope to continue doing it for the rest of my life. My aim is hopefully one day to sell a million copies of my book and just do mobile clinics all day.

Watch this short video of Ameet talking about it and then tell me you’re not excited about the idea of going to Africa and getting involved!

If you want to help, check out the FIMAFRICA site above, contact him about going there and volunteering or buy a few copies of his great book Feel Good: Easy Steps to Health and Happiness

Here is a nice video of Ameet giving an overview of Feel Good

And get your free chapters from the Feel Good book (on emotions, better sex and liver health)

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