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GABA eases anxiety and is protective against metabolic and reproductive disturbances in polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS)?

January 8, 2021 By Trudy Scott 8 Comments

gaba pcos

This question was recently asked in my online GABA Quickstart group program: What are your thoughts about using GABA with somebody who has polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS)? Are there any contraindications? My approach is always the same regardless of your diagnosis – if you have the low GABA symptoms of physical anxiety then it’s worth doing a trial to determine if supplementing with the calming amino acid GABA will help.

What is very interesting is that this rat study, Protective effects of GABA against metabolic and reproductive disturbances in letrozole induced polycystic ovarian syndrome in rats, reports some very specific benefits of GABA being protective against metabolic and reproductive disturbances in PCOS.

Letrozole or Femara, a non-steroidal aromatase inhibitor (i.e. it lowers estrogen production) is used to treat breast cancer in postmenopausal women and it induced PCOS in the rats.

The following benefits were found when GABA was used in the rats with PCOS:

  • reduced body weight
  • reduced body mass index
  • reduced testosterone
  • a favourable lipid profile
  • normal glucose tolerance
  • a decreased number of cystic follicles in the ovaries

These results are profound. But wait for it …”the effects observed with GABA were comparable to that with metformin” with none of the side-effects (which can actually include anxiety, a racing heart, shakiness and depression).

The authors conclude as follows:

The results suggest that GABA treatment has shown protective effects in PCOS and provides beneficial effects either by reducing insulin resistance or by inducing antioxidant defence mechanisms.

The above paper didn’t measure anxiety levels but it’s very common with PCOS. According to this paper, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: A Review of Treatment Options With a Focus on Pharmacological Approaches

after PCOS is diagnosed, studies show that more than 50% of patients develop prediabetes or diabetes, and there is an increased risk of myocardial infarction (MI), dyslipidemia, hypertension, anxiety, depression, endometrial cancer, and sleep apnea.

So it makes sense that using GABA will also help to ease any anxiety symptoms that are present. As always, look at the low GABA symptoms and if they exist rate them on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being most severe), do a trial with GABA, and rate your symptoms afterwards, adjusting up or down as needed based on symptom relief.

A quick recap if you are new to GABA, these are the symptoms of low GABA:

  • Unable to relax or loosen up
  • Stiff or tense muscles
  • Feeling stressed and burned-out
  • Feeling worried or fearful
  • Panic attacks
  • Craving carbs for relaxation and calming
  • Craving alcohol for relaxation and calming
  • Craving drugs for relaxation and calming
  • Insomnia *
  • Have intrusive thoughts, perseverate or have an overactive brain
    Or have unwanted thoughts – thoughts about unpleasant memories, images or worries (Updated Nov 17, 2017: new GABA research on intrusive thoughts) *
  • Inability to prioritize planned actions *
  • Acrophobia (fear of heights) * – possibly other phobias too
  • Poor focus *
  • Rectal spasms *
  • Burning mouth *
  • Visceral pain/belly pain with IBS *

(* New additions that are not in my book “The Antianxiety Food Solution”)

Keep in mind that the above PCOS GABA paper was an animal study and GABA was not listed as a treatment option in the second paper above so my approach would be to use GABA for easing the physical anxiety symptoms. At the same time, share this blog and study with your prescribing physician and request if they will work with you to adjust your Metformin as they monitor your testosterone, lipids, glucose, insulin and cystic follicles in the ovaries, as well as weight and body mass index.

I look forward to human GABA PCOS studies in the near future. I also look forward to hearing back from you if you have PCOS and are using GABA for easing your anxiety symptoms AND are also seeing some of the above metabolic and reproductive improvements.

Given the prevalence of PCOS it’s important we use everything at our disposal to help:

Research suggests that 5% to 10% of females 18 to 44 years of age are affected by PCOS, making it the most common endocrine abnormality among women of reproductive age in the U.S. Women seeking help from health care professionals to resolve issues of obesity, acne, amenorrhea, excessive hair growth, and infertility often receive a diagnosis of PCOS.

We must always use a comprehensive approach and this book by my friend and colleague, Amy Medling is wonderful: Healing PCOS.

Do you have PCOS and anxiety and has GABA helped? Have you also observed some of the above metabolic and reproductive improvements?

If you’re a practitioner working with women with PCOS, have you made any of these observations?

I’d also be curious to hear if you see changes in acne severity, amenorrhea (missed periods), excessive hair growth or infertility?

Please do share in the comments below.

Filed Under: Anxiety, Fertility and Pregnancy, GABA, Hormone, Women's health Tagged With: acne, amenorrhea, anxiety, cystic follicles, excessive hair growth, GABA, glucose tolerance, infertility, lipid profile, metabolic, obesity, ovaries, PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome, reduced body mass index, reduced body weight, reduced testosterone, reproductive

Food Fix by Dr. Mark Hyman – my review

February 27, 2020 By Trudy Scott 4 Comments

food fix by mark hyman

Dr. Mark Hyman has a brilliant new book called called Food Fix: How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities, and Our Planet – One Bite at a Time and his big bold message is that: “We need to change the food system to change the world.”  It is an issue that is seriously overlooked and he wants to change this.

food fix

Watch this short video clip to hear it from Dr. Hyman himself.

food fix

Here are some of the key messages from Food Fix

  • If we don’t change the food system, we’re going to spend $95 trillion dollars on chronic disease – heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and dementia – over the next 35 years.
  • Big food spends a lot of money in Washington to keep us fat and sick.
  • The food industry preys on our most vulnerable citizens – children.

According to the American Psychological Association, children under the age of 8 don’t instinctively recognize the difference between TV Commercials and programs, which makes them particularly vulnerable.

  • Big Food buys partnerships with public schools.
  • Minorities are also targeted by the food industry.

Researchers at the University of Connecticut found that junk food companies spend the most on ads that target African Americans and Spanish speakers. Guess which products were most heavily advertised toward minorities—Gatorade, Pop Tarts, Twix Candy Bar, Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal, and Tyson Frozen Entrees

The worse the nutritional profile the more heavily the products were promoted through advertising.

Where are the broccoli ads?

These findings, the researchers noted, “highlight important disparities in the food and beverage industry’s heavy marketing of unhealthy foods to Hispanic and black youth, and the corresponding lack of promotion of healthier options.”

  • Bad food is making us anxious, depressed, and is messing with our brains. I’m thrilled that Dr. Hyman highlights how nutritional medicine is a key to mental health and psychiatry. Here are some snippets :

Studies show that adults with many types of mental health issues and children with ADHD have very low levels of antioxidants (which come from fruits and vegetables), such as the fifty-six-year-old man with lifelong crippling depression who improved by cleaning up his diet and taking a cocktail of B vitamins. I remember one man who presented with severe panic attacks every afternoon. Turned out he was eating a diet very high in sugar and starch and had wild swings in his blood sugar, which triggered the anxiety. When he cut out sugar and starch, his anxiety and panic attacks vanished. These stories are not anomalies. They are predictable results from applying nutritional medicine.

In recent years, major medical journals have clearly shown the link between nutrition and mental health. The Lancet Psychiatry, a top medical journal, maps out just how nutritional medicine is a key to mental health and psychiatry. Overall diet quality, high sugar loads, and rampant nutritional deficiencies (including omega‑3 fats, zinc, magnesium, vitamin D, and B vitamins) all drive mental illness. In other words, the culprit is once again the American and increasingly global industrial diet. We have discussed the costs of obesity and chronic disease, but most don’t connect mental illness to the costs of chronic disease. In fact, the cost of mental illness to the economic burden is far greater than the costs of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Population studies have found that more fruits and vegetables and less french fries, fast food, and sugar are associated with a lower prevalence of mental illness, and that junk food creates moderate to severe psychological distress. The good news is that interventional studies have shown that treatment of mental illness with diet works well (especially since most medications for mental illness don’t work that well, despite being the second biggest category of drugs sold).

And here are a few of the many solutions proposed in the book:

  • Support regenerative agriculture and sustainable food.
  • Stop purchasing franken-foods:

Today 60% of our diet is ultra-processed food made from commodity crops—corn, soy, and wheat—that’s turned into various sizes, shapes, and colors from the raw materials—high fructose corn syrup, white flour, and refined soybean oil. When you vote with your dollars and your fork to stay away from these foods, you send a message to big food to stop subsidizing commodity crops and grow more fruits and vegetables!

  • End food waste:

Buy only what you need.  If food may go bad soon, make a soup or stew. Get a compost bucket for your kitchen.  Start a compost pile in your backyard, or buy an in-home composter.  Use it in your garden or donate it to someone who has a garden.

  • Be an activist and teach your family why food matters.
  • Address food deserts and food swamps in African American communities, and recognize that this is:

“food apartheid,” an embedded social and political form of discrimination.

Here is the official book blurb:

Help to transform the planet in crisis with this indispensable guide to healthy, ethical, and economically sustainable food from #1 New York Times bestselling author Mark Hyman, MD.

Food is our most powerful tool to reverse the global epidemic of chronic disease, heal the environment, reform politics, and revive economies. What we eat has tremendous implications not just for our waistlines, but also for the planet, society, and the global economy. What we do to our bodies, we do to the planet; and what we do to the planet, we do to our bodies. 

In Food Fix, Mark Hyman explains how our food and agriculture policies are corrupted by money and lobbies that drive our biggest global crises: the spread of obesity and food-related chronic disease, climate change, poverty, violence, educational achievement gaps, and more.

Pairing the latest developments in nutritional and environmental science with an unflinching look at the dark realities of the global food system and the policies that make it possible, Food Fix is a hard-hitting manifesto that will change the way you think about – and eat – food forever, and will provide solutions for citizens, businesses, and policy makers to create a healthier world, society, and planet.

I love that Dr. Hyman says he is left with a sense of hope and possibility after writing this book … “understanding the problems and challenges we face sets the foundations for the solutions.”

Wise words indeed! This book is much-needed, brilliant, eye-opening and shocking at times, but hopeful and solution-based.

You can get your copy of Food Fix here (my Amazon link) and find additional information and resources on the official book site here.

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: African Americans, chronic disease, climate change, education, environmental, food, food and agriculture policies, food deserts, Food Fix, food swamps, mark hyman, mental health, nutrition, Nutritional medicine, obesity, poverty, psychiatry, the planet, violence

The Anxiety Summit – The leptin obesity anxiety connection

June 10, 2016 By Trudy Scott 23 Comments

Mike Mutzel_Anxiety4

Mike Mutzel, MS, author of Belly Fat Effect,  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.

The leptin obesity anxiety connection

  • Leptin as an appetite-regulation hormone
  • How leptin effects on immunity, inflammation and cortisol
  • Leptin and the microbiome, LPS and leaky gut
  • How leptin plays a role in anxiety, stress, PTSD and depression
  • How to exercise, meditate and do yoga to decrease leptin levels

Here are some snippets from our interview:

So low leptin levels trigger the hypothalamus in the brain to signal the rest of the body to initiate hunger and to cause people to eat and so forth.  And then as we eat calories throughout the day our leptin levels progressively rise.  And once they’re rising, they peak around midnight or two in the morning, it just depends on someone’s biological rhythms.  Everyone is different.

And so when they peak that signals to the rest of the body that there’s enough fuel on board and we can start burning fuel.  So it’s actually a good process, right, because it’s going to stimulate all these mitochondrial pathways to be turning on basically cellular breakdown of the nutrients that we’ve ingested throughout the day and then the cycle repeats.

The problem though is that people get leptin resistant and this really actually refers to the hypothalamus.  So that’s really the main region of the body where the receptors become resistant.  And so the problem then because people – and let me just pause and share with you kind of how people get leptin resistant.  It’s just leptin is released primarily from adipocytes, from fat tissue, okay.  And so the more fat you have, the more body fat you have whether you’re a man or a woman, young or old, the more leptin you’re going to be releasing.

And then we cover leptin 2.0 and the stress, anxiety, PTSD connection:

Now let’s take a deep dive into what I like to call leptin 2.0.  The cool part about leptin that not many people understand is that leptin affects the immune system.  It also affects the HPA axis and the hormonal system, cortisol and even sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen in a really profound way.

When you become more overweight, more sedentary, you eat outside of your circadian rhythm, leptin levels get imbalanced and you become leptin resistant. Leptin doesn’t have that brake mechanism to suppress cortisol release.  That’s why we see elevated levels of leptin in PTSD, in stress responses, in overweight people and so forth.  And so it affects our body’s ability to adjust to our environment which is really what we’re trying to do. 

We all have stress.  We’re just trying to balance that better. The problem though is leptin, if we have excess levels of leptin that’s going to affect our body’s ability to cope with stressors and make life seem more challenging than it needs to be.

Here is the 2015 study I mentioned: The role of maternal obesity in the risk of neuropsychiatric disorders 

Animals exposed to maternal obesity and a high fat diet consumption display hyperactivity, impairments in social behavior, increased anxiety-like and depressive-like behaviors, substance addiction, food addiction, and diminished cognition. During development, these offspring are exposed to elevated levels of nutrients (fatty acids, glucose), hormones (leptin, insulin), and inflammatory factors (C-reactive protein, interleukin, and tumor necrosis factor). Such factors appear to permanently change neuroendocrine regulation and brain development in offspring. In addition, inflammation of the offspring brain during gestation impairs the development of neural pathways critical in the regulation of behavior, such as serotoninergic, dopaminergic, and melanocortinergic systems.

Here are some recent studies on leptin, obesity, serotonin and the HPA axis:

  • Gastric ghrelin, GOAT, leptin, and leptinR expression as well as peripheral serotonin are dysregulated in humans with obesity
  • Neuroendorine and Epigentic Mechanisms Subserving Autonomic Imbalance and HPA Dysfunction in the Metabolic Syndrome

Mike is author of Belly Fat Effect: The Real Secret About How Your Diet, Intestinal Health, and Gut Bacteria Help You Burn Fat  

belly fat effectIf you enjoy geeky science and plenty of facts you will love this book!

We talked about the excellent Autism Intensive  which Mike hosted earlier this year.  You can register to watch 5 videos from the event.

And here are some snippets from The Autism Intensive  and a snippet of Dr. Usman’s interview: Zinc/copper balance in autism/pyroluria

Here is the gift from Mike: The Leptin Blueprint

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.

Filed Under: Events, The Anxiety Summit 4 Tagged With: anxiety, anxiety summit, leptin, Mike Mutzel, obesity, Trudy Scott

End anxiety/fears/social anxiety…The Anxiety Summit starts next week!

June 2, 2016 By Trudy Scott Leave a Comment

AnxietySummit4_speakers

The Anxiety Summit Season 4 (a virtual/online event) kicks off on Monday June 6 at 9am PDT. It will run thru June 16 with 2 – 3 speakers per day available for viewing at no charge. AND WE HAVE NEW SPEAKERS and some FAVORITE RETURNING SPEAKERS WITH NEW TOPICS!

 

Topics include the connections between anxiety and brain food, why healthy fats and turmeric feed our brains, how grass-fed red meat helps with anxiety, the impact of coffee and gluten, the best gluten testing, GABA and the blood brain barrier, serotonin and tryptophan, best forms of GABA and tryptophan, anxiety in autism, MS and anxiety, Lyme disease and anxiety, mercury and lead detox, leaky gut and the SCD diet, low cholesterol and low oxytocin, the microbiome, stomach acid and zinc, fluroquinolones, methylation, pyroluria, the importance of community and much more.

Here is a snippet from one of the excellent interviews to get you excited if you are already signed up and to get you inspired if you are not already signed up!

Mike Mutzel, MS, author of The Belly Fat Effect
The leptin obesity anxiety connection

So low leptin levels trigger the hypothalamus in the brain to signal the rest of the body to initiate hunger and to cause people to eat and so forth. And then as we eat calories throughout the day our leptin levels progressively rise. And once they’re rising, they peak around midnight or two in the morning, it just depends on someone’s biological rhythms. Everyone is different.

And so when they peak that signals to the rest of the body that there’s enough fuel on board and we can start burning fuel. So it’s actually a good process, right, because it’s going to stimulate all these mitochondrial pathways to be turning on basically cellular breakdown of the nutrients that we’ve ingested throughout the day and then the cycle repeats.

The problem though is that people get leptin resistant and this really actually refers to the hypothalamus. So that’s really the main region of the body where the receptors become resistant. And so the problem then because people – and let me just pause and share with you kind of how people get leptin resistant. It’s just leptin is released primarily from adipocytes, from fat tissue, okay. And so the more fat you have, the more body fat you have whether you’re a man or a woman, young or old, the more leptin you’re going to be releasing.

And…

Now let’s take a deep dive into what I like to call leptin 2.0. The cool part about leptin that not many people understand is that leptin affects the immune system. It also affects the HPA axis and the hormonal system, cortisol and even sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen in a really profound way.

We all have stress. We’re just trying to balance that better. The problem though is leptin, if we have excess levels of leptin that’s going to affect our body’s ability to cope with stressors and make life seem more challenging than it needs to be.

================================
If you are already signed up….
================================

  • You can now see all the incredible speakers and topics at www.theAnxietySummit.com. This will be over 25 hours of top-notch anxiety nutritional solutions from people I have hand-picked! Plus 3 talks I will be doing on benzos, electroshock, blueberries, sauerkraut, the vagus nerve, GABA, neurotransmitter testing, amino acid questions, hyperflexibility/EDS, and pet anxiety. ALL NEW TOPICS!
  • You will, of course, have the option to upgrade and purchase digital audios, digital audios/transcripts, and data CDs with audios/transcripts.
  • PLUS we are also offering past season products at the current summit prices!
  • If you signed up for any of the past Anxiety Summits, or pre-registered for season 4, there is no need to sign up again – you will get the season 4 daily emails announcing speakers, gifts, and special offers. If you’re not sure if you are signed up, you can sign up again at www.theAnxietySummit.com, no problem. If you use the same email address you won’t get duplicate emails.

================================
If you haven’t yet signed up
================================

  • Join us NOW by signing up here www.theAnxietySummit.com you will get the season 4 daily emails announcing speakers, gifts, and special offers
  • You will be blown away by the content
  • And you’ll have a chance to ask questions and find solutions for your anxiety

If you have any questions about how any of this works feel free to ask in the comment box below.

Filed Under: The Anxiety Summit 4 Tagged With: anxiety summit, leptin, Mike Mutzel, obesity, The Belly Fat Effect

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