Harmony With Food Radio Show Episode #224: Gut & Brain Health

It's May, Mental Health Month, and today we are deep diving into how nutrition and your gut impacts your mental health.

Listen to the Episode

Studies on the Correlation Between the Digestive Issues & Mental Health

There is a very strong connection between digestive disorders and mental health that we are just beginning to understand. A number of studies have been done on this subject and we're going to talk about a few of them.

#1: Taiwanese Study on the Risk of Psychiatric Disorders Following IBS Diagnosis

This Taiwanese study showed that the risk of depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and bipolar syndrome are significantly higher in the first year after IBS diagnosis.

#2: Study on Psychological Disorders in Patients with Chronic Constipation

This study found that there's about a 37% rate of anxiety and about a 24% rate of depression in patients with chronic constipation. In the general population, anxiety is about 18% and depression is about 8-9%.

The Sympathetic Nervous System

The sympathetic nervous system controls your heart rate, breathing, and more. If you're nervous and your heart is beating quickly, think about what happens to your GI tract. The muscles of the GI tract begin to contract. The same thing happens when we have anxiety, and those muscle contractions can feel like IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome).

The Impact of IBS on Every Day Life

Whether you have diarrhea or constipation-predominant IBS, it can affect your life and your work life. It can lead to isolation, canceling social events, having to call in sick to work, feeling like you have to plan around going to the bathroom, and more.

So, there's a strong connection between psychological and digestive disorders. And it can be hard to say which one comes first.

The Gut-Brain Axis

This study looks at the bi-directional connection we have between the gut and the brain and how some of this communication may be happening. Essentially, the gut microbiota (all of the germs and bacteria in our digestive tract) can contribute to a healthy brain.

The microbiota in our gut actually plays a very strong role in how neurotransmitters are made in both the gut and brain. They also create inflammatory molecules and peptides that travel to the brain and can affect brain inflammation, neurotransmitters, and receptors.

When that goes on in our brain, it creates a certain mood, and our mood will affect our behaviors (such as what we decide to eat and what we're craving), and those behaviors will affect our gut.

Micro Array Technology

When I work with patients who have mood issues, I focus in on the gut. Micro array technology has exploded and allowed us to get better insight into what's going on through testing. There's genome, food intolerance, food allergen, microbiome, and micronutrient testing, and so much more.

The Endocrine and Immune Systems

Right now, we're also learning a lot about communication via the endocrine and immune systems. The endocrine system, which is the hormones in the body, plays a strong role in signaling the immune system.

Right now, the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal access (HPA Access) is an area that many people are studying. It's an area in the middle of the brain where there are these vessels called perivascular areas, which receive blood from the rest of the body. They also receive molecules and communication from the digestive tract to get into this part of the brain.

That part of the brain plays a major role with the nervous system, immune system, and hormonal system. They talk to each other and the hypothalamus and create a lot of settings for the rest of the body.

Exercise & Stress

While nutrition is important, it isn't the only thing. Exercise can help bring down your stress and help you with some of the hormones that make you feel better. It also helps you sleep better, which means you're getting into REM, rapid eye movement sleep, that helps you feel more rested and actually burns fat.

How I Can Help

I am a registered, licensed dietician nutritionist. I don't prescribe or diagnose, but I can help you if you're feeling weight loss resistant, if you have GI issues, obesity, or any of the co-morbidities of obesity like pre-diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.

My role is to dig deeper and do more proactive testing to determine exactly what pre and probiotics and food, drinks, and supplements you should or should not be consuming.

To get started, you can contact me, head over to the Biounique Boutique if you're interested in testing, sign up for my monthly membership, or enroll in my Your Diet Do Over Course.

Episode Transcript

Hey, welcome to the Harmony with Food show. My name is Meg and I am the anti-diet dietician, and I am here to help you determine exactly what foods, drinks, and supplements you should or should not be consuming This month is mental health month. So we're going to focus today on fix the brain, fix the gut, and we're going to talk a lot about the different

resources that you can use to help you with your anxiety, your depression, et cetera, because food and mood is real. And so is exercise. Exercise is super important for our mood, for our sleep, because let's face it. Guys. You're either going in one direction or another. You're eating good food. You're feeling good.

Maybe you're losing some weight. You're actually doing, um, getting eight hours of sleep, seven to eight hours of sleep every night. You're waking up refreshed and you're ready to start the day. You're actually looking forward to the day or you're wired and tired. You're not getting enough sleep. You're eating the wrong foods.

They're making you have more anxiety and depression. You're binge-eating at night. And then you're waking up in the middle of the night when your blood sugar drops, because that's what will happen and you'll wake up. So you're not sleeping. You get up in the morning, you see, you've gained a few more pounds, you're already upset.

And then you try on six different new spring outfits. And none of them look the way you want them to look. They just don't look right. And so you are starting the day off in a kind of a bad mood you're going into work. And if someone even looks at you the wrong way, you feel like crying or getting really upset.

And that is not what I want for the harmony with food listeners. So today we're going to talk about things that you can do to help you with your anxiety, depression. And I talk a lot about different supplements that can be given. And actually what I do in my practice is I vet certain companies to make sure, um, that they are, you know, um, appropriate and they're using proper standards.

And. Doing what they say they're doing. So there's about three different companies that I work with. And as a client, if I feel that you would benefit from any of these types of products, that's going to be part of your plan of care. Um, no, the companies I work with you can't just go buy it on Amazon. You can't just go.

And get it off my site, unfortunately, but if you are a client, I can actually, um, recommend different things. And we'll talk about later. We'll talk about that later in the show. The number here is 8 6 6 9 2 0 9 4 5 5. Again, the number here is 8 6 6 9 2 0 9 4 5 5. But I have a question for you ladies, especially the ladies, you white knuckle it, when someone says to you want to go out to eat Saturday night.

Excuse me, or want to go to brunch Sunday, you start feeling like, oh my God, I don't even know I was supposed to be eating healthy, but I don't even know if I was going to have anything healthy at the restaurant. And if I go, maybe we're going to have a drink or, you know, can I even have a drink? And so I'm the anti-diet dietician and I'm also the Irish dietician.

So I'm going to tell you that don't sweat the small stuff. If you're not overdoing it, and you want to have a drink here and there. That's totally fine. Unless, you know, you have a problem and that's a whole different situation, a whole nother topic, probably a different rate, probably a different show you might want to just be listening to, but that's a different story, but for those of you who can socially drink and that's it, then that's fine.

Let's not sweat the small stuff. Let's not be so black and white, no. Let's not be play some compliance game like they do at WeightWatchers and the keto diets and all these different diets. Um, because dieting doesn't work. It only slows down your metabolism and then makes you gain all the weight back.

And then some, and I know people love the shakes and all that, but I'm not into that. I mean, if you want a smoothie, that's fine. Um, there's lots of healthy ways. You can make smoothies. It's a million smoothie recipes online. Um, and you know, and also just making sure that you're doing all the things to complete everything, because it's not just nutrition when it comes to mental health, right.

Nutrition plays a huge role. And so does exercise. And we're going to talk more about that today. Um, again, the number here is 8 6 6 9 2 0 9 4 5 5. If you want to call in, you have a question. But, you know, I think a lot of times when people go to the conventional doctors and I say almost every week on the show, I'm nothing against conventional methods of medicine.

It's just apples and oranges. I'm more of a proactive approach. If you feel like you're walking into the doctor's office, you think, you know, doctor checks your blood work, but you know, there could be more that can be done. And you feel that conventional medicine is just kind of skimming the surface. Then you are in the bright place right now, because we're going to talk about proactive health here, not just preventative healthcare.

I mean, conventional medicine, considers giving prescription medications, preventative healthcare. And I totally disagree with that. Okay. But. If you don't even know what to put in your mouth anymore, you're not alone, too many people that have no business talking about nutrition, doing so are causing a lot of confusion out there.

I have people come into my office asking me questions. Like, how do I, you know, like, does fruit have too much sugar in it? And I'm like, that's like, same, water's too wet. Fruit is made with monosaccharides. It has polyphenols, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, et cetera, all those things. We need to fight disease to, to feel good to help us.

So fruit is healing guys. I don't know who's out there writing that fruit has too much sugar in it cause that's just nonsense. So maybe you're suffering from, you know, sore joints, headaches. Weight loss, resistance, brain fog, fatigue, GI issues, anxiety, depression, or other mood disorders. Well just know you guys are in the right place.

And, um, leading nutritionist Meg Marie O'Rourke. And I was put on this earth to change the way you think about food. So every week on the show, we usually have a different time. This month, I'm trying to a lot to focus on mental health because I think it's super important. And I mean, I don't know anybody out there who has ever had even about depression or a little bit of anxiety, just know it's okay.

You know, we all go through it and we all come, you know, hopefully we all do well and we get through it and we come back on the other side stronger. But you can't just sit around and eat junk food, emotionally, eat, and think that's going to resolve your problems or isolating is another thing that people do.

And then they binge eat at home and then they're upset when they get up in the morning. Yeah. They're mad at themselves for what they did last night. And that's not what I want for you guys. But, um, so every week this show airs from 11 to noon. You are listening to the Harmony with Food Show, my name's Meg, if you're just tuning in, if you're in the car right now, Don't multitask.

Just remember the words HWF or harmonywithfood.com or go ahead and, um, look up Meg nutritionist for Rhode Island. I will come up, but just remember HWF harmonywithfood.com. You could go over to the website. You can get on my email list. When you get on my email list, you'll actually get reminders for the show.

You'll get my blogs. You'll get free recipes and shopping lists and more, some videos and things like that. Now, um, if you want to go even deeper and you want to be proactive about your health, you can actually go over to work with Meg on my site, harmonywithfood.com and you could go over and make a free discovery call with me, which is basically, you know, it's not a free coaching call, but it's a call to determine exactly what testing I think would be beneficial for you.

And if you're fortunate not to have certain health insurances, we do accept a few of the major healthcare insurances that I am. Um, I am, um, One of the members of, so that you can actually go ahead and, um, we can talk about what insurance you have, if it will cover, et cetera, you can also call my office at (401) 245-8784.

If you're interested in making a telemedicine appointment. Um, and I also have a membership where we do all kinds of cool stuff and have meetings. And, um, we have about 19 people in the membership now, so you can go over there. That's right on my site too. And, um, maybe after the break, I will go. And, um, lead you guys around the site a little bit, maybe towards the end of the show, actually.

But you guys you're listening to the harmony with food show on 9:20 AM. 1 0 4 0.7 FM my name's Meg I'm the anti diet dietician. I don't believe in diets. And the $30 billion a year dieting industry is laughing all the way to the bank. And so as big ag. And so is big pharma and that is not what I want for any of you.

And guess what? All these things that I mentioned from sore joints to obesity, to diabetes and pre-diabetes and high cholesterol, all of this stuff is preventable and I'm here every Saturday from 11 to noon to answer your questions. The number here is 8 6 6 9 2 0. 9 4, 5, 5. You can also email me@megatharmonywithfood.com.

We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back to the Harmony with Food Show. We are talking about. Fix the brain fix the gut and how there is a correlation between mental health illness and GI issues. And so, um, we, we need to look at the whole picture. Um, and that's why I also, I do have a membership called harmony within, um, The same price of ordering a pizza every week.

Right. Um, but you get access to me. We do private calls together, ramp other experts. So you could check that out on my website also, but again, we're talking about the gut brain access and mental health, and we are seeing there's a very strong connection in the recent. Between digestive disorders and psychiatric disorders.

And so really understanding causes of mental health concerns, including anxiety is super, super important. So I started to find a lot of research on that showed that there are these correlations between digestive issues and mental health. So there has been, um, a number of articles that have come out, showed a very strong relationship between irritable bowel syndrome and its correlation with psychiatric disorders.

So in, in fact, a Taiwanese study showed that there's a very high risk within the first year of diagnosis of IBS and psychiatric issues. So they're really starting to show the strong correlation. So in another study in gastroenterology and hepatology journal and, um, showed that, um, with patients who had high incidents of constipation. There's about a 37% rate of anxiety and about a 24% rate of depression, which is much higher than the general population. Anxiety is about 18% in general. And depression is about eight to 9%. So you could see that when you're having GI issues, it can exacerbate your symptoms of anxiety and depression.

And it only makes sense because if you think about it, the sympathetic nervous system. Which controls your heart rate, your breathing, all of that. If you're nervous and your heart is going faster now think of your GI tract, which we know, you know, people always say the colon is as long as a football fields.

Um, so you, you know, that those muscles, if you think of, um, the muscles in the GI tract, similar to a slinky, they kind of wrap around right. And if your heart's going fast and you're breathing heavy and all that stuff, which is what happens when we're nervous or we have anxiety or what have you. Then those that contraction of that muscle in that GI track is what can for some people lead to the need to feel like you have IBS irritable bowel syndrome.

Do you need to run to the bathroom or the other is, could be irritable bowel diarrhea, or it could be irritable bowel syndrome, constipation. I see, or IBS, D some people have a combination of both, but it can affect your life. It can affect your work life. It gets affects you from being the great employee that you know, and want to be.

It can affect your social life. It can lead to isolation. It could lead to you canceling, you know, um, social events and other things. So it can be very complicated. Um, so if you feel like your GI distress is causing you a lot of these problems, you should give us a call at (401) 245-8784. And we're going to talk later in the show about things that I might recommend for certain people.

So, um, psychological disorders and patients with chronic constipation. And it's interesting that there's a connection. If you've got to start thinking that, um, there are some underlying factors that may be contributing to the constipation and also contributing to the anxiety. So it's like what came first, the chicken or the egg.

And so there's a very strong relationship between what's going on with digestion and what's going on with the brain and what's going on with mood. And so I'm good. That is so important. So if you're multitasking, I want you to listen to this again. So there's a very strong relationship between what's going on with digestion and what's going on with the brain and what's going on.

With your mood. And that's why all the new research that we're seeing out there, that's looking at the gut and the brain and inflammation and gut health. And all of those things are very intimately connected. And so let's talk about the gut-brain access, um, access. We're going to talk about fix the brain, fix the gut.

And, um, so this is a really growing area, which is why I'm excited to be talking about this during may, because may is mental health awareness month. And, um, there was this particular paper it's called The gut-brain axis: interactions between enteric microbiota, central and enteric nervous systems.

So there's a bi-directional connection that we have a connection between the gut and the brain and how some of this communication might be happening. And so. In this, um, in some of these papers, what it means is that there's a two way street to put it into English here, right? What's going on between the digestive system and what's going on between the brain and what the mechanism and the processes that go in the God intimately affect what's going on in the brain.

So we can do. Different types, types of testing too. And some of the pre and probiotics can actually help with all kinds of things, including obviously got health, but sleep and other things. We're going to talk about that later in the show. Um, so the microbiota. And we can also cut it, call it the gut health or microbiome or, you know, whatever the popular word is of the day, um, for some of this stuff, but, um, the microbiota and all these germs and bacteria that are in our digestive check, as an example, what we're seeing now is that the health and the diversity of those create either a healthy brain.

And, or an unhealthy brain. And that the microbiota that is in our gut actually plays a very, very strong role in how neurotransmitters are made both in the gut and the brain as well as they create inflammatory molecules and peptides and things that also traveled to the brain and will affect brain inflammation, inflammation, and affect brain neurotransmitters and affect receptors.

Of all of these neurotransmitters as well. So, and then when that goes on in the brain, whether it's our thoughts or effect from the digestive issues, we'll create a certain mood and our mood will affect our behaviors and our behaviors will affect our gut. For example. Eating properly or not eating properly and craving foods that maybe aren't the best for us will affect our gut and our microbiome.

And then that process will just kind of continue in a cycle. So it's really important to me as a practitioner, that when I see a patient that has a mood issue and, or anxiety, if I'm not working on the digestive tract, I'm not working. I'm just working on. Um, a very, very basic level. See the things I do in my practice now that I didn't do five years ago is in, for example, um, the micro array technology that has changed for nutrition.

It's just exploded and there's, um, microbiome testing, there's genome testing, there's food intolerance, testing there's food allergy testing. All of this stuff is for these people. There's micronutrient passing. I always say, well, Vitamin D the Kim Kardashians of vitamins. We need to look at all the vitamins and minerals in our system.

Why is it that conventional medicine is only skimming the surface with our health and not digging deeper? Well, I think we all kind of know the answers because the insurance companies, um, don't want to cover this stuff. And that's just a fact. Now some of them are slowly starting to cover some other things besides nutrition, like myself as a registered dietician.

Um, Maybe massage, you know, it's worth a phone call. It's worth asking your insurance if they would cover for a massage or acupuncture, all, all of that stuff. But here's where a lot of people stop is when they say no, that's when you let the insurance companies, the so-called health insurance companies, I like to call them sick insurance companies that actually.

Determined how you're going to handle your health. That is not being proactive. So don't be a trained robot. And just the minute they say, no, you say no, look at your budget and figure out, maybe you can stop those coffees every day from Dunkin donuts, or you might call them a coffee from your favorite coffee place.

Some of them, I see a you guys, how you're ordering those coffees. Okay. Some of those are really not coffee guys. They're milkshakes and really needs to think about that. And so I want you guys to think about ways you could maybe save a little money to actually be more proactive about your health so that you could be one of these people that I love to work with.

The people that want to not just skim the surface and not just do the things that insurance companies allow you to do, because don't forget they're training us. And I've said this many times on the show before, but it's the best example I can think. And then I get my teeth cleaned quarterly. And the reason being is because I asked my dental hygienists, who she does have a bachelor's degree in that it's just really smart lady.

She said, we should probably begin our teeth cleaned three to four times a year. And I said, well, then sign me up. I'll just pay out of pocket for it. Now I understand not everyone can afford to do that, but I think if you really look at your budget, your schedule, all that kind of stuff you can make, you can probably make it happen.

Now. Not everyone. I understand that. But maybe if you stop the Dunkin donuts and the pizza and all the other stuff that you take that out of your budget, um, that would save you probably hundreds every single month. Uh, we've calculated before people that go get two coffees a day from your favorite coffee place.

Let's say it's five bucks. If you're lucky, um, you know, that's $10 a day. That's $300 a month. Okay guys. And so right there. That would cover the price of some testing that you could do with me to determine exactly what foods, drinks, supplements you should or should not be consuming. You guys, you are listening to the harmony with food show.

My name's Meg. We're talking about mental health, the gut brain access, fix the gut, fix the brain. It's all interconnected. That's what we're discussing today on the harmony. Here is (866) 920-9455. Call in you're listening to the harmony with food show. My name's Meg, and you can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, all harmony with food and we'll be right back.

Hey, welcome back to the harmony food show this week, this month. Excuse me. May and it's mental health awareness month. And we were talking about how the gut, the brain and you really, you guys, it does affect our endocrine system and affects our immune system too. And we're going to be getting to that in a minute.

Um, so we were talking before the break about how our thoughts can affect our digestive or. Disorders or either positively or not, that can also create our mood and our mood will affect our behaviors and our behaviors will affect our gut. And so not eating properly or eating a lot of crap, sugar, salt, additives, chemicals that are allowed in our foods, but you make the choice of what you're going to put into your body.

But, um, we were talking about neurotransmission. And how that can have effect on our mood also, but communication via the endocrine and the immune system, as part of this whole bi-directional thing that we were talking about earlier is definitely playing a role. So the endocrine system, which are the hormones in the body that play a very strong role in signaling the immune system, which we've all heard about since COVID right, even more so than before, uh, plays a strong role in that too.

And so, um, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal access, um, is an area that many people are studying right now. And it's an area in the middle of the brain where there's these vessels and what they are called are period vascular areas, which receive blood from the rest of the body. And they receive molecules and communication from the digestive tract to get into this part of the brain.

So the way we thought. Of it that, I'm sorry. So the way we thought of it is that that area of the brain is where it really plays a major role with the nervous system, the immune system and the hormonal system. They all kind of talk to each other and the hypothalamus created a lot of settings for the rest of the body.

And for inflammation and how we react to stress and how we make more stress molecules and how the body kind of keeps moving in that direction either in a healthy way or an unhealthy way. So we have to be the captain of the ship and we have to be putting good things into our body so that we have a stronger immune system that we have balanced hormones, and we have everything that we need, the tools we need.

To not have depression, anxiety, et cetera. So the way we thought of that area, right? It's like, it's all interacting. They're talking to each other, the immune system, that hormonal endocrine system, the hypothalamus is setting the stage for the rest of the body and for how we react to inflammation, how we react to stress.

Do we make a bad situation, worse, worse with our thoughts? So studies show that, um, animals are. Under stress and how, what we see in these animals is two significant changes in the messenger RNA that was made in the brain based on those stressors. So it's all pretty interesting. Um, and I think a lot of people don't think about food and nutrition when they think of mental health.

So that's why this month, I wanted to really focus on that because it does play a huge, gigantic role. So whether you're, um, Exercising. And that exercise is helping you bring down your stress, hormones, and, um, helping you with some of the other hormones that make you feel better. And then you're sleeping really well.

You're getting into that REM. Rapid eye movement sleep. And you're actually burning fat while you sleep. Imagine that right with the hormones that you're secreting or not. Um, so we need to really think about, um, all this that's going on. So the messenger RNA is basically when you have your DNA, which is your blueprint for things that go.

On in your body and the reactions, and then what your body wants to build and make with proteins. So the messenger RNA is basically one of the molecules that gets expressed when your body is actually using those blueprints to make different proteins, to go on, to make different structures. So the messenger RNA.

Really doesn't tell us what the blueprint is, but tells us actively what genes your body is using and what proteins is going to make. So it stands for ribonucleic acid and it's basically just kind of a go between our blueprint and what's actually happening or getting done. So it's, it's it's there, it plays an important role.

And there was a recent study that they did. And they found that the, um, bacteria lactobacillus Brahmanism, um, that you saw increases in Gabba, which stands for gamma aminobutyric acid and gamma aminobutyric acid or gas. It's one of the very common neurotransmitters in the brain. So in the last part of the show, we're going to talk about different things that I might recommend for different people based on their history or what I've noticed in.

Um, also, you know, they're natural things. They're not something you're going to need a prescription I don't prescribe. Okay. So first of all, I am a registered dietitian, licensed dietician nutritionist. We do not prescribe, we do not diagnose, but what we, what I can do. Is help you with weight loss. If you're feeling weight loss resistant, if you have GI issues, if you have obesity or any of the co-morbidities of obesity, whether it's pre-diabetes diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or maybe you have them all, hopefully not, but that's what my role is.

And my role is to dig deeper. And then the conventional doctors and that I do more proactive testing to determine exactly what pre and probiotics and food drinks and supplements you should or should not be consuming. Now I know how some of you think, and I know that some of you are. 10 different supplements.

No, right now. And you don't even know which one is or is not working and that can be super frustrated and costs the super expensive. So imagine if you could do a test that in probably about three months, you'd save all that money. Oh, no, you'd save way more money than that because what's going to happen.

You're going to bring down what you need. You're going to know exactly what vitamins minerals, um, you should be taking or what prayer probiotics you should be taking. You're not just guessing. Um, the company slogan that, um, slogan that I work with is test don't guess. And, um, that's what we, that's where we are guys were in the 21st century.

And even nutrition is on fire. Okay. The micro-ray technology that we didn't even have 10 years ago to do this kind of testing is awesome. And here's the thing. If I wasn't doing this kind of stuff, that would mean that I was stagnant and that would mean that I wasn't ready to learn, or I wasn't ready to.

I was just going to do the same old, same old in my practice. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that, but I decided I, well, I'm definitely just not wired that way. So, um, I've done a ton of research and, um, the functional nutrition side of the testing is super cool. I'd be happy to jump on a call with you if you're thinking about doing any of this.

So if you go over to the site, um, I think what we'll do after the break is, um, I'll go over to the site and then I'm going to tell you about some recommendations and things that I would do for people. Now, this isn't a recommendation for you and this isn't medical advice. Um, but what we're doing is just talking, giving you like scenarios and, um, Different scenarios to determine what may or may not be recommended.

We'll talk about that after the break, but we are still talking about mental health and, um, may is mental health month mental health awareness. And I just want you guys to be super, super aware that food affects, you know, food and exercise affects your immune system. Effects your brain effects, your neuro-transmitters affects your gut, all of this stuff is intertwined and it's bi-directional as I said.

So imagine, um, if people were very low in the GABA and we could use something to help with this natural to help increase GABA and that person. I was able to, you know, with the help of their physician right there, their psychiatrist or their doctor maybe wean off the prescription medications, but yet was able to take some of the other more natural medications with the help of their doctor.

Wouldn't that be amazing. So, um, You know, people it's GABA, it's typically very low in people and they say people that have epilepsy it's very low too typically, too. And people that have that anxiety. So a lot of times what the doctors prescribe is benzo diazapine um, like Xanax Ativan, for example, which artificially raised the GABA.

We can do this naturally to guys. And that's why I am here every Saturday from 11 to noon. Uh, 9:20 AM. 1 0 4 0.7 FM. You're listening to the Harmer with food show. And the number here is 8 6 6 9 2 0 9 4 5 5. Mining's. You can go over to my site, harmony with food.com. We'll do that after the break over there, and just show you around a little bit, get on my email list if you're not there already.

And if you're driving in the car, just remember HW F harmony with food and get on my email list with that reminders for the show. You'll get, if you miss the show, you'll get a copy of the show and my blog and all other kinds of things. So thank you guys. You're listening to the Harmony with Food and we'll be right back.

Hey guys, we're talking about natural ways to actually improve your mood. We're talking about how the immune system, the endocrine system, the hormone system, the gut, the brain, they're all connected and how food and exercise can make a big difference in either improving your anxiety or making it worse, depending on which way you go.

So, um, it was a study showing us that you can actually increase GABA, which we talked about before the break. Um, so for those of you who are just tuning in, um, gaba, which stands for gamma aminobutyric acid, and it's one of the very calming neurotransmitters in the brain and, um, Conventional medicine.

Uh, will prescribe benzodiazepines like Xanax and Ativan that will artificially raise the GABA. So now, um, what a new study is showing us is that you can actually increase GABA by just getting a good microbiome or gut fixing the gut. Right. And get. The right strains of probiotics in your body. So, um, knowing what pre and probiotics you need and that ability to make their own GABA, instead of relying on a drug or something that artificially raises the GABA.

Just to be clear, the idea is to use the GABA as a supplement or use something like lactobacillus or dietary changes rather than using benzodiazepines, because of all the issues that we see with the side effects with all these medications. Right. So, um, but yeah. I will say never, ever go off or change your medication without talking to your doctor.

Of course. Um, so benzodiazepines certainly can make people feel calmer, um, but there can be a cost to it. You know, eventually those medications do not work. They stop working on people. You have to take more and more, you know, the more you take the more you need. And then when people have to stop taking them because of the side effects, they end up having withdrawal effects.

So it never really fixes the underlying cause of the anxiety or the depression in the first place. So. Um, cortisol is one of the main stress hormones that come out when your body is anxious and your brain is anxious and cortisol itself kind of beats up the brain. So we don't want cortisol saw higher than it needs to be.

And so running from. Um, you know, if you're in an emergency situation, fight or flight, you know, running from a beer or something like that, cortisol is great. What a long-term effect of cortisol being high is not good for the brain. It increases your chance of dementia and it just kind of atrophies the brain.

So if you're constantly having a high cortisol level because of stress, you really need to rethink what you're doing. Um, There are certain strains that can help lower the cortisol. And these studies have actually shown to also increase serotonin and melatonin, um, which actually is going to help us sleep better.

Right? So this is all of this stuff is super, super important. So a short chain, fatty acids are very, very important because they also help with serotonin release and they also help with memory and learning. So imagine. And we could take certain, um, pre or probiotics, um, based on whatever we found from a stool test or what have you, from what the company calls a gut Zoomer, where we do a stool test to determine exactly what pre and probiotics and other herbs and natural.

That may benefit you. So they say fix the brain, fix the gut. And so, um, that's what we're talking about here today on the Harmony with Food Show, you guys are listening to the Harmony With Food Show. My name's Meg. If you're just tuning in, we're talking about natural ways to help the secrete GABA, decrease cortisol, increase serotonin, increase melatonin and other things that we can do, um, to help with this. Okay. And so, um, you know, some of the genes for good mental health need to be opened up and need to be expressed. And what's been shown is that when you have healthy amounts of short chain fatty acid, that actually helped the DNA in your brain open up and get expressed for better mental health.

But my question for you guys today is how come there's a disconnect. Between not all but many social workers, conventional doctors, medical doctors, psychiatrists, um, and nutrition and exercise that always blows my mind now. A lot of times when a patient has an eating disorder, whether it's eating disorder, nos, not otherwise specified it's anorexia nervosa or bulimia or bulimarexia or it falling under eating disorder categories.

Um, They're used. There's a whole team involved. There's a psychiatrist, there's a registered dietician. There's the doctor. There's a social worker and they work as a team to help that patient or person. However, when it's not a full blown, It seems to be, you know, kind of put on the back burner and I'm here to bring it to the front burner.

And that's part of the reason I do this show every Saturday from 11 to noon. And we don't always talk about mental health, but I think it's super important to realize what a huge role. And so, um, I'm going to, I promised at the end of the show today that I was gonna talk to you about some of the things that we can do to, um, help.

Increase, um, supplementation of things like GABA. GABA, supplementation can ease physical anxiety, intention, and there's amino acid. Um, so GABAA is also an amino acid that is common when used as a supplement. So there's certain brands that I use, um, I actually vet the companies that I work with. Um, um, I use, um, Integrative Therapeutics.

I use, um, Standard Process and a few other ones, but, um, I actually, um, don't sell these things on my site because I don't think that that's the best treatment is for people to just guess what they should be taking because they heard me talking on the radio. So I don't do that. But if you see me as a patient, I have an apothecary and I can recommend these things for you.

If you're. Show interest or show concern with any of these areas. It's not just we can work together to help get you to where you need to be. So, um, we're going to help ease physical anxiety, and tension, and alleviate induced anxiety. You know, um, we can ease mental anxiety, worries and rumination. Um, we can improve mood.

All of this stuff can be done through food, exercise and supplements. Um, so. Low levels of the GABA. We, I mentioned this before the gamma gamma aminobutyric acid an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the body and brain as well documented in anxiety disorders, such as generalized anxiety, panic attacks.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. Easy for me to say, GABA is an amino acid that is calming. When used as a supplement. It eases anxiety, physical tension and worries, and induces relaxation. And one study showed it was reported to work effectively within an hour. Also allowing better focus and concentration.

Also enhanced immunity under stressful conditions, such as when, um, you know, maybe you're doing something that makes you stressed, whether it's, I don't know, going to a party, whatever that may be. Um, so we can do this stuff naturally with products. Um, this product that I'm looking at is, um, Yeah, GABA-T SAP.

Um, and then there's triptophan that also eases mental health, anxiety, worry, rumination aggression, and, um, we also have the probiotics that can help reverse and help detoxify, um, toxic effects of things like acetaminophen and NAC, which is a precursor of glutathione. And it promotes detoxification. Um, and can reduce, um, compulsive behavior and just make people feel better all over melatonin can help improve sleep, which means you're going to burn more fat when you're sleeping, because you're getting into the REM rapid eye movement, and it reduces anxiety after traumatic brain injury and melatonin removes toxic proteins fight via the brain.

And then we have, um, triphala, which improves gut health and reduces noise, induced stress. And, um, I can go on and on here guys, but this is the kind of stuff I help people with an enemy if you've got no, no assists, but Rosemary is protective when it helps to, um, the electromagnetic fields and Rosemary also shows benefit for stress, anxiety, depression.

So, um, you guys let's head over to my site for the last part of the show. I'm actually going to do it on my, um, on my phone tonight because I think most people are using their phones these days. So I'm just going to go over to our good old friend, Google, even though he's not really a good old friend, just natural practitioners.

And I'm going to put in harmony, H-A-R-M-O-N-Y. Uh, with food.com and I'm going to go over to my website and I'm going to show you some different ways. You can work with me. You can get on my site to get some free recipes, shopping lists, um, snacks, suggestions, reminders for the show, et cetera. And then you can click the little button in the right hand corner where it says, uh, work with.

So it's a little orange button, uh, work with me. So you guys go ahead, check out the site. HarmonyWithFood.com. You are listening to the Harmony With Food show. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, all Harmony With Food and guys, thank you for listening to the show today. Take good care of yourself.

Take good care, and we will see you next week at 11 o'clock on 9:20 AM. 1 0 4 0.7 FM, and we'll see you next week. Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.