Seven dates a day for three weeks are put to the test in a randomized controlled trial. (I’m talking about the fruit, not a planned get together.)
Dates are one of the healthiest sweeteners. I use them when I cook and bake, and you’ll find them as key ingredients in The How Not to Die Cookbook and The How Not to Diet Cookbook. You can blend them with water to make date syrup or use date sugar, which is a whole food—just dried dates ground into powder. As such, it is packed with nutrition and has as much antioxidant power as blackstrap molasses, as you can see in the graph below and at 0:24 in my video Flashback Friday: Benefit of Dates for Colon Health, but without the strong taste. (Not all brands are the same, though. For example, as you can also see below and at 0:31 in my video, Bob’s Red Mill may have twice the antioxidants compared with NOW Foods’ date sugar, though researchers tested only one package each.) So, dates are healthy compared with other sweeteners, but that’s not saying much. Do dates have any special medicinal properties?
There are papers in the medical literature touting the “therapeutic effects of date fruits…in the prevention of diseases via modulation of anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-tumor activity” and discussing “pharmacological activities of dates fruits in diseases control.” You can see a figure below and at 0:57 in my video to illustrate this. But, what they don’t say is that some of this may be based on studies in which dates were fed to rats before they were then subjected to testicular ischemia by twisting their left testicle 720 degrees clockwise—two full rotations—to completely kink off the blood supply. Did the dates help? Who cares if the dates helped?! We’re talking about rat testicles. What relevance does testing the nut-on-nut effects of pecans on rat testes have?
Ironically, perhaps the strangest assertion is that dates help with labor and delivery, which is actually supported by randomized and double-blind, placebo-controlled trials, as I covered in my video Friday Favorites: Best Food for Late Pregnancy, Labor, and Deliver. So, let’s keep an open mind here.
What about the purported anti-cancer effects? Researchers studied the impact of dates on our good gut flora and colon cancer cell proliferation. Our gut harbors about 10,000 billion micro-organisms and “is considered the most metabolically active site in the human body.” All sorts of crazy things are happening down there, and we can reward our good gut flora by feeding them prebiotics, such as dietary fiber and polyphenols, a class of antioxidant phytonutrients. Dates have high levels of both. Researchers blended some dates with some gut flora—fecal slurries donated by volunteers. (Have you heard of green smoothies? This is more like a brown smoothie.) What happened? Both the whole date extract and just the date polyphenols were “able to significantly increase the growth of beneficial bacteria.” They also assessed the ability of mixtures to inhibit the growth of colon cancer cells in a petri dish. As you can see in the graph below and at 2:51 in my video, even just the polyphenol extract cut cancer cell growth by more than half and the whole date extract nearly blocked cancer cell growth completely. “Together these data suggest that consumption of date fruits may enhance colon health by increasing beneficial bacterial growth and inhibiting the proliferation of colon cancer cells.”
It would have been nice if researchers had actually studied the effects of dates in the actual colon, but there had never been such a study—until recently. A randomized, controlled, cross-over, human interventional study looked at the impact of date consumption on gut flora growth and large intestinal health. Volunteers were randomized to either a control group or seven dates a day for three weeks, and researchers found “there were significant increases in bowel movements and stool frequency,” which was not surprising since the study participants in the date group were eating additional fiber. But, they also found “significant reductions in stool ammonia concentration…after consumption of dates, relative to baseline.” (My video Stool pH and Colon Cancer explains why that’s important.) “Furthermore, date fruit intake significantly reduced genotoxicity in human fecal water,” or human stool tea. A water extract of feces from someone eating seven dates a day causes significantly less genotoxicity, meaning significantly less DNA damage, which is good because that’s what’s coating the inside of our colon on a daily basis.
As you can see below and at 4:17 in my video, dozens of different date varieties have been pitted (no pun intended) against a variety of cancer cells in vitro—not just colon cancer and stomach cancer, which the dates might actually come in contact with, but also prostate, lung, and breast cancers. Of course, we’d first have to show that the active components are actually absorbed into the bloodstream and end up in those organs.
Seven dates a day for three weeks are put to the test in a randomized controlled trial. (I’m talking about the fruit, not a planned get together.)
Dates are one of the healthiest sweeteners. I use them when I cook and bake, and you’ll find them as key ingredients in The How Not to Die Cookbook and The How Not to Diet Cookbook. You can blend them with water to make date syrup or use date sugar, which is a whole food—just dried dates ground into powder. As such, it is packed with nutrition and has as much antioxidant power as blackstrap molasses, as you can see in the graph below and at 0:24 in my video Flashback Friday: Benefit of Dates for Colon Health, but without the strong taste. (Not all brands are the same, though. For example, as you can also see below and at 0:31 in my video, Bob’s Red Mill may have twice the antioxidants compared with NOW Foods’ date sugar, though researchers tested only one package each.) So, dates are healthy compared with other sweeteners, but that’s not saying much. Do dates have any special medicinal properties?
There are papers in the medical literature touting the “therapeutic effects of date fruits…in the prevention of diseases via modulation of anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-tumor activity” and discussing “pharmacological activities of dates fruits in diseases control.” You can see a figure below and at 0:57 in my video to illustrate this. But, what they don’t say is that some of this may be based on studies in which dates were fed to rats before they were then subjected to testicular ischemia by twisting their left testicle 720 degrees clockwise—two full rotations—to completely kink off the blood supply. Did the dates help? Who cares if the dates helped?! We’re talking about rat testicles. What relevance does testing the nut-on-nut effects of pecans on rat testes have?
Ironically, perhaps the strangest assertion is that dates help with labor and delivery, which is actually supported by randomized and double-blind, placebo-controlled trials, as I covered in my video Friday Favorites: Best Food for Late Pregnancy, Labor, and Deliver. So, let’s keep an open mind here.
What about the purported anti-cancer effects? Researchers studied the impact of dates on our good gut flora and colon cancer cell proliferation. Our gut harbors about 10,000 billion micro-organisms and “is considered the most metabolically active site in the human body.” All sorts of crazy things are happening down there, and we can reward our good gut flora by feeding them prebiotics, such as dietary fiber and polyphenols, a class of antioxidant phytonutrients. Dates have high levels of both. Researchers blended some dates with some gut flora—fecal slurries donated by volunteers. (Have you heard of green smoothies? This is more like a brown smoothie.) What happened? Both the whole date extract and just the date polyphenols were “able to significantly increase the growth of beneficial bacteria.” They also assessed the ability of mixtures to inhibit the growth of colon cancer cells in a petri dish. As you can see in the graph below and at 2:51 in my video, even just the polyphenol extract cut cancer cell growth by more than half and the whole date extract nearly blocked cancer cell growth completely. “Together these data suggest that consumption of date fruits may enhance colon health by increasing beneficial bacterial growth and inhibiting the proliferation of colon cancer cells.”
It would have been nice if researchers had actually studied the effects of dates in the actual colon, but there had never been such a study—until recently. A randomized, controlled, cross-over, human interventional study looked at the impact of date consumption on gut flora growth and large intestinal health. Volunteers were randomized to either a control group or seven dates a day for three weeks, and researchers found “there were significant increases in bowel movements and stool frequency,” which was not surprising since the study participants in the date group were eating additional fiber. But, they also found “significant reductions in stool ammonia concentration…after consumption of dates, relative to baseline.” (My video Stool pH and Colon Cancer explains why that’s important.) “Furthermore, date fruit intake significantly reduced genotoxicity in human fecal water,” or human stool tea. A water extract of feces from someone eating seven dates a day causes significantly less genotoxicity, meaning significantly less DNA damage, which is good because that’s what’s coating the inside of our colon on a daily basis.
As you can see below and at 4:17 in my video, dozens of different date varieties have been pitted (no pun intended) against a variety of cancer cells in vitro—not just colon cancer and stomach cancer, which the dates might actually come in contact with, but also prostate, lung, and breast cancers. Of course, we’d first have to show that the active components are actually absorbed into the bloodstream and end up in those organs.
You fix your anxiety first by knowing the cause (and it may surprise you), and secondly knowing the solution for this cause. A solution that has worked for tens of thousands of people. Why haven’t you heard of it yet? Maybe you have and just need to be reminded again, or maybe this is the first you are learning about it and that is because it’s not mainstream news yet. It’s been studied for over thirty years by top doctors and researchers including at John Hopkins University, but the truth is the media doesn’t make money off selling a vegetable. I’m glad you are here, you are about to learn something new so that you can too be anxiety free.
Anxiety is thought to be caused by a myriad of things however when we break it down it’s quite simple, every root cause of it is here:
Anxiogenic foods:Foods that produce anxiety are known as anxiogenic foods. These trigger anxiety straight away because of how they upset the nervous system. Poor diet is linked to anxiety and depression. Studies have shown that people with mood disorders often have diets that are low in fruits and vegetables and high in fat and sugar.3
Nutritional deficiency:The body needs proper levels of certain vitamins and minerals to function in harmony; they are fundamental for our neurotransmitters. If you are anxious, you may also be deficient in magnesium, folate, zinc, amino acids, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, B-complex vitamins, iron, iodine, and selenium.
Glycemic imbalance:Foods that are high on the glycemic index (GI) raise your blood sugar rapidly. Common culprits are white bread, soda, and sugary foods. A “high GI” diet may worsen your mood.5If you eat too much refined sugar for too many years, this can cause an imbalance.
Obesity:Obesity is an underlying risk factor for many chronic health conditions and has been associated with increased oxidative stress. Good news: I provide a tone of recipes on this website and in my books that will help you achieve and maintain a healthy body composition.
Lack of sleep/insomnia:Sleep is like food. It nourishes our bodies and restores them. A lack of sleep is both a contributing factor to, and a symptom of, anxiety.
Adrenal “burnout” or fatigue:When the adrenal glands are spent of their resources and subsequently unable to provide adequate quantities of hormones, primarily cortisol, to respond to our routine needs for them, we experience adrenal fatigue. This condition may be due to chronic stress (which uses up reserves of adrenal hormones) or infections that interfere with production of adrenal hormones.
Sedentary lifestyle:Being sedentary and prolonged sitting time puts us at higher risk for anxiety, according to a meta-analysis of nine studies. One theory is that a sedentary lifestyle causes central nervous system arousal, sleep disturbances, or poor metabolic health, leading to anxiety7
Drug and alcohol abuse:Substance abusecan intensify feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and loneliness, and also puts oxidative stress on the body.
Nicotine use:Nicotine is naturally occurring in plants of the nightshade family, which includes tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum). While it has some therapeutic benefits, it’s highly addictive and can cause withdrawal when you stop using it. One study found that people with anxiety often self-medicate with nicotine because it eases some symptoms in the short term, but long-term usage “leads to increased baseline severity of anxiety disorder symptoms.”8
Constant pressure/exposure to emotional stress/lack of spirituality:Aside from the biological causes of anxiety, such as nutritional deficiencies, anxiety can also be the result of psychological stress from constant abuse, unresolved childhood trauma, not being loved by your parents, financial hardship, relationship conflicts, sudden loss, and circumstances that are hard to accept.
Prolonged periods of stress, such as you might experience on the job or while getting a divorce, can deplete your level of neurotransmitters and cortisol. Having an elevated level of corticotropin-releasing hormone is the main cause of our depressive and anxious symptoms.10High, prolonged cortisol releases cause anxiety and fatigue and will interfere with the body’s ability to heal. Lack of spirituality is said to cause excess stress in the body and mind, as people with faith are able to offload some of their stresses and not let cortisol build up.
Our bodies need to be able to release cortisol to survive, because cortisol helps control blood pressure, metabolize glucose (for energy), and reduce inflammation. The key to restoring cortisol levels naturally is to shift your body from its stress response to its relaxation response and to nourish it with the right foods and possibly supplements.
Oxidative stress (free radical damage):Studies reveal that oxidative stress is associated with numerous psychiatric troubles, including pathologically high anxiety.11The production of unstable molecules known as free radicals can be detrimental to our cells, inducing damage to our DNA and RNA. Free radicals contain oxygen that is missing an electron and wants to steal one from other molecules, such as the lipids in cellular membranes. It is a key factor in the aging process.
Inflammation:Researchers have established links between anxiety and inflammation as well as the reverse. Associations have also been made between reduction of anxiety and anti-inflammatory dietary patterns, such as the high intake of fruits and vegetables.13
Cognitive decline:Elderly people may feel anxious when their cognitive function is reduced.14Dementia is also associated with alterations of brain chemistry. It’s too complex a subject to explore in depth here, but our best chance of maintaining good cognitive function is to take care of our brains when we’re young.
Poor gut health:The gut and brain are interconnected. Some neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, are “manufactured” in the intestines, and water-soluble vitamins are synthesized by our symbiotic gut bacteria (aka probiotics). If the gut is not functioning optimally, the body and brain are not properly nourished. An unhappy gut equals an unhappy nervous system and a brain that is not energized.
Long periods of intermittent fasting:I was shocked to discover this cause of anxiety because so many people have gotten into fasting these days and so many experts recommend it. Research has found that intermittent fasting does offer some health benefits; however, depriving yourself of food for an extended period of time can raise your levels of cortisol, the main stress hormone.15
Other diseases and suffering:Living with chronic panic, constant headaches and migraines, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), cancer, and so on can cause stress and anxiety. But one’s mood can also worsen theoutcomeof many of these conditions as well.16
Antidepressants and antianxiety medication:This information may be shocking to you. It was to me. Personally, I believe medication can be helpful for some people in some situations. However, many drugs have been shown to worsen anxiety and depression, as a side effect.Practice Guideline for the Patients with MDD(major depressive disorder), released by American Psychiatric Association, says that medication has limitations.
To read about more of these causes, I elaborate in more detail in my bookAnxiety Free with Food.
Regardless of the cause, the nervous system needs nourishment, just like every system in your body. Our nervous system is often overlooked and malnourished. It needs particular things in order to function, to heal and to maintain optimal nervous system health.
Now I will tell you how you can fix your nervous system with 6 steps that I personally did to heal and now maintain excellent health – anxiety free. Nutritional strategies should be used as complements to receiving health care from providers such as physicians and counselors.
#1. Eat to Preserve Gut Health and Establish a Healthy Microbiome with sulforaphane
Good gut health is everything! The brain-gut relationship determines a lot when it comes to anxiety. For good gut health, we need good bacteria living in our systems. The presence and type of microorganisms influence what the gut is able to digest and absorb, and also affect the degree of inflammation throughout the body. This, in turn, contributes to our moods and energy level. The biochemical relationship and signaling that goes on between the cognitive and emotional centers in the brain and the gastrointestinal tract is known as the gut-brain axis.
The importance of the gut-brain connection is also gaining traction among mental health researchers because of multiple studies that show people with anxiety have a different gut microbiome than those who do not!19Furthermore, according to researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, “An influence of gut microbiota on behaviour is becoming increasingly evident, as is the extension to effects on tryptophan and serotonin metabolism. There is regulation of tryptophan and serotonin in the gut by the resident microbiota, and recent studies show that low-to-no gut microbiota increases levels of tryptophan and serotonin and modifies central higher order behaviour.”20
Microbiomeis a term that means the entire balance of microorganisms in a particular environment. In regard to the gut microbiome, as defined by molecular biologist Joshua Lederberg, it is defined as the totality of microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and fungi, and their collective genetic material present in the gastrointestinal tract.21
This information about anxiety and gut health is so empowering to me; as someone who has suffered anxiety, I didn’t know I was at a disadvantage because my microbiome was not right. I had no clue that this meant I would be deficient in some essential nutrients! Among other things gut microbes do is to synthesize vitamins from our food—and make hundreds of neurotransmitters, including 90 to 95 percent of the serotonin the body uses. Serotonin is involved in basic physiological processes like learning, memory, mood, and sleep.22As soon as we can replenish this, we can start to feel a whole lot better.
To me, this suggests we ought to help out our guts and feed them the right things to balance the gut microbiome. And it raises an interesting question: Which comes first, an unhealthy gut (due to poor eating and stress) or anxiety (which causes an unhealthy gut)?
An example of gut-brain communication being a two-way street may be irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). There have been cases where IBS causes anxiety and cases where anxiety causes IBS! IBS symptoms can include abdominal pain, bloating, gas, and other digestion issues.
What’s interesting is that for many years the medical field did not fully acknowledge the connection between mood and food. But lately, things have changed, and nobody denies it anymore. “Put simply, what you eat directly affects the structure and function of your brain and, ultimately, your mood,” says Eva Selhub, M.D., a contributing editor for theHarvard Health Blog. “Like an expensive car, your brain functions best when it gets only premium fuel.” Meaning our brain functions best when we feed it quality food. She continues, “Unfortunately, just like an expensive car, your brain can be damaged if you ingest anything other than premium fuel. If substances from ‘low-premium’ fuel (such as what you get from processed or refined foods) get to the brain, it has little ability to get rid of them.”23
Eating more complex carbs (whole grains, vegetables, and fruits) and fewer simple carbs (foods containing refined sugar and white flour) can contribute to better gut health. Also, because complex carbohydrates are metabolized more slowly, they help us maintain an even blood sugar level, which gives us a calmer feeling.
You can help replenish the good bacteria in your microbiome through probiotic foods and supplements. You get probiotics naturally when you eat fermented foods like vegetables, cucumbers, pickles, sauerkraut, and kimchi (just make sure they don’t have sugar and preservatives added). Kombucha, miso, tempeh, and sourdough contain probiotics. Probiotics are also present in raw milk and raw or fermented milk products, including cheese, kefir, and yogurt. It’s important to note, however, that probiotics are destroyed by pasteurization, so be aware when choosing your yogurt and other similar foods.24
Personally, I now take probiotic supplements daily to help maintain the quality of my gut microbiome. I could also recommend many different foods and supplements to you, but to prevent overwhelming, if I had to pick the one supplement I want you to focus on is the Broc Shot. Rather than take 10 different supplements to cultivate a healthy gut microbiome, you can take just one every single day. Each Broc Shot ensures 15mg of Sulforaphane for real benefits – in day, not weeks. Guaranteed.
Use my code: LIANA for 15% off at BrocShot.com and start cultivating your healthy gut for an anxiety free life today.
I feel this helps so much. I feel so much happier and truly more peaceful having a healthy gut. Science seems to be coming in that backs up this strategy. In fact, one systematic review in 2019 examined studies that treated anxiety through regulating the microbiome, either through probiotic use or dietary methods. The researchers found that more than half of the studies “showed that regulating intestinal flora can effectively improve anxiety symptoms.” Most impressive to me was that “80 percent of studies that conducted the non-probiotic interventions were effective.” They concluded, “In the clinical treatment of anxiety symptoms, in addition to the use of psychiatric drugs for treatment, we can also consider regulating intestinal flora to alleviate anxiety symptoms. Especially for patients with somatic diseases who are not suitable for the application of psychiatric drugs for anxiety treatment, probiotic methods and/or non-probiotic ways . . . can be applied flexibly according to clinical conditions.”25
Another study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166432815303399 showed increasing evidence that Sulforaphane (SFN) produces antidepressant- and anxiolytic-like (anxiety reducing) effects in adult mice. The study Repeated SFN administration (10 mg/kg, i.p.) significantly decreased the immobility time in the forced swimming test. These findings demonstrated that SFN has antidepressant- and anxiolytic-like activities in stressed mice model of depression, which likely occurs by inhibiting the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and inflammatory response to stress. These data support further exploration for developing SFN as a novel agent to treat depression and anxiety disorders. This is why I consume Broc Shots daily to give my body this daily defense mechanism against stress.
#2. Eat and Drink Only Nontoxic Foods and Beverages—and Do a Detox, If Necessary
If you know or guess that your body is overloaded with toxins, a detox is a good idea. You would throw out a bucket of dirty water entirely before you began adding clean water to it, wouldn’t you?
I suggest doing a full-body detox, which includes a gut cleanse and liver cleanse, so you can lower the toxic burden in the body, give the lymphatic system a chance to restore itself, and let the gut heal so it can absorb nutrients properly. A toxic buildup can lead to anxiety, depression, and fatigue because your gut can’t properly absorb the nutrients you are giving it.
#3. Eat to Replenish Your Neurotransmitters
You want to be sure to eat foods that give your brain plentiful reserves of neurotransmitters, chiefly serotonin, dopamine, and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA).
Serotonin.
Dopamine.
GABA.
#4. Eat to Overcome Nutritional Deficiencies
Nutritional deficiencies can mean your brain does not have the building blocks it needs to function optimally. You need amino acids, which come from protein, to build a healthy body. Also, several of the B-complex vitamins, including thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate, and vitamin B12, are needed as cofactors for the synthesis of neurotransmitters in the gut.
#5. Eat More Magnesium-Rich Foods
One of the causes of anxiety is being deficient in magnesium. You could get a blood test if you aren’t sure of your own levels. The anxiolytic potential of magnesium has been demonstrated in studies. Magnesium modulates activity in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which is a central communication highway for the stress response system.
#6. Eat More Omega-3 Fats
One of the most common causes of anxiety is being deficient in omega-3 fatty acids. So, make sure you are sufficient! Omega-3 fatty acids contain docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), alpha-lipoic acid (ALA), and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). DHA is an omega-3 fatty acid that is a primary structural component of the human brain, cerebral cortex, skin, and retina, and its deficiency is linked to several neurocognitive disorders and behaviors linked to anxiety and depression.39Notably, low levels of DHA are associated with generalized anxiety,40whereas supplementation with DHA has been shown to have anxiolytic effects.41
#7. Eat More Antioxidants
Researchers at the State of University of New York at Buffalo found that anxiety are associated with a low antioxidant state in the body. Furthermore, antioxidants elevate mood immediately and provide long-lasting health!43
#8. Eat More Plant-Based Foods—Raw Fruits and Vegetables, Especially
We cannot go wrong with a higher plant-based intake that includes vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices. Studies have shown that consuming more plant-based ingredients reduces anxiety and depression because they contain a wide variety of micronutrients critical to physical and mental function, as well as complex carbs and fiber. Plants also help us to stay well hydrated.
#9. Eat to Reduce Inflammation
Oxidation damages the body. Inflammation is the body’s response to repair the damage—and it can get out of control. It’s been shown that inflammation in the body causes anxiety but also that anxiety causes inflammation.53
When you eat foods high in antioxidants, magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids, and amino acids, and you cut toxic foods like cakes, cookies, pastries, and products with sugar and/or additives out of your diet, you will be reducing inflammation effortlessly. The recipes in this book are all anti-inflammatory. If it comes from nature, an ingredient does not usually cause inflammation.
A powerful way to reduce inflammation in your body immediately is to consume sulforaphane daily – which is why I take a Broc Shot daily!
7. G. Sandrini et al., “Effectiveness of Ibuprofen-Arginine in the Treatment of Acute Migraine Attacks,” International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology Research, vol. 18, no. 3 (1998): 145–50, PMID: 9825271.
8. J.R. McKnight et al., “Beneficial Effects of L-Arginine on Reducing Obesity: Potential Mechanisms and Important Implications for Human Health,” Amino Acids, vol. 39, no. 2 (2010): 349–57, doi: 10.1007/s00726-010-0598-z.
10. D. Christmas, S. Hood, and D. Nutt. “Potential Novel Anxiolytic Drugs,” Current Pharmaceutical Design, vol. 14, no. 33 (2008): 3534–46, doi:10.2174/138161208786848775.
11. “What Is Serotonin and What Does It Do?” Medical News Today (accessed April 29, 2020), https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles /232248#what-is-serotonin?
13. A.C. Nobre, A. Rao, and G.N. Owen. “L-Theanine, a Natural Constituent in Tea, and Its Effect on Mental State,” Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 17, supp. 1 (2008): 167–8, PMID: 18296328.
14. F.L. Sakamoto et al., “Psychotropic Effects of L-theanine and Its Clinical Properties: From the Management of Anxiety and Stress to a Potential Use in Schizophrenia,” Pharmacological Research, vol. 147 (September 2019): 104395, doi: 10.1016/j.phrs.2019.104395.
15. T.S. Sathyanarayana Rao and V.K. Yeragani, “Hypertensive Crisis and Cheese,” Indian Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 51, no. 1 (January–March 2009): 65–6, doi: 10.4103/0019-5545.44910.
16. “Compound Summary: Tyrosine,” U.S. National Library of Medicine (accessed April 10, 2020), https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/L-tyrosine; J.D. Fernstrom and M.H. Fernstrom, “Tyrosine, Phenylalanine, and Catecholamine Synthesis and Function in the Brain,” Journal of Nutrition, vol. 137, no. 6, supp. 1 (June 2007): 1539S–47S, doi: 10.1093/jn/137.6.1539S.
19. Report of a Joint WHO/FAO/UNU Expert Consultation, “Protein and Amino Acid Requirements in Human Beings,” World Health Organization (2002), https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/43411.
20. Gavin Van De Walle, “Tyrosine: Benefits, Side Effects and Dosage,” Healthline (February 1, 2018), https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/tyrosine.
21. K. Chandrasekhar, J. Kapoor, and S. Anishetty. “A Prospective, Randomized Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study of Safety and Efficacy of a High-Concentration Full-Spectrum Extract of Ashwagandha Root in Reducing Stress and Anxiety in Adults,” Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, vol. 34, no. 3 (July 2012): 255–62, doi: 10.4103/0253-7176.106022.
22. S.R. Fauce et al., “Telomerase-Based Pharmacologic Enhancement of Antiviral Function of Human CD8+ T Lymphocytes,” Journal of Immunology, vol. 181, no. 10 (November 15, 2008): 7400–6, doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.181.10.7400.
23. B.R. Hoobler, “Symptomatology of Vitamin B Deficiency in Infants,” JAMA, vol. 91, no. 5 (August 4, 1928): 307–10, doi: 10.1001/jama.1928.02700050013005.
24. “Vitamin B12: Fact Sheet for Consumers,” National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements (accessed April 9, 2020), https://ods.od.nih .gov/factsheets/VitaminB12-Consumer.
25. L.M. Young et al., “A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of B Vitamin Supplementation on Depressive Symptoms, Anxiety, and Stress: Effects on Healthy and ‘At-Risk’ Individuals,” Nutrients, vol. 11, no. 9 (September 16, 2019): 2232, doi: 10.3390/nu11092232.
39. B. Takase et al., “Effect of Chronic Stress and Sleep Deprivation on Both Flow-Mediated Dilation in the Brachial Artery and the Intracellular Magnesium Level in Humans,” Clinical Cardiology, vol. 27, no. 4 (April 27,2004): 223–7, doi: 10.1002/clc.4960270411.
40. G. Grases et al., “Anxiety and Stress Among Science Students: Study of Calcium and Magnesium Alterations,” Magnesium Research, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 2006): 102–6, PMID: 16955721.
41. H.F. Chen and H.M. Su, “Exposure to a Maternal N-3 Fatty Acid-Deficient Diet During Brain Development Provokes Excessive Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis Responses to Stress and Behavioral Indices of Depression and Anxiety in Male Rat Offspring Later in Life,” Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, vol. 24, no. 1 (January 2013): 70–80, doi: 10.1016/j. jnutbio.2012.02.006.
43. M.A. Pérez, G. Terreros, and A. Dagnino-Subiabre, “Long-Term Omega-3 Fatty Acid Supplementation Induces Anti-Stress Effects and Improves Learning in Rats,” Behavioral and Brain Functions, vol. 9 (June 14, 2013): 25, doi:10.1186/1744-9081-9-25; H.F. Chen and H.M. Su, “Fish Oil Supplementation of Maternal Rats on an N-3 Fatty Acid-Deficient Diet Prevents Depletion of Maternal Brain Regional Docosahexaenoic Acid Levels and has a Postpartum Anxiolytic Effect,” Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, vol. 23, no. 3 (March2013): 299–305, doi: 10.1016/j.jnutbio.2010.12.010; A. Wu et al., “Curcumin Boosts DHA in the Brain: Implications for the Prevention of Anxiety Disorders,” Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, vol. 1852, no. 5 (May 2015): 951– 61, doi: 10.1016/j.bbadis.2014.12.005.
53. K.L. Brookie, G.I. Best, and T.S. Conner. “Intake of Raw Fruits and Vegetables Is Associated with Better Mental Health Than Intake of Processed Fruits and Vegetables,” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 9 (2018): 487, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00487.
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Well, hello my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show on amino acid therapy. We have a great one for you today.
We’re going to be talking about mental health, but not in any simple way. We’re talking to Dr. Josh Friedman. I will explain who he is in just a moment. I’ll put it this way to start out, he is someone who has been studying in this natural space for a couple of decades. When we are lucky enough to get someone on the show who has been doing that, these people just have so much information in their head. It is crazy what he rattles off.
So, this might be one of those times if you’re really passionate about the mental health stuff or you’re working with clients who have these issues, I would be taking notes. He also gave us a phenomenal resource, which will be in the show notes. It will make more sense as you get to listen to what we’re talking about today because we’ll touch on a few subjects.
But one of the main things is amino acid therapy. As long as I’ve been in this space myself, I’m amazed by how not often I hear about this. I know that’s not proper grammar, but you know what I mean. I don’t hear about this very often, and it’s something that works super well. It’s practically completely safe and it is ridiculously cheap. You think we’d want to know more about that.
Anyway, before we get into Dr. Friedman’s bio, a couple quick things.
Announcements
One, if you’re listening to this, we have just finished up at KetoCon 2023. I’m assuming it was a great event. I recorded this before that, obviously, but KetoCon is always a great time. If you saw us, awesome. If you missed us. We hope to see you next year. I’m sure we’ll be back.
The next event that you could see some of us at, at least myself and maybe another couple volunteers will be CellCore’s event in May. I believe that’s May 18th, 19th, 20th. I will be in Boise, Idaho for that event. You can come catch me at the booth and we should have another couple FDNs there, but I’m not sure who that’s going to be yet. That’ll be the next place that you can check us out.
Last announcement for today, so many people don’t realize they can communicate with us very easily and very directly. All you ever have to do is go to our Instagram at fdntraining. We don’t use chatbots on there. We have a real person or set of people who staff that and can answer any questions that you have. They’ll respond to you within a couple of hours, typically, as long as it’s within normal business hours for the United States. That’s fdntraining, check us out there.
Throw us a follow, but definitely communicate with us. Let us know what you’d like to see on the podcast. Let us know which episodes you really liked. Anything is totally fine.
With all that said, here is a little bit about Dr. Friedman before we get rolling today.
A Little About Dr. Josh Friedman
He earned his doctorate in psychology from New York University and did post-doctoral training in psychoanalysis from the Training and Research Institute for Self-Psychology (TRISP) in New York City. After working in the field for a few years, he realized that something was missing from traditional mental health treatment. Go figure, right?
Curiosity and a chance meeting led him to discover the world of nutritional psychology, which teaches that many psychological issues are actually caused or made worse by underlying biochemical or nutritional deficiencies. Along the way, he became certified as a yoga teacher, incorporating the emphasis on breathing techniques, meditation, and movement into his work as essential tools for working with mental health at the deepest levels.
To enhance his effectiveness in helping people heal and grow, he also became certified as a Holistic Health Counselor at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and he went on to earn a Diploma of Comprehensive Nutrition (Dip.CN) from Huntington College of Health Sciences.
He has been led to go deeper into the biochemistry of mental health by becoming a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner, a Functional Diagnostic Practitioner, and also studying with mental health nutrition greats such as Julia Ross, MA, Dr. Charles Gant, MD, and Dr. William Walsh, Ph.D. So, you know, the guy’s kind of educated in this kind of stuff, right?
He started Alternative Mental Health Solution, that’s his business, to help people find and fix the root causes of their mental health struggles. This is going to be an awesome one today, especially if you are passionate about the mental health stuff. Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.
Alright. Hello there, Dr. Friedman. Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast. How are you?
Amino Acid Therapy: Anxious, Depressed, and Frozen
[00:04:04] Dr. Josh Friedman: I’m doing great. Thanks so much for having me.
[00:04:05] Detective Ev: Dr. Friedman and I had done this several years ago on a very small podcast that I had. He was nice enough to come on. It’s awesome to be able to bring him onto a platform where he can really share this message with people. You have something very unique to say.
In 200 something episodes, I have not had one single guest come on and talk about the things that you focus on in the world of mental health. Obviously, you do a lot more than just this today. But if this can help even one practitioner out there, we know it’s worth it cause this is quite literally lifesaving stuff depending on the client that we are dealing with. I don’t want to tease people too much, but we’ll get to that part in a second.
It’s worth mentioning your background and where you came from. I actually barely remember at this point. How did you go from quote/unquote “standard psychology” to the more holistic side? What was your background in that?
[00:04:53] Dr. Josh Friedman: I had a two-pronged background. The first part was I was a happy, well-functioning kid, went off to college and then found myself like absurdly, incredibly anxious and depressed, like frozen. I didn’t know what to do. I went the therapy route and then I went the psychiatric route. It took me a long time to sort of figure out first how to find a good therapist.
I went through five or six therapists before I found someone that was helpful. I tried five or six meds until I found something that was helpful; it was sort of only partially helpful.
Amino Acid Therapy: Nutrition in Psychology?
Now there’s so much information out there, but I had a really good therapist who was very open-minded, who taught me about yoga. So, I started doing yoga. From yoga, I started to learn about nutrition. From nutrition, I had a chance meeting with someone who said, (I was a therapist by now), he was like, do you know why the antidepressants don’t work that your eating disorder patients were on? I was working at kind of a well-known eating disorder clinic in New York City. I said, I don’t know, cause they’re depressed.
He said something that changed everything for me. He said, because they don’t eat enough protein. I had done seven years of training in psychotherapy; I had done two years of training in psychoanalysis. No one had ever told me that brain chemistry was made from protein. So, I was like, what?
He was a chiropractor on Long Island, this was before functional medicine. A chiropractic nutritionist is what he called himself. He handed me a book; it was The Mood Cure by Julia Ross. So, this is like about 25 years ago now, and I read it in one sitting.
I was amazed that no one had put the nutritional pieces together in any comprehensive way for me. No one had ever mentioned anything about nutrition in 10 years of training as a psychologist except to say people should eat well, they should eat balanced diets, the real basics. Like alcohol can lead to problems, but no one dove into even one step deeper than that.
Amino Acid Therapy: These Things Don’t Mix
So, I had this Bible, and I was like, this is amazing. I went back to this team of people that I was working with, a psychiatrist, dietician, our therapist, psychiatrist, and I said, look at this book. It’s talking about these things called amino acids. We can start to treat these conditions naturally. It’s talking about essential fatty acid deficiencies, it’s talking about candida, it’s talking about like magnesium deficiencies. And there was nothing; there was just a blank stare.
I thought, oh, I must have not explained it well enough. So, I said, the whole three-minute speech again, and same thing. They weren’t interested. I’ve since come to learn that, it’s a little bit different now, but 20 years ago when I was starting to think about these things, the mental health field, the physical was over here and the mental health, psychotherapy stuff, psychological stuff was over here. The two didn’t really mix.
And the only interventions for the physical side were, at that point, really medication. I came up as a psychologist in the heyday of the latest medications. I came up right when Prozac was happening. On the cover of Time Magazine was Prozac and it was going to be the end of depression. Of course, what we’ve seen is much more complicated than that.
From that day forward, I realized I was never going to be a psychoanalyst. I was going to do therapy, I was going to learn the best therapeutic techniques I could, but I was also going to learn other things.
Amino Acid Therapy: Learning & Incorporating
So, I became a yoga teacher. I learned about breathing and about embodiment. Eventually, I went to FDN. I’ve tried to piece together trying to help people figure out what the low hanging fruit is for the physical sides of mental health conditions. That’s sort of the lane I’ve settled in.
[00:09:10] Detective Ev: Awesome. What’s really admirable about this is you are someone who, like you said, you’ve been doing this for a while and you’re very active in the FDN community. I always see a lot of your posts and stuff. Still, out of all the things you’ve learned, this is an essential part of the practice.
I love bringing people like you on, mental health or not, just to see, all right, 20 years, 30 years of studying, what have you come up with? What got to the top of your list out of all these years? This stuff matters, and yet it’s still not talked about much. You have this kind of revolutionary experience. And for whatever it’s worth, I’ll keep it short, but I’m not an expert in the amino acid therapy yet, but I knew it worked.
I trusted you with it. I gave a friend, about two years ago now, The Mood Cure by Julia Ross. I’m like, listen man, I’m sorry. Really, I wish I could have explained this to you a little better. But I need you to read the book and do the chart that’s in it. Fill it out, and I can hook you up with the supplements. But you need to figure that out.
Amino Acid Therapy: Specific Protein Fragments for Specific Conditions
Two days went by, and that guy called me. He went from angry, just lost his girlfriend, all this stuff. He’s like, what is this? He’s not into our space with all due respects, so like he doesn’t really get even like basic protein stuff. I’m like, if I could explain to you how simple what you’re actually consuming right now actually is, and how safe this is compared to other things, you wouldn’t even believe me. I’m like, just keep doing it and we’ll work on some other stuff. Which brings up a topic we’ll kind of get into where this can motivate people.
So, how did this go training wise? I feel like you took courses in this, is that possible?
[00:10:32] Dr. Josh Friedman: So, I read The Mood Cure. Julia Ross was a therapist in the 1980s. She was a marriage and family therapist in California that was working with trauma and substance use. Also, she was working with eating disorders in like a group setting.
What she was finding was there was only so far her patients could go. She’s the pioneer. She was looking and got that there was something wrong with the way their brains were functioning, that there was a psychological part of their issues, but there was a real physical physiological part. So, she went to the literature.
Now it’s very easy, you go to PubMed, and you type things in. She took months and months and ended up hooking up with this bench scientist named Ken Blum. Ken Blum is the father of amino acid therapy. He did the research that showed if you give specific protein fragments to people with specific kinds of conditions, their mental health is going to improve.
Amino Acid Therapy: Symptoms Resolved with Small Interventions
So, there was a marriage that was made. There was finally a clinician that wanted to try these tools with her patients and there was a scientist that understood it. Unbeknownst to her, Dr. Blum had been looking for Julia Ross or someone like her for many, many years because no one was interested. So, they started to administer programs to her clients.
What she found was depression got better, anxiety got better, PTSD got better, panic disorder got better from incredibly small interventions. She was using one or two pills of very specific targeted amino acids, a multivitamin, some essential fatty acids, some minerals, 10 supplements at the most. And people’s lifelong issues, they weren’t resolving, cause these were people that have had complicated trauma, were finally available to do the work that was necessary in therapy.
So, I read The Mood Cure. And this wasn’t like me cause I was pretty shy generally, but I was like, this stuff is too important for me to not move on. I called Julia Ross on the phone; I started conversing with her. I started to do supervision with her. At the time she was doing weekend workshops. So, I flew out to California and did a workshop with her. I bought all of the CDs. She had maybe five, they were CDs at the time.
Commuting to work, I would have my little CD Walkman player, and would be listening. Like all the FDNs I’ve met, I was voracious. I immersed myself in it. I’m sort of slow to implement so after about six months I was like, oh, I’m going to start using these tools. I found a couple of patients that had seen psychiatrists but had not responded well to medications.
Amino Acid Therapy: A Lineage of Experts
I started with myself. I personally, who have suffered from lifelong depression, anxiety, sort of had a very clear, very quick mood boost from boosting the serotonin pathways. Not knowing what I was doing, not knowing how to dose them, like as a pretty serious novice, I found 50% of people were responding positively.
I’ve since now studied with other people. But Julia still, she is the godmother of all of this. I owe a great debt to her.
[00:14:13] Detective Ev: I’d either forgot or didn’t know the part about, like actually calling her on the phone, going out and
training. That’s amazing.
[00:14:19] Dr. Josh Friedman: I went out and I mentored. She would hire mentors for these groups. So, I went out and did that a couple of times. Then I got to know Trudy Scott. So, there’s all this lineage of all these sort of people in our space that are quite well known, like Trudy Scott, who’s kind of the anxiety queen.
She did the same thing. Trudy had pretty serious anxiety and panic attacks. So, she read The Mood Cure. She used the tools and was like, oh my God, what are these things? Eventually, she called Julia and then gave up her life in business to go work for Julia as a nutritionist. For a couple of years, she worked with her and sort of learned everything there was to learn. It was very serendipitous in a way, all of that.
[00:15:07] Detective Ev: I have so many thoughts going through my head, so I’ll jump into this one. And I know that I’m going to ask you some questions today that you might just have more an opinion on than an exact answer. That’s totally fine.
Amino Acid Therapy: Inflammation
One thing that you hear a lot in the functional health space is this idea. I think many people acknowledge what we’re talking about, the idea that protein could help out. They might word it as simply as that. They might not get into the amino acids per se.
But there’s also a lot of evidence of this aspect of neuroinflammation. There’s actually a meta-analysis that’s been done with like people taking Motrin and it temporarily relieving the conditions of anxiety and depression, temporarily. Do you believe that there are separate causes there? Or is it that the neuroinflammation affects the neurotransmitters? Maybe you don’t have the answer, but I’ve wondered this cause I find that fascinating.
[00:15:52] Dr. Josh Friedman: Yes. I think it’s both. I think everything is multiply determined. So, I think there are often multiple causes, of course. There are multiple root causes of things.
I think probably that inflammation is the number one cause of all illness. Of course, the brain is the most susceptible organ to inflammation. Definitely there’s hypo functioning of the brain. There’s going to be hypo functioning of neurotransmitters, production and otherwise.
And if you can provide the substrates necessary to help the body push the pathways to make neurotransmitters, you’re going to be supporting the effectiveness of the neurotransmitters, brain communication, brain functioning in general. In all likelihood, if you do that at the same time as you’re dealing with the inflammatory issues, if you’re dealing with inflammatory foods, gut bugs, brain inflammation, more directly, you’re going to have a much more effective intervention.
Amino Acid Therapy: Methylation
I know there are people, you know, Kelly Brogan and some big people in the space, and there’s point to research that the monoamine hypothesis, the brain chemistry, the neurotransmitter hypothesis of mental health has been disproven. But in my experience these tools are so effective.
If it’s been disproven, maybe the problem is we don’t fully understand the mechanism of action of these tools. People will say that the mechanism of action of the psychiatric medicines of SSRIs, SNRIs, anti-psychotics probably have an anti-inflammatory component. That’s what’s causing the mechanism of action. So, I think it’s complicated.
And I think there’s another piece involving the methylation that psychiatry assumes that mental health conditions have to do with low levels of neurotransmitters. They’re a smaller number but the possibility that too many neurotransmitters are causing mental health problems as well. Like there are lots of chemicals embodied where there’s a sweet spot and neurotransmitters are probably one of them. Are you familiar with Dr. Bill Walsh?
[00:18:12] Detective Ev: I couldn’t rehearse all his stuff, but yes. He’s the blood guy, right?
[00:18:16] Dr. Josh Friedman: He does blood testing. And he’s interested in looking at under or over methylation. There’s a set of characteristics and he’s using whole blood histamine to assess someone’s methylation status.
He would say that a majority of people that have a bipolar, a manic, or psychotic reaction to SSRI medications, they become psychotic, those people are in large part mostly over methylated people. He’s very, very interested in school shooters. There’s a very, very strong link between the epidemic of school shooting and treatment with SSRI medications. A lot of these kids execute school shootings after starting medication or raising doses of medication or stopping medication.
His hypothesis is these are people who have too many neurotransmitters to begin with, and if you push on their neurotransmitter systems using the powerful medication, that it throws them into a psychotic episode in which they commit crime, which is fascinating. He’s done his best to try to test as many school shooters for whole blood histamine as he possibly can.
[00:19:34] Detective Ev: Okay. That’s actually a fascinating topic here. You don’t have to be in this space to know that something’s going wrong here. I’m not advocating one way or the other, that’s not the podcast for this. But I’m just saying that we know there’s something missing.
Obviously, there was a time, even in America, my grandfather used to talk about this. He brought a rifle to school where he lived, and they would go hunting afterwards. Now, of course, again, different types of guns, so I’m not talking one way or the other. But he said it would never even cross his mind that someone there was planning on harming people. Now this is like happening all of the time. You kind of wonder what’s going on.
I had actually heard, and this is amateur researcher, I Google searched it basically. Someone made the claim online that like 90% of these people have been on SSRIs. So, I’m like, all right, well before I post that, I better check this out. I heard the opposite being argued, but there seemed to be more complexity to it. I admit this was a quick scroll on my phone. It wasn’t like I’m sitting down actually trying to research this.
So, it is accurate then that at the very least these people do have some history of medication use?
Amino Acid Therapy: Alternative Psychiatric Care
[00:20:34] Dr. Josh Friedman: Many, yeah. There are two sides to the argument. You could say, of course they have experiences with medication cause they’re mentally ill. So, they’re kids that are identified, involved with psychiatry or mental health in general.
But it’s pretty rare for someone to begin to think, could there be a causal link between actually the use of medication worsening brain chemistry imbalances in a subset of kids that are on them? Because the truth is, even though there are lots of school shootings, most kids who take medicine aren’t shooting up schools. But are there dangers in a subset of people that could potentially be identified for cautious use of antidepressants?
Often what happens in clinical settings is someone feels worse on the medicine. The natural inclination is to raise the dose rather than to say, hey, wait a second. Why is this person having the reaction they’re having? I’ve seen that many, many times. I’m not saying it’s every case.
One thing that’s been advocated by people that I respect is, what if psychiatrists who prescribe medicine were able to identify people at higher risk for adverse reactions to psychiatric drugs? A very simple way is to order a test like that measures methylation status. Which is, you know, a $60 test available that any ordering provider can order for whole blood histamine. That would provide a huge amount of information to the psychiatrist to say, oh, this person is over methylated, they have low whole blood histamine, and that they’re likely to have a potentially dangerous response to certain classes of medication. That would be really helpful to know.
There are some simple things that could really make a huge difference in how we administer psychiatric care. That’s just one of many.
Amino Acid Therapy: Should We Be Making Them Famous?
[00:22:43] Detective Ev: Okay. Obviously, it’s not the main topic of today, but I know that, and rightfully so, you’re very passionate about the solutions that could be possible to the school shooting thing. I have to throw something out there then, because even selfishly I admit it’s something that I backburnered.
You know, I speak in schools. And I’ve had these visions, admittedly sometimes where I’m like, okay, if I was a person that was already in such an incomprehensible state of mind to do something like this, I’m thinking about myself in an assembly, I’m like, that would be a spectacle for someone this sick that wants to do this. I’m in a vulnerable position. I’m standing right up there. And like, I know this is probably unrealistic, but I worry about that.
The one question I have then while we’re on this topic, I gotta ask. I know that we should honor victims. Of course, I’m not saying that. Are we doing more harm than good by talking about these people, the shooters in the news? Even if it’s a medication induced thing, perhaps, there’s still a reason that they’re going and doing that act and not a mall shooter. I mean, I know there’s mall shooters as well, but like the school shooting thing is specific.
[00:23:40] Dr. Josh Friedman: It’s a very, very public act that derives a huge amount of attention. The whole world focuses on this one actor for a period of time. These are people, I think psychologically, who feel very insecure, not seen, not important. They become very, very important. Then other people want to do what they have done to get the same kind of experience, like infamy. It’s a path towards infamy in a way.
Amino Acid Therapy: A Solution is Needed
[00:24:11] Detective Ev: Listen, I don’t know why that I have the exact answer for this. Perhaps then we are doing more harm than good by like, all right, let’s share their name with the world.
Dr. Josh Friedman: Oh, I think so.
Detective Ev: Okay. I know the Nashville shooter had literally called the news outlets before they went. If that’s not proof that we’re making this worse by doing that, I don’t know what is.
Dr. Josh Friedman: I agree.
Detective Ev: You know what, I’m glad that you brought that up. It’s a sad situation.
[00:24:31] Dr. Josh Friedman: And it’s peripheral, I know. I know, it’s peripheral.
[00:24:34] Detective Ev: Yeah. And that’s okay. But we should all be paying attention to that. That’s something that needs a solution like yesterday. There are many ways to attack it and that’s fine.
All right, I’ll move on to the next thing. So, in terms of the amino acid stuff, I don’t know if you have any other ones that you want to bring up. Well, actually I was going to ask testimonials. I got thrown off.
Before I get into stories that have worked really well with this, one thing you mentioned about Julia is that when she was working with these people, you said, it’s not like they’re better overnight because some of these cases are very complicated trauma. But that still implies that this is moving the needle, at least to some degree.
Amino Acid Therapy: Quick & Effective
When I’m in a school, I use the example of a best friend of mine, he passed away. His name’s Joe, and he passed away from a drug overdose. Now Joe, it’s not really my job to share this on a public podcast, I’ll just say, almost movie level plot to his life and the abuse that he experienced. Then you have me that, listen, life wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty dang good, man. And yet we both dealt with similar symptoms.
So, is this hopeful for even people that have been through serious traumatic abuse experiences?
[00:25:33] Dr. Josh Friedman: Yeah, I think so. You know, when people think about nutrition and they think about their mental health symptoms, their expectation is for a small amount of change. What I say to them, which I learned from Julia, is we’re looking for cataclysmic change. We’re looking to rock your world, to have you feel hugely different. That these tools are at least as powerful as medication can be. And if they’re not, you’re not on the right one, or this isn’t the avenue you need to be looking at.
The nice thing about amino acids is it’s very, very quick. In a week’s time, we’re going to know if any of the amino acids are going to be helpful.
[00:26:20] Detective Ev: That’s so hopeful. It’s amazing and cheap.
[00:26:22] Dr. Josh Friedman: And it’s going to be huge benefit. I mean, in some people it’ll be a small benefit. I think it’s interesting cause I’ve been studying the organic acid test.
Amino Acid Therapy: Four Main Amino Acid Categories
I was taking a class with Dan Kalish, who I think is a great teacher. Their neurotransmitter markers for dopamine and serotonin on the organic acid test. If someone is low on those markers and low on certain amino acids, he will suggest specific amino acids to correct the low neurotransmitter markers.
But in my experience, he’s just giving a generic amount without really paying a lot of attention to it. And I think it’s a huge mistake. I think the chances are that people may not have as big a benefit unless you really fine tune the amount of the amino acid you’re given.
Here’s what I tell people to do. There are really four main categories we’re looking at with amino acids. I’m going to send you Julia Ross’s amino acid therapy chart.
Detective Ev: Oh, thank you.
Dr. Josh Friedman: Which maybe you could post, cause I think it’s an amazing document. It teaches people to think about what they’re looking at.
So, someone’s sitting across from you, and the question you have, she’s saying, is this a low serotonin person? Is this a low GABA person? Is this a low dopamine person or is this a low endorphin person? Those are the four areas. And then she includes blood sugar as sort of a fifth area. But she’s saying train yourself well enough so five minutes into a conversation you can tell what supplement they need.
I have another mentor. He was a beautiful, lovely man who just died. His name was Dr. Charles Gant. He would go to AA meetings, and he would look around the room and he would go serotonin, dopamine, serotonin, GABA. He would train himself to look at someone, to hear them utter a few sentences and know what supplementation they needed.
Amino Acid Therapy: A Quick Pencil & Paper Inventory
So, when people will say to me, they’re like, oh, you’re not going to test? You’re not going to test me to see which neurotransmitters are off? I say to them, I’m the test. And I’ve done it long enough where, I used to do neurotransmitter testing, but I found it confused people. I found it just as effective to use a quick pencil and paper inventory and go from there.
Here’s how to think of it. So, low serotonin and depression. This is sort of how a good psychiatrist would think, cause they’re thinking, what’s the presentation here? If someone’s depressed, the question is, what kind of depression is it? A low serotonin depression is an agitated or anxious depression.
What does that person look like? They might be pacing, they might be tapping their foot, they’re ruminating, their mind is going too fast. They’re having difficulty eating. They might be having suicidal thoughts, be having outbursts, can’t get comfortable in their own skin.
That’s very different than a low dopamine depression. Dopamine is, we think of it like pleasure, motivation, attention, concentration. I usually call that “Eeyore Depression”. In psychotherapy terms, they’d say that person is psychomotor retardation. They’re stooped, they talk slowly. They sleep too much. They eat too much. You might think of them as low thyroid. They’re not motivated, they’re not excited by life at all.
So, if you can start there and identify, on the amino acid therapy chart, she lays out these two areas. Then she lays out GABA. GABA is the part of the brain that has to do with more physical tension, so bodily tension, stiff muscles, anxiety, difficulty sleeping. Like sort of people in our world, we would think of low magnesium types, low potassium types.
Amino Acid Therapy: Assessing & Titrating
Then there’s the endorphins. Low endorphin people tend to be sensitive to pain. And that pain could be emotional, or it could be physical.
Julia Ross calls the supplement DPA, D-phenylalanine, in which boosts the endorphins as the breakup pill. They’re people where their heart hurts, everything is too much. They can’t tolerate what life has to offer. And the more you can begin to see the difference between these people, you can begin to address.
I’m thinking, let’s focus on calming your mind a little bit. Let’s focus on your agitation. Let’s focus on your compulsive, your OCD. You just start them on, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to give you one dose of tryptophan or 5HTP. These are the two amino acids that address serotonin. If you have more symptoms at night, we’re going to give you one before dinner, one at bedtime. Or if you’re suffering all day, we’re going to give you before breakfast, before lunch, before dinner and bedtime.
And your job and the people around you is to sort of figure out like what four symptoms are that you would like to see different. Let’s give it a number on one to ten. Let’s say it’s you can’t sleep; your brain is racing. You’re depressed and anxious. Do it for a couple of days and see what happens to those symptoms. And then let’s go up to two capsules. You’re looking for improvement, staying the same, or feeling worse.
Amino Acid Therapy: Low Serotonin Symptoms
The goal is to go up far enough. Let’s say you take one capsule; you don’t notice anything. You take two capsules, and you start feeling brighter or lighter. You take three capsules, you’re like, oh man, my mind is calming down. I’m not compulsively eating, I’m settled. You take four capsules each dose and you feel worse; your dose is three capsules. That’s really so effective and so important to find that right dose.
[00:33:09] Detective Ev: Okay. This is great. I’m thinking about myself just cause that’s an easy example to use. Even knowing what you just told me, I’m thinking, okay, well I didn’t eat much. I had a terrible time sleeping. I was angry as can be. My allowing that anger to take over is what got me kicked out of school. I was miserable but not necessarily unmotivated in the traditional sense. I mean, just based off that I’m thinking, okay, the serotonin one, right?
[00:33:30] Dr. Josh Friedman: Yep. Those would be classic low serotonin symptoms. If you went to a psychiatrist with those symptoms, they would put you on Zoloft or Prozac.
[00:33:40] Detective Ev: Which is exactly what I got, I got Zoloft.
[00:33:41] Dr. Josh Friedman: Yeah. In some people that would be amazing.
An interesting thing is, why does someone take Zoloft or Prozac? It doesn’t work. And why do they take amino acids? And they do work. Often people will come to me who have tried the traditional route. Cause the truth is most people aren’t seeking out a FDN or an amino acid therapist, and it’s fine. It’s way easier to take one dose of Prozac a day and it changes your life. We never see those people.
Amino Acid Therapy: Low in All Four Categories
The government did research on antidepressants. How well are they working? It was called the Smiles Trial. They found that antidepressants work, they help with 50% of symptoms in 50% of people. It’s not that great actually.
I’ve been around a long time, some people do really well on antidepressants. They get on them and stay on them, it’s no big deal. It’s our job to figure out the other people.
But going back to your thing. Yeah, those are low serotonin.
Some people are going to be low in everything. What do you do then, is the question. There are targeted amino acids. Targeted amino acids would be tryptophan, 5HTP for serotonin; GABA, different forms of GABA for GABA; tyrosine or DLPA, DL-phenylalanine for low dopamine; and DPA for low endorphin. But what do you get?
In this day and age, people come in and they’re like, well, I have all of these. What do we do? Here’s an interesting thing. There are broad spectrum amino acids. So, if someone came in and they were like, oh yeah, I’m low dopamine, I’m low GABA, I’m low endorphin. The first thing I’d be like, hey, let’s do a product called Total Amino Solution and see how you do.
Then I would say, how’s your digestion? Because the thing to remember is if hydrochloric acid is low, if people are protein malnourished, if people aren’t able to absorb protein because of gut dysfunction, there are no amino acids in the system to be used for brain chemistry. If people are zinc deficient, low levels of zinc leads to low levels of hydrochloric acid.
And no hydrochloric acid people are on PPIs, protein pump inhibitors to decrease heartburn, which leads to a disaster of no protein. No amino acids available.
Amino Acid Therapy: How is Brain Chemistry Made?
[00:36:28] Detective Ev: I was prescribed one. It’s just weird looking back at all the channels of stuff, you know. Cause that came right before the depression, or right around the depression.
[00:36:35] Dr. Josh Friedman: And I think PPIs alone can cause depression. Because if you think about it, Prozac does nothing to create neurotransmitters. It just makes more efficient use of whatever neurotransmitters are in the system.
[00:36:50] Detective Ev: That could be a reason why it doesn’t work for some people if they’re not getting it to begin with.
[00:36:53] Dr. Josh Friedman: One of the first cases that I worked with these tools on was an anorexic girl who was on Prozac, who was having minimal benefit.
I said, Okay. What are you eating? Oh, you’re eating lettuce and almost nothing. How much protein are you eating? We did the calculation, like she would just eyeball it. She’s having 10 grams of protein a day. So, basic education about neurotransmitters. How are they produced? Like how is brain chemistry made?
It’s made from protein. Oh, you can only use amino acids if you eat enough of something, and you break it down into the substrate amino acids. Oh, you can only turn those amino acids, you can only turn tryptophan into serotonin if you have specific enzymatic co-factors, which are rate limiting. So, if you don’t have enough B6, if you don’t have enough magnesium, if you don’t have enough zinc, the whole process slows down. That’s not to mention any of the genetic SNPs that can influence.
So, you’re thinking, oh my God, it’s very difficult to turn this food into brain chemistry.
Amino Acid Therapy: Client Success Stories
We gave this anorexic girl who was willing to take supplements, 500 milligrams, which is the starting dose of tryptophan, twice a day. It was all she would do, and her mood started to lift after a couple of days. She started to get less rigid in her thinking. She started to say, oh, I think I need to eat a little bit more, so I can have energy, so I don’t pass out anymore. It was like, it was amazing.
The tryptophan wasn’t the end; it was the beginning. Because in her case it wasn’t like relief, it was like she could finally think again. Cause her brain really kind of had been offline, stuck in these rigid eating disorder patterns and thoughts.
[00:39:09] Detective Ev: Wow. I know this might be a while ago, so I don’t know if this automatically comes to your head. So, I remember listening to a podcast you did. Really, I don’t know if it was during this time, but I remember you posted something during the pandemic. I vividly remember I was walking cause I was so bored. Normally, I would walk three miles to the grocery store and back every day. I remember hearing about this gentleman who came in. It was rather dramatic where he basically had a weapon and said that he was going to take his own life. But you turned him around.
[00:39:35] Dr. Josh Friedman: Yeah. He was amazing actually. He’s about 10 years back. He was one of the first people I did functional medicine testing on. He was desperate, had been hospitalized, had been an alcoholic and lifelong depression. His situation was made much worse by being put on psych meds. He sort of became even more hopeless. They upped the dose.
Amino Acid Therapy: Turning A Life Around
We did some food sensitivity testing, not MRT, it was before MRT. Did some IgG testing, an organic acid test, and we did HTMA. I didn’t know how to interpret these tests very well at that point cause I didn’t know all the ratios, HTMA ratios. Honestly, I did the wrong hair test. I did a doctor’s data test and not Trace Elements blah, blah, blah. But what we did find out was enough to turn this life around.
On the test, we found, and I say we found the usual, like we were looking for the usual suspects. So, what did we find on this guy? We found a very significant allergy to dairy. Why was this important? He was a weightlifter that was doing dairy-based protein shakes six times a day. That’s like a big finding. He was poisoning himself every single day.
On the hair test we found low levels of lithium. We later found out that he came from an area of Texas that had very, very low levels of lithium in the municipal water, just by chance. Because I read, there’s an amazing study that looks at lithium levels in the water in every county in Texas. And if you take every county in Texas and you plot it on a graph, and you plot suicidality and homicidality in those counties, there’s an inverse relationship between the counties that have high lithium in the water and low incidence of suicide and homicide. It’s a near perfect correlation.
We put him on lithium, we put him on some lithium orate, low level lithium, not pharmaceutical, supplemental. We also found low levels of serotonin and dopamine, the markers on the OAT, which is the urine markers, not the best markers.
Amino Acid Therapy: Enabling Clients to Move Forward
We put him first on serotonin support. When he settled down, we put him on some dopamine support and his life turned around. A week or two into this he called back and said, this is amazing; I haven’t felt this way since I was a kid. He was like done. I was his last person. I was like, oh, snap. I’m his last person.
I still felt new at this. It was just very rewarding. Then he wrote me, four years later. I lost track of him. He had referred other people, his brother who had similar issues, friends. I’ve been free of depression for all this time, four years, is what he said.
Now, he had started singing and he wanted to become a recording artist. So, he had done all this amazing stuff in his life. He’d had a romantic relationship for the first time. It was really incredible. But he had taken like very small little steps. That’s a testament, certainly to the testing.
But as a first step with almost everyone, helping them with neurotransmitter support can be incredibly helpful. If you help people feel 20% better immediately, you get buy-in from them. They’re able to rise up and do some of the things you’re asking them to do. And they believe in the process very quickly.
The cool thing about amino acids is when you’re at the right dose, they’re going to notice within 10, 20, 30 minutes, like it’s immediate. They’re going to have an immediate reaction.
[00:43:43] Detective Ev: Julia Ross has those stories where she said, occasionally, not every time, but occasionally she’d have someone come in the office and by the time that they were leaving they already felt better because she was getting that good at it. This is crazy to me.
Amino Acid Therapy: Serotonin Syndrome
I know I’m biased, but I love this topic. I think everyone’s going to feel this way of how fast this is going. If you guys want Dr. Friedman to come on and just share this endless knowledge it seems, again, please reach out to us. You guys know how to do that. DM us on at fdntraining on Instagram, and we’ll bring him back.
Dr. Freidman, one question I had to get to today cause there’s gotta be someone else that’s thinking this here, and I admittedly don’t know the answer to this. Is this contraindicated with the medicines or can someone try this out while being on a medicine?
[00:44:20] Dr. Josh Friedman: Yeah. It is not contraindicated. The general rule of thumb is taking amino acids four hours after your dose of medication. But if I was on medicine, if anyone’s out there, they’re on medicine, their clients are on medicine, I would find a practitioner to work with who can make sure there’s a theoretical risk of something called serotonin syndrome – too much serotonin. I wouldn’t advise people to self-treat if they’re on medicine, but it is possible.
I’ve worked with many people on medicines, but spacing them out, going even more slowly, staying in closer touch with a practitioner is the way to go. And Julia Ross has a list of providers that she’s trained on her website. I would be one of them. There’s, I don’t know, a hundred or so on her website.
Where to Find Dr. Josh Friedman
[00:45:14] Detective Ev: Well, and I might as well ask. Please tell us where can people find you if they’re like, this is my guy, I need to talk to him.
[00:45:29] Detective Ev: Excellent. I know there’s going to be a lot of FDNs out there that are excited. Guys, buy The Mood Cure. If nothing else, check that out.
Dr. Josh Friedman: Yes.
Detective Ev: Thank you for the advice with, you know, be careful with the self-treating aspect, especially if we’re currently using medication. Thankfully, for better or for worse, I feel like a lot of people that listen to this podcast might be rejecting medication.
Now, I don’t necessarily believe in that. I think you should try to feel as good as you possibly can. I know I’ve talked to them, and they might be struggling right now, but they don’t want to take the medication cause they’re worried about the risks with that. Hopefully this is something they can implement overnight.
And guys, what’s crazy about this, it is cheap. I remember Julia Ross saying in the book itself that she believed that just the simple answering of questions in the book was a more accurate way to measure which amino acid you should use. Then any blood draw or anything out there. Like, so for a $19 book and then some of the cheapest supplements you can imagine, you can really turn this around. It’s criminal to me that this isn’t talked about more even in a functional space.
Amino Acid Therapy: The Anti-Anxiety Food Solution
[00:46:22] Dr. Josh Friedman: I do think that the amino acid therapy chart is genius. I think the way that it chunks information, it trains clinicians to begin to think about very operational categories of mental health symptoms. She, on the chart, and I’m going to email it to Evan, on the chart it says, take these supplements at these doses. Here’s how you introduce them, how you titrate them up. You find your sweet spot. She shares in that book, all of the jewels. She’s old school, so just $20 book. She’s putting it out there.
She knows that 30% or 40% of people will be able to do it themselves and get better. She then knows that some people are going to need more support. If anxiety is the primary issue, Trudy Scott has a book, it’s called The Anti-Anxiety Food Solution. It builds on Julia’s work. It’s more targeted for anxiety.
Trudy is a wealth of information in that area. She’s a real researcher, so she’s added to Julia Ross’s form, the amino acid therapy chart, with a few new sort of things in each of the amino acid areas. I’ll send that as well.
[00:47:43] Detective Ev: Excellent.
Dr. Friedman, this one might be more general, but it’s our signature question on the podcast. You can feel free to answer this any way you want, even though I know the topic was mental health today. But since it’s your first time on, the question is as kind of simple as this.
Signature Podcast Question/Conclusion
If we could give you a magic wand and you could wave it and get every single person in this world to do one thing for their health, so you can get them to start doing one thing, or you can choose for them to stop doing one thing, what is the one thing that you’d get them to do?
[00:48:10] Dr. Josh Friedman: I’m going to go with mental health. Eat 75 to a hundred grams of protein.
[00:48:17] Detective Ev: Sounds good to me. Thank you so much for coming on today and sharing this.
[00:48:19] Dr. Josh Friedman: Thank you so much for having me, Evan.
This week’s article was sent to me by a number of people. It’s an interesting one, written by a number of authors from Kuwait and one from Paris. The paper was called “Low carbohydrate intake correlates with trends of insulin resistance and metabolic acidosis in healthy lean individuals” (Ref 1). The lead author was Al-Reshed.
The main claim from the article was, as the title suggests, that low-carbohydrate intake was associated with insulin resistance. There were additional claims about low-carbohydrate intake being associated with inflammatory markers.
The paper used the term Insulin Resistance Syndrome (IRS). It didn’t define IRS. It merely stated, “Insulin resistance syndrome (IRS) is a modern-day epidemic.” The American Academy of Family Physicians defines IRS as “a cluster of abnormalities, including obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia and type 2 diabetes, that are associated with insulin resistance and compensatory hyperinsulinemia.”
Insulin resistance is the term used to describe an impaired response to insulin in the body (primarily the liver, muscle, and adipose tissue). Insulin resistance impairs glucose disposal. This results in the pancreas producing more insulin, which creates a state of hyperinsulinemia (high insulin) in the body (Ref 2).
Insulin Resistance Syndrome is another term for metabolic disease, which is serious. Did this study put a nail in the coffin for low-carb diets? Let’s see…
VITAMINS/MINERALS One half cup of asparagus is 20 calories, a good source of vitamin K (57% RDI, RDI is how much you should eat of something every day). Vitamin K is used for blood clotting, bone complex and more. And folate rings in at 34% RDI, which is very important in pregnancy, cell growth and DNA formation. It’s a moderately good source of vitamin A (18% RDI) and vitamin C (12% RDI) and asparagus is relatively high in potassium (6% RDI). Research shows that eating asparagus contributes to lower blood pressure via potassium in two ways: by relaxing blood vessel walls and increasing salt excretion through urine.
ANTIOXIDANTS Asparagus has high levels of flavonoids: quercetin, isorhamnetin and kaempferol, which are do-gooders in the body, protecting us from the effects of oxidative stress and free radicals. Oxidative stress left unchecked contributes to body inflammation, premature aging, and other disease states. Studies found cooking asparagus increases the antioxidant capacity by three times.
FIBER Half a cup of asparagus gives you 1.8g of fiber or 7% of your daily need. Fiber, both insoluble and soluble, is essential for strong digestive health and asparagus has both kinds, with being a particularly big source of insoluble fiber which helps to bulk up stool and promote regular poops. It does contain insoluble fiber, which feeds large intestine good bugs or microbiome balance, specifically Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus. We know that strong numbers of these good guys help to strengthen the immune system and help to produce B12 and K2 (I know, quite circularJ).
ASPARAGUS AND WEIGHT LOSS Being low in calories, VERY high in water (94%), and a good source of fiber makes asparagus a great choice to include in your meals!
COOKING WITH ASPARAGUS It’s easy to incorporate asparagus into meals and snacks.
Asparagus is delicious raw, so snip off the woody ends and use it as a dipper for your favorite dip hummus, guac, white bean dip, etc.
For a quick sauté, snip off the woody ends and sauté in a skillet on low with olive oil. Top with lemon and salt and pepper to taste. You can also roast in the oven or steam. NOTE: I have been chopping the asparagus into ½ inch pieces before cooking. It is a touch different, and very delicious, and a very easy colorful side dish to add to the table.
I am not a fan of canned asparagus; it’s kind of mushy and contains too much added salt. Go for the fresh, which is in season now, or frozen.
How our clients use Healthy Nest personalized nutrition programs to lose weight and keep it off.
Case Study Client: Wendy (names have been changed for privacy) Stats: Female, late 50s, bloated at the end of every day. Digestion not working well. Wondering why foods that she used to eat, she cannot tolerate anymore. Exercises regularly, but has gained 15 pounds around the mid-section due to menopause transition, even though eating habits have not changed. Clothes don’t fit and it’s slowly getting worse and worse. Wendy is pescatarian.
Goal: Better digestion. Weight loss goal of 15 pounds and continued weight maintenance as a post-menopause lifestyle. Greater understanding of what is best to eat and how to exercise to support weight, health and longevity.
Outcome: Repaired digestive issues, bloating is much better and Wendy was able to lose 1-2 pounds per week over 3 months and gain confidence and consistency going into the future.
My preferred fruit and veggie soak and rinse that is effective for removing common pesticide residuals, including some of the really bad ones (DDT), is a combo of baking soda and white vinegar.
Make Your Own
Fill your sink with water. Add ¼ cup of baking soda and ¼ cup white vinegar. Add any veggies and only fruits that have thick enough skin so the vinegar taste won’t penetrate (berries aren’t great here, but apples, etc. are ok).
Soak for 20 minutes and then rinse.
The term organic means that synthetic pesticides were not used in the grow process. This reduces pesticide exposure and has health benefits. Synthetic pesticides are linked to health challenges, according to a big study in France. Trials show that people who switch from eating produce that conventional to organic see a big reduction in urinary pesticide concentrations. Also, other studies show lower levels of urinary pesticide levels improves fertility outcomes, reduces BMI, and Type 2 diabetes. It’s better for you.
As a mindfulness-based registered dietitian, I am passionate about the power of mindful eating to transform not only our personal relationship with food but also our impact on the environment — merging mindful eating and sustainability.
Mindful eating involves paying attention to the present moment while listening to our body’s needs and it can include becoming aware of sustainable food choices. In this article, we will explore Mindful Eating and Sustainability and how mindful eating can benefit the environment, reduce our carbon footprint, and promote sustainability.
What is Mindful Eating?
Mindful eating is the practice of paying attention to your food and your body in a non-judgmental way. It involves being fully present during meals, savoring each bite, and listening to your body’s signals of hunger and fullness. The goal of mindful eating is to bring awareness to your eating habits, reduce stress around food, and increase your enjoyment of eating.
Mindful Eating and Sustainability: How Choosing Your Food Mindfully Can Benefit the Environment
Since choosing to live “off-grid” a few years ago — we’re operating our home entirely off of solar energy — I’ve felt more connected to nature than ever. I experience profound gratitude and motivation to support the land we get to call home, and the earth we all get to call home.
Being more connected to nature, growing my own food, tending to our forest farm animals, and supporting natural resources, has also changed my relationship with food. Mindful eating has another layer of appreciation as I can clearly see and know where my food is coming from, having a greater connection to more local farmers to support their gardens and growing practices while reducing our carbon footprint.
Now, you don’t need to live “off-grid” or in the forest like I choose to, we all can take small steps to engage in more sustainable food choices, and mindfully eat with sustainability in mind.
How Can Mindful Eating Benefit the Environment?
Reduces Food Waste: Mindful eating can help reduce food waste by encouraging us to pay attention to the amount of food we consume and choose portion sizes that match our appetites. By reducing food waste, we can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with food production, transportation, and disposal.
Supports Local and Sustainable Agriculture: Mindful eating can encourage us to choose locally grown and sustainably sourced foods, which can reduce the environmental impact of food transportation and support local communities.
Reduces Energy Consumption: By choosing whole foods that require minimal processing and plastic packaging, we can reduce energy consumption associated with food processing, transportation, and storage.
Encourages Plant-Based Eating: Mindful eating can encourage us to choose plant-based options, which have a lower carbon footprint than animal products. Plant-based eating can also support biodiversity, reduce deforestation, and reduce water usage.
Supports Ethical Food Practices: Mindful eating can encourage us to choose foods that are produced using ethical and sustainable practices, such as fair trade and organic farming. By supporting ethical food practices, we can promote sustainability and support local communities (and bee populations).
Tips for Practicing Mindful Eating for Sustainability
Here are some tips for incorporating mindful eating into your daily life to promote sustainability:
Eat Whole Foods: Choose whole foods that require minimal processing and packaging, such as fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes.
Choose Locally Grown and Sustainably Sourced Foods: Look for foods that are grown and sourced locally and sustainably, such as seasonal produce and sustainably sourced seafood.
Reduce Meat Consumption: Consider reducing your meat consumption or choosing plant-based alternatives, which have a lower carbon footprint.
Avoid Food Waste: Pay attention to your body’s signals of hunger and fullness, and choose portion sizes that match your appetite. Store food properly to reduce spoilage and waste.
Support Ethical Food Practices: Choose foods that are produced using ethical and sustainable practices, such as fair trade and organic farming.
Evidence Supporting Mindful Eating for Sustainability
Several studies have shown the potential benefits of mindful eating and making more sustainable food choices for promoting sustainability. One study found that participants who received a mindful eating intervention reduced their food waste by 30%, while another study found that mindful eating interventions were associated with a reduction in carbon footprint. A review of 12 studies found that mindful eating interventions were effective in promoting sustainable food choices and reducing food waste.
Takeaway
Mindful eating can be a powerful tool for promoting sustainability and reducing our impact on the environment. By paying attention to the food we eat, reducing food waste, and choosing sustainable and ethical food practices, we can promote a healthier and more sustainable food system.
Remember that mindful eating is a journey, and it’s important to be patient and compassionate with yourself along the way!
Find Freedom & Balanced Nourishment.
Embrace a Balanced & Peaceful Relationship with Food.
If you’re looking to develop a healthier relationship with food and transform your eating habits, consider joining our online group coaching program, the Mindful Nutrition Method. Our program is designed to help you cultivate a mindful approach to eating and develop a healthier relationship with food and your body.
Get the 3-part system that will help you discover your balance, enjoy food fully, and nourish your relationship with food to feel confident, balanced, and at peace. You’ll learn the skills and strategies you need to make lasting changes to your health and well-being. Don’t wait to start your journey towards a healthier, happier you.
Join the Mindful Nutrition Method today and discover the transformative power of mindful eating.
Here are some research articles related to mindful eating and sustainability:
Dunn C., Haubenreiser M., Johnson M., Nordby K., Aggarwal S., Mykerezi E., & Thomas C. (2019). Mindful Eating and Living (MEAL): Weight, eating behavior, and psychological outcomes associated with a mindfulness-based intervention for people with obesity. Complementary therapies in medicine, 42, 375-382.
Kristensen N. H., Sabaté J., & Petersen K. E. (2014). Health and environmental implications of US meat consumption and production. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(33), 11996-12001.
Schneider S. L., Lillico H. G., & McKeown C. K. (2019). Mindful eating and reducing food waste: A randomized controlled trial. American Journal of Health Education, 50(2), 71-79.
Sobal J., Bisogni C. A., & Devine C. M. (2006). A conceptual model of food choice and food behavior. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 3(1), 166-175.
Trenchard L., & Kasser T. (2015). Mindfulness, well-being, and ecological sustainability: The critical importance of viewing the natural world as a commons. Ecopsychology, 7(3), 159-166.
You’ve asked, and we’ve listened. Massive thanks to each one of you who wants to help spread our work to disseminate the latest in nutrition research. With more than ten years’ worth of informational content, several books and cookbooks, and our newer resources, including guides and infographics, we have plenty of ways for you to share in whatever way works best. Here are some suggestions:
1. Share a Video
Watch our Traffic Light Dining System video in which Dr. Greger explains his traffic light system for ranking the relative healthfulness of Green Light vs. Yellow Light vs. Red Light foods, and share it with others.
2. Download theEvidence-Based Eating Guide and the Daily Dozen Meal Planning Guide
What are some of the healthiest foods that we should eat every day? Check out Dr. Greger’s free Daily Dozen app, and share it with friends and family. You can even encourage others to start a challenge to see how many streaks they can achieve.
6. Share NutritionFacts Resources with Your Health Professionals
The next time you see your doctor or dietitian, introduce them to Dr. Greger’s work. Show them the Evidence-Based Eating Guide on your phone, or give them a business card.
7. Donate Copies of Dr. Greger’s Books
Leave copies of How Not to Die, How Not to Diet, or any of his cookbooks in places with public bookshelves, such as Little Free Libraries or a shelf in your favorite cafe.
8. Host a Book Club or Screening
Are you a part of a book club or interested in starting one? Suggest How Not to Die as the next title to read! Learn more about the book here. Why not consider hosting a screening of Dr. Greger’s “How Not to Die” or “Evidence-Based Weight Loss” presentation? Happy viewing!
9. Volunteer with NutritionFacts.org
We can’t do our work without the help of volunteers. Please consider signing up for our volunteer newsletter here to stay up-to-date with tasks and projects you can do to support NutritionFacts.org. For instance, do you have a strong background in professional translation? Our videos and blog posts are translated by volunteers. Apply here to help make this life-saving information more accessible to people all over the world.
10. Stay Connected!
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and share our posts. You can also add a link to NutritionFacts.org in your email signature so every recipient of a message you write is introduced to our work. For instance, add this line to your email signature: Check out NutritionFacts.org for the latest in nutrition research.
If you believe in our mission to share the latest evidence-based health and nutrition information for free to the public, please consider making a donation here.
We hope these are helpful ways you can encourage healthy habits and share potentially life-changing information with others you know. As usual, everything on our website and platforms is free, and all of the proceeds from Dr. Greger’s book sales are donated to charity. Thank you for your support!
You’ve asked, and we’ve listened. Massive thanks to each one of you who wants to help spread our work to disseminate the latest in nutrition research. With more than ten years’ worth of informational content, several books and cookbooks, and our newer resources, including guides and infographics, we have plenty of ways for you to share in whatever way works best. Here are some suggestions:
1. Share a Video
Watch our Traffic Light Dining System video in which Dr. Greger explains his traffic light system for ranking the relative healthfulness of Green Light vs. Yellow Light vs. Red Light foods, and share it with others.
2. Download theEvidence-Based Eating Guide and the Daily Dozen Meal Planning Guide
What are some of the healthiest foods that we should eat every day? Check out Dr. Greger’s free Daily Dozen app, and share it with friends and family. You can even encourage others to start a challenge to see how many streaks they can achieve.
6. Share NutritionFacts Resources with Your Health Professionals
The next time you see your doctor or dietitian, introduce them to Dr. Greger’s work. Show them the Evidence-Based Eating Guide on your phone, or give them a business card.
7. Donate Copies of Dr. Greger’s Books
Leave copies of How Not to Die, How Not to Diet, or any of his cookbooks in places with public bookshelves, such as Little Free Libraries or a shelf in your favorite cafe.
8. Host a Book Club or Screening
Are you a part of a book club or interested in starting one? Suggest How Not to Die as the next title to read! Learn more about the book here. Why not consider hosting a screening of Dr. Greger’s “How Not to Die” or “Evidence-Based Weight Loss” presentation? Happy viewing!
9. Volunteer with NutritionFacts.org
We can’t do our work without the help of volunteers. Please consider signing up for our volunteer newsletter here to stay up-to-date with tasks and projects you can do to support NutritionFacts.org. For instance, do you have a strong background in professional translation? Our videos and blog posts are translated by volunteers. Apply here to help make this life-saving information more accessible to people all over the world.
10. Stay Connected!
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and share our posts. You can also add a link to NutritionFacts.org in your email signature so every recipient of a message you write is introduced to our work. For instance, add this line to your email signature: Check out NutritionFacts.org for the latest in nutrition research.
If you believe in our mission to share the latest evidence-based health and nutrition information for free to the public, please consider making a donation here.
We hope these are helpful ways you can encourage healthy habits and share potentially life-changing information with others you know. As usual, everything on our website and platforms is free, and all of the proceeds from Dr. Greger’s book sales are donated to charity. Thank you for your support!
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: What is going on, my friends? Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka, Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show about a mental health testimonial.
Well, this is probably, and hopefully my final wisdom tooth update. As you can hear, I’m sounding a lot better, feeling pretty good. This is an important lesson for people out there that I’ll keep really short, but it’s just something to advocate for yourself with.
We are not against Western medicine. Just in case this is your first time listening to the show, we’re not against Western medicine. However, when I got these three wisdom teeth removed recently, I was told I needed antibiotics. I was actually told on two separate occasions I needed antibiotics.
All I did, I didn’t say no, I didn’t say I’m never taking them. I said, are there any other options? Is there any possibility that I don’t need to take this and I can do something else? Both times the answer was yes, and so I didn’t end up needing antibiotics with this surgery. You say, well, it’s a course of antibiotics, who cares?
Well, for those of us in the functional space, we know first of all what this can do to you sometimes when you’ve taken these before. For myself who has taken 20 courses of these, over 20, throughout my life, I don’t want to mess with these things anymore.
Final Wisdom Tooth Surgery Update
I feel depressed typically for anywhere from six months to a year after taking them, which is terrible. My skin erupts, and I already knew I was going to have some minor skin issues with the surgery itself and all the other things that was coming with the ibuprofen I’d have to take. Because of this, the last thing I wanted to do was add on antibiotics to all of this, and it turns out there were alternative options.
If you’re not living in a healthy state like an FDN would, this might not work for you so well. And if you are still actively dealing with a lot of symptoms, this might not work as well for you. But I’m just saying, ask; advocate for yourself. See if it’s okay, because I wasn’t going to do something that the doctor said to not do.
But both times they were actually quite open to this. And once I told them my story about having been on all these courses and what it did to me, they said, okay, yeah, no problem. If you feel like you’re getting sick or you feel like the pain’s getting worse at all, please take them. But if this stays the same or gets a little better over the next several days, feel free to do what you gotta do.
That’s awesome. It worked out really well. So again, the one final tooth is healing, it’s taking a little longer than it probably would’ve without the antibiotics to be clear. But the pros outweigh the cons for me, and I think this is going to be just fine overall. With that said, again, my final update for the wisdom tooth thing, we’re not here to discuss that today.
Mental Health Testimonial: Symptoms Regardless of Decent Lives
What we are here to discuss is the story of my friend Lucas. Really cool. And you’ll hear most of this on the podcast, it was a longer one. I won’t go too deep into the intro today. But I met Lucas through an organization we were both speaking for at one point for mental health issues. He had been through a lot of stuff himself and so through this organization we spoke primarily to kids. Sometimes we were speaking to adults as well.
Basically, you’re just sharing your story and encouraging people to get help. You’re encouraging people that it is okay to deal with these types of problems and you’re not weird or crazy or anything like that for going through these things. I met Lucas in this program. Lucas and I relate a lot because our stories kind of start out similarly in that we both grew up in a very similar area. We both felt, perceived at least, that we had decent lives, and yet we dealt with these mental health symptoms.
Because of this there was a lot of rejection of ourselves around these symptoms and these feelings, invalidation. But Lucas was interesting because when I noticed this, I’m like, well, wait a second, I believe I can help this guy then. Not because I’m so great, but just because of the stuff that I know with FDN and holistic health, and I wouldn’t say that about everyone in the organization.
Some people had been through severe trauma and abuse. I’m not going to sit there and say, oh yeah, eat well and take some lab tests and everything’s going to be fine. That’s insulting. That’s an incomplete form of treatment for those types of individuals.
Mental Health Testimonial: Wanting to Share His Story
But then again, what about people like Lucas and I, there’s gotta be some cause to this stuff. If he’s dealing with this and he had a good life as proclaimed by him, there’s gotta be something else. Unfortunately, it took almost five years for this guy finally to run some labs with us and we started out on super basic stuff. We’ve only gone through metabolic typing and the MRT right now, but the results that this guy got from this is amazing.
What we will do today is we will talk about that. But Lucas, again, has spoken professionally. He’s a very good storyteller and has a powerful message for anyone out there, especially young men. This would be a good podcast probably to share with some young men in your life, or just men in general.
You guys are going to love this one. It’s heartfelt. There’s a lot to this. There’s some pretty serious parts. We’re going to guide you through the story, and then at the end we’re going to talk about the results he’s been getting lately with trying the more natural thing. It shows you guys, it’s never too late. It’s very inspiring for people that have tried a lot of things and haven’t had success. It’s just everything you’d want it to be in a podcast.
I appreciate Lucas so much for coming on. He has nothing really to offer you guys. Well, he does have a book, but I told him to mention that; he didn’t even want to mention that originally. But he has nothing for sale. He’s not a coach, he’s an engineer. Just a guy that wants to tell people that this exists because he’s suffered for so many years dealing with these things.
Mental Health Testimonial: Similar Stories
Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.
Alright. Hello there Lucas, welcome to the Health Detective Podcast. How are you my friend?
[00:05:18] Lucas Wolfe: I’m good, Evan. Good to see you. Thanks for having me.
[00:05:20] Detective Ev: Yeah, this is exciting. I would’ve already had said this in the intro to the audience and stuff, but they know over 230 episodes now, I do bring on, occasionally, people that I know personally. But I try not to prioritize that unless it’s very legitimate, right? I never want to be one of those people that just brings on people because I know them. I like to bring them on cause they have real stories and real things to share with people.
What’s cool about this episode today is you guys know we typically are story based. We’ll start off with the journey that someone went through and then we might spend half of the time talking about the resolution with the natural stuff. But the reason I invited Lucas on is not necessarily because everything’s perfect or a hundred percent figured out, or he has been doing the health thing for 10 years in the way that we do the health thing that is. Certainly not to suggest that there’s been a lack of effort over the last 10 years, there definitely has.
But Lucas is interesting because when I first met him through, well, we can’t mention the organization outside of this, but five, six years ago we met. When I first heard his story about mental health, I’m lighting up in my brain. I’m like, oh my gosh, this dude’s like so similar to me. It’s probably going to be impacted positively by a lot of the stuff that I learned.
Mental Health Testimonial: Pretty Easy Life Before Age 16
But for those listening, you know how hard it is to talk about these things really, if people haven’t heard of this stuff. And Lucas is a smart guy. I mean, he’s an engineer. But if you haven’t heard this alternative type of stuff, it can sound a little crazy. We’ll get into that later and what you’ve been experiencing recently, cause I just think it’s awesome man and I’m glad that you gave it a try.
But I’m more interested in the story, and we’ll focus on that a lot today. Lucas has spoken professionally for years. He’s got a wonderful book and we’ll shout that out at the end as well. For now, we’ll just dive into what he dealt with. So, Lucas, if we can, let’s just start from kind of the beginning with stuff, whether that’s childhood, teenage years, whatever you want to call it.
What was life like right before the mental health issues? Like what had life been up to, and then what started happening symptom-wise that led you to realize, hey, maybe something’s a little off here because it started a little bit later in life for you.
[00:07:22] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah, it did. You know, some people have stories where they recognize it as early as childhood. By childhood, I mean like seven, eight years old, something like that. But for me, I didn’t notice it until I was about 16. Everything before that, honestly, was pretty easy. I would say the hardest thing in my life was sort of the casual, normal bullying that everyone goes through, but it really wasn’t anything special.
Mental Health Testimonial: Didn’t Earn the Right to Be Depressed
But other than that, I mean, my life was a very happy life. I came from a two-parent family. I’m a twin brother. I have a younger brother, Gabriel, with special needs. We’ve always been close. My family was pretty well off, so I don’t really remember ever wanting for anything or ever feeling like I missed out on anything. I always knew that my parents loved me. I went through my time just not being the biggest fan of them like every kid does, but I never doubted for a second that they loved me.
So, my life was really good. It was really comfortable, just easy to be honest with you. Which is one of the things, and the reason I say it like that is because that was one of the things that really made the depression so difficult for me. Because as I’ve said, I just didn’t think that I earned the right to be depressed.
So, when I started to experience those kind of symptoms when I was 16, you know I was about a junior in high school, I really just didn’t understand what was going on. I had no idea what was happening to me; no idea how to talk to anybody about it or even what to say because my life was so good. Like, who is going to believe me? Right? I’m crazy. And that’s really what I thought.
[00:09:11] Detective Ev: The first time I heard that, I was like, whoa, overlap here. I like that you specified why you were saying it that way.
Mental Health Testimonial: Non-Circumstantial Mental Health Issues
Because the stereotypical image of someone still to this day in society that deals with mental health type stuff is someone who has had a circumstance or series of circumstances occur in their life that would lead to something like mental health issues. But then there are actually a lot of people, I would wager millions like me and you, who do feel these things, but we can’t clearly connect it to something else.
And it doesn’t suggest that everything is sunshine and rainbows. I don’t think either of us are saying that. But even your book titled My Perfect Life, How Depression Almost Ended It and How You Found Purpose Through Pain, I always love that. It’s this idea of, okay, my life is good. I don’t think this is justified for the feelings that I’m getting. Some people will take it to the next step and be like, oh, well maybe they were repressing the things that happened to them. You’ve went through all that work, man, this is not an unseasoned person. You’ve been there, you’ve done that; and no, that wasn’t it. There’s something else missing.
When we deal with that, I’ve always called this, it’s not clinical, but I’ve always referred to it as non-circumstantial mental health issues. There is a cause for it that just isn’t circumstantial. There’s something else, whether it’s biological, you can look at the biochemistry, which falls into the same category, but there’s something there. We live in a cause and effect world. We just gotta figure out what it is.
So, when you were dealing with the first symptoms at 16, what did that look like? What were those?
Mental Health Testimonial: Thoughts of Suicide
[00:10:37] Lucas Wolfe: Actually, for a lot of people, the symptoms kind of build from maybe something like a very strong blue mood to lack of interest to, eventually, if it became severe enough, suicidal ideation. For me, I didn’t follow that typical path. It was like a switch flipped off and I would be perfectly fine, then all of a sudden there would be those images of me taking my life in my mind’s eye, which would cause something like panic attacks.
Again, that just was so bizarre, so unknown to me. This was when I was 16, it was 14 years ago, so this stuff really wasn’t talked about at all. You know, I’m not upset about that, that’s just the way that it was. But I do think that if I had a little bit of education on the subject, that I would’ve felt more comfortable going to my parents and saying like, hey, I understand I have a good life, but these things are happening to me, and I think I need to do something about it.
Instead, I just tried to suppress it, to fight it. I thought, you know, I’m a teenager. Teenagers go through phases, and nobody ever mentioned this phase, this suicidal-thoughts-phase. But I guess that’s just what I’m going through, and it’ll pass. I’ll be fine.
It was easy to convince myself of that because most of the time I really did feel good. But there were times that those thoughts of suicide would come in. I noticed that I also didn’t really like to be alone and quiet, which is something that, reflecting back on, I realized was very much a sign of the depression.
Mental Health Testimonial: No Warning Signs
I always was trying to keep my mind active; I was keeping my body active. I really couldn’t sleep much unless I had worn myself out so much during the day that I just kind of passed out when I went to bed. You know, I was so used to doing that, that I saw that as normal. I now know maybe a better term for that is that it’s not healthy to be doing it that way. That’s not how we should be sleeping. We shouldn’t have to live that way either.
[00:12:51] Detective Ev: Right. This is actually just a question. I don’t believe one way or the other right now, I’m curious though. The way that you talk about when you finally did experience something as severe as the suicidal ideations, there is this justification and trying to explain this away as maybe things that teenagers just deal with or a phase, is it possible that you were going through some early-stage symptoms before this, but it was just completely repressed? Or is it really your understanding that, hey, one day it just turned on for whatever reason? I can buy either. I’m just curious now thinking about it from that perspective.
[00:13:25] Lucas Wolfe: It’s a great question. Honestly, when I think back on it, I just can’t see any symptoms other than when that suicidal ideation started and the sort of keeping myself busy. But I was always hyper energetic when I was younger. So, some of that was just being a super energy ball kid.
You know, some of it was the depression and it was very hard to see where that line was when you’re 16 and you got no idea what’s going on.
Mental Health Testimonial: Severe Eczema
[00:13:57] Detective Ev: Fair enough. We’ve definitely never talked about this; did you have any physical stuff as a kid that would be looked at by society as normal? We’ve followed each other long enough that you know what my opinion is on this. Like even the headaches, even the stomach aches, I don’t look at that as normal at all really, especially if it’s happening regularly. Did you have any physical stuff as a kid that might have just been underplayed?
[00:14:17] Lucas Wolfe: Well, I do actually. I do laugh about that now because I’ve seen so much of your work and your posts. So, I had acne; it wasn’t severe, severe, but it was pretty bad. Also, I had the most severe eczema of anyone that I’ve seen in person. It used to be so bad that I would bleed through it. The doctors, when I was in fifth grade, they thought that I had a flesh-eating disease, that’s how bad it was.
[00:14:46] Detective Ev: Wow! We’ve never talked about that.
[00:14:48] Lucas Wolfe: No, we haven’t. We haven’t talked about that. But from seeing some of your posts talking about skin reactions and really how that’s a sign that something’s off in the body, I’ve thought of that myself. I’m like, ah, geez, I wonder if there was something going on all the way back then. I didn’t know. And that’s not how the doctors are really trained. You know, it just got missed.
[00:15:11] Detective Ev: Yeah. Definitely not trained that way. It is actually fascinating to me.
Mental Health Testimonial: Symptoms Aren’t Normal
The reason I went with the physical side, I’m like, all right, anything’s possible in medicine and health, but it is odd. We both know it’s rare to jump to that level of depression or level of anxiety even. Then I’m like, all right there’s probably something else warning us here. And of course, who on earth except very specific types of people that are interested in this functional side would ever even connect something like severe eczema and acne, in fifth grade eczema, with depression symptoms that you’re dealing with at 16.
In my professional experience, I would never be able to predict that that would lead to depression specifically to be clear, I’m not saying that. But when you connect the dots, looking back, I would bet everything to my name that those are not disconnected. The same things that were perhaps leading to those symptoms in fifth grade were actually just the first little trickles going into the mental health stuff later.
I mean, for myself, it was a 13-year experience before I really got to the diagnoses that were starting to really scare me. Stuff that I was told was incurable or I’d need surgery for, or whatever, it was 13 years of dealing with stuff before we ever got to that.
Now is everyone going to be that drawn out? No. I’ve had plenty of people on this show that it’s not the case for them, but there’s usually something that’s going on before we get to the major stuff. So, that’s interesting. It’s just a lesson for everyone. We always say don’t look at any symptom as normal, because by definition it’s not.
Mental Health Testimonial: Connecting the Dots Holistically
And is everyone that has eczema going to get depression or suicidal ideations? No. That’s ridiculous. But it’s a warning sign from the body letting you know, hey, something’s pissing me off right now. We either fix this now or you give me enough time and it’s going to manifest to something else, probably.
[00:16:49] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah, exactly. That’s a very interesting way to look at it. And that’s why I say, you know, I kind of laugh a little bit now because it’s nothing that I would’ve thought of either. But when you take sort of the holistic view and you’re looking backwards, it makes a little bit more sense.
Detective Ev: Sure.
Lucas Wolfe: Which is great knowledge to have in your back pocket going forward, absolutely.
[00:17:12] Detective Ev: Yeah. Only like 15, 20 years too late.
Lucas Wolfe: Yeah.
Detective Ev: Cool. So, when you were starting to accept these symptoms as part of your identity, just, oh, as a teenager, this is something that people just deal with, I know that there was a breaking point. Of course, I know your story. But let’s talk about between 16 when these suicidal ideations start and that breaking point that occurred, I believe in college, if I remember correctly. How is this going over time? Is it getting worse or is it just kind of this thing that’s lingering in the background?
[00:17:40] Lucas Wolfe: It definitely was a slow burn, right? You know, it started when I was 16 and the breaking point occurred when I was 22. It was a slow burn and it consistently got worse, but it didn’t get worse every day.
Mental Health Testimonial: A Terrifying Belief
Sometimes I was fine, and I didn’t have these awful thoughts, nightmares, or trouble eating. I didn’t have trouble sleeping. There would be things in the back of my mind that seemed to me to be not quite right.
One of the ones that I noticed in my freshman year when I was trying to decide a major and I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to pick, I entered Penn State undecided. I just could not see a future for myself, everything was just black. What really terrified me about it, and I stopped taking time to think about my future, is I understood that part of me believed I wasn’t going to live very long and that’s why I couldn’t see my future. That was such a terrifying prospect that I couldn’t even deal with it.
I couldn’t tell anybody about that, couldn’t deal with it myself, couldn’t confront it. So, I just put it in the back of my mind and just chugged along. That was what I thought was the right thing to do. There was certainly some ego involved. I don’t pretend that I had no ego. I was a bit of an egomaniac, so there was certainly some ego involved.
[00:19:10] Detective Ev: That’s interesting. I can’t picture you like that. I didn’t mean to cut you off, but it’s a compliment. I’ve never perceived you like that at all. So, something worked.
[00:19:16] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. You know, I was younger and that’s just the way that I used to be. But I also really did believe that this was the right thing. I was like, I have this good life; I can’t throw it away.
Mental Health Testimonial: An Entirely Foreign Concept
That was also really when sort of the little bit of victim mentality seemed to be kind of becoming culturally mainstream and it just didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t want to be part of that. I thought that some of what was going on in my head was maybe some part of me trying to get attention through this sort of victim mentality. Like I said, I really believed that I was doing the right thing, just sort of pushing that off to the side, fighting it and moving forward. Obviously, I learned otherwise.
[00:19:59] Detective Ev: Right. Wow. Yeah, you’re just kind of rejecting yourself at all angles there.
When you’re in college, cause 22, you’re four years into college, you’re obviously getting educated. Penn State, for those that somehow don’t know is in Pennsylvania and it’s a great place. A lot of people go there, especially from the area that Lucas and I live in. I mean, I think they have like 50,000 students just on the main campus some years, let alone all the other satellite campuses that they have. It’s a very popular school, very good school.
But my point is, you’re getting educated. Even if you don’t think it’s valid, are you connecting yet the idea that, hey, this is a mental health thing, this is a depression thing, or is this still just, oh, feelings that I have?
[00:20:37] Lucas Wolfe: I had no concept that this might be a mental health issue. Zero. It was entirely foreign to me, entirely, that somebody with a good life could struggle with their mental health.
Mental Health Testimonial: Not Telling a Soul
I was such a laid back, easygoing, fun guy that the thought of me being depressed or anxious, yeah, I mean, it was diametrically opposed to my character. So, it didn’t even enter the realm of possibility, which was why the easier explanation was I’m crazy and I certainly don’t want to tell anybody that I’m crazy.
I mean, I really did have a very real fear that if I tried to tell my parents, or if I tried to tell anyone at all, that I was going to be locked away in a mental institution because I was a nut case. Nobody wants that to happen. I didn’t want that to happen. So, I just kept hoping that these feelings would go away.
[00:21:38] Detective Ev: I get you man.
You already know this part of my story, crazy is the word that I used, especially with the panic attacks. Because panic attacks to me, I could be fine one minute, and then for 20 minutes I convinced myself for like the hundredth time that I’m going to die. I, 100%, believe it even though I’ve been through this, again, a bunch of other times. Then afterwards I’m fine, I’m tired, but I’m fine.
That to me was the definition of crazy. I mean, how could, one second, I believe that I’m going to die, and then the next second I’m totally fine and realized, oh yeah, you dealt with this a bunch of other times. Remember those? Nothing ever happened and you were totally fine afterwards. That seems crazy to me, at least at the time that was the perspective. So, it’s interesting.
Mental Health Testimonial: No One Was Taking About It
You touched on a few things that I want to just review for people before we kind of move on to the breaking point and when things got worse, but then eventually, of course, got better, which is awesome.
One is this idea of what was actually going on in terms of the conversation around this 15 years ago, 20 years ago. I think we forget that pretty rapidly, like even the adults in our lives. Now it seems like we talk about mental health all the time. But I remember being in school. I mean, you’re 30, I’m 27. When I was in school, I think I had like a suicide speaker in high school one time, like very focused just on suicide, you know. Then everything else, I don’t remember anything about that.
No one came in and talked about anxiety. And no one came in and talked about the other 20 symptoms of depression that there can be outside of suicidal ideation let alone the 100+ mental health issues that we know of that are out there. They just didn’t talk about any of that stuff.
If no one was talking to us, certainly no one was talking to our parents unless they happened to choose that career path. So our parents, all great people, God bless them, but my parents didn’t know anything about mental health. They didn’t have any concept of this either. So that’s one thing to recognize.
And two, you mentioned two very specific things that I think challenge even the narrative of what depression could be. It’s just worth revisiting really quick. You talked about how you weren’t eating. You said that pretty quick, but you said that you weren’t eating sometimes, like having trouble with the appetite.
Mental Health Testimonial: The Life of the Party
Then you also mentioned something that in many people’s minds would seem like the opposite of what depression is. If you’re trained in this stuff, you know, it can present in different ways. You talked about how you actually couldn’t be alone when you were depressed, where the movie image of this is someone who only wants to be alone and doesn’t want to be around other people.
It just goes to show, I mean, depression can manifest really differently for different people.
[00:23:58] Lucas Wolfe: Absolutely. It was like a medicine for me. Being social, being around people making myself the life of a party in a way, if I did that, I didn’t have time to think about the depression. I didn’t have time to think about the dark feelings that were progressively getting worse and seemed to be haunting me more and more often. It was an escape, and it was a healthy escape.
It was interesting, because again, I knew that I was doing that in the same way that I absolutely knew I couldn’t do drugs in college. I just knew it. Somehow, I knew that if I started on drugs, I was done for. The absolute certainty with which I knew that, led me to believe, like, I know something isn’t right with me, but I still don’t know how to talk about it. That just kind of worked out, right? Cause I don’t recommend anybody does drugs. I had a very good reason to stay away from them because I was just so certain that would be the end of me if I did that. But that was a real sign.
Mental Health Testimonial: Depression Doesn’t Always Look the Same
[00:25:03] Detective Ev: Right. So even that kind of challenges it because I chose substances with this stuff and so do many people. And you’re like, no, I shouldn’t do this.
So just, guys, keep an eye out. We’re better at this, I think, in the functional space, thankfully, but still, we don’t want to have stereotypes necessarily of what this stuff can look like. It can look a variety of different ways for different people, especially between male and female, depression can look a lot different.
So, I want to talk about kind of the big moment for you here, because this is something that I think, especially for people who speak, seems to be universal, where there is like a profound moment where life is like this up to here and then it is completely different afterwards. Whether it’s good or bad in the moment, it exists, and it’s a profound moment.
What was that for you that led to actually recognizing this stuff or getting help, at the very least, and then recognizing this stuff?
[00:25:50] Lucas Wolfe: That moment for me was in my final semester at Penn State. Just a little background leading up to that. I always believed that there was something just over the horizon that was going to fix me.
Mental Health Testimonial: Spiraling into Bad Shape
When I was a teenager, it was like, this is a phase of adolescence. This’ll pass once I get out of being a teenager. And then it was, you know, that didn’t go away. In my senior year of college, it was like, okay, I’m stressed about college. When I pick a college, I’ll be fine. That worked out, so then it was, when I pick a major. When I picked a major, it was, well, I don’t know if I can make it in this, this is a really hard major. I did chemical engineering, and I was just barely passing.
Even if I do graduate, I don’t know if I can make it in a job. In my mind it was like, I need to be able to graduate and get an internship. If I can do those two things, then I’ll be successful, and all this fear is going to go away. I ended up getting an internship after my senior year and had one extra semester to go. So, I did four and a half years to graduate college. I got an internship going into that summer, and also passed all the rest of my difficult engineering classes.
So, for all intents and purposes, I had graduated. I just had a couple of easy credits that I had to tie up in that last semester, and I had that internship. The internship was off in New Mexico. Things really spiraled there, especially because I was isolated and alone. And I was really already breaking down when I got there.
When I came home, I was a mess. I wasn’t eating anymore. I wasn’t sleeping. I’m six feet tall and I had dropped to under 130 pounds, that’s how bad a shape I was in.
Mental Health Testimonial: The Breaking Point
About five days into the final semester at Penn State, I hadn’t eaten anything in two days. I just told myself, I’m going to eat this bagel this morning, and that’s it. I’m going to eat it; I’m going to win. Whatever this thing is that’s going on with me, I’m done with it.
I tried to take a bite of the bagel and my body just started to try to throw up but there wasn’t any food in my stomach. And every time I tried to take a bite of this bagel; I just would start gagging. And that was it. That was just when I broke, and I realized I am either going to call somebody right now or I’m not going to make it through the day.
I got up and went outta my apartment. I gave my dad a call at seven in the morning on a Wednesday at college. He knew I wasn’t calling to say, hey, how’s it going? Seven in the morning was kind of early for me still. So, that was the breaking point.
[00:28:39] Detective Ev: I actually appreciate us revisiting this. I don’t know if it’s because we have a network of speakers, but I actually mixed up the story. I didn’t think that’s what actually led to this.
That’s powerful cause there’s a simplicity to this. We’re talking about eating a bagel. But there’s something obviously wrong that even you trying to protect yourself in a way from this but rejecting the validity of it through all these years; you can’t ignore this. It’s like, dude, I haven’t eaten in two days. I can’t even eat this. Like, something is clearly there. It’s just sad that that happened, but I’m glad that it led to something good.
Mental Health Testimonial: A Conversation with Dad
So, when you called your dad, if I’m not mistaken, this part, I feel like I do remember, this was still not necessarily connected to mental health, right? It took a few days before we realized, okay, this is still a mental health thing that’s connected to all of this.
[00:29:25] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. Which is, I mean, it’s almost embarrassing, right? Because it was so obvious but I still had no idea what was wrong.
I remember calling him and you know, I planned on just having a conversation and telling him, something seems off. I think I need some help. He answered the phone and there was obviously a note of concern in his voice. The strangest thing happened, but I just broke down, man, and I just started crying. I mean, that’s really unlike me. Normally, I would not cry. And I especially would not cry in front of others probably most of all in front of my dad. So, it had to be bad for me to start doing that.
I just told him that I was sad, and it didn’t make any sense why I was sad. Obviously, I didn’t understand why I was sad. I explained it was more than just sadness, but I didn’t know what to call it. Then I told him I wasn’t eating; I wasn’t sleeping.
He didn’t jump right to depression either. He kept a cool head and we talked. That really helped me to at least feel like, you know, subside the panic in that moment. He helped subside the panic and I was able to calm down enough for us to be like, okay, let’s just call a doctor and we’ll figure it out. That was what he said to me and that’s what we ended up doing.
Mental Health Testimonial: A Way is Made for Help
[00:30:51] Detective Ev: So, how long does it take you to get into the doctor and what does that consultation, session, whatever, look like? Is that where things got recognized?
[00:31:00] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. So, I got really fortunate with that. We understood at the very least that we needed to call a doctor.
Now I hadn’t been to a doctor in a long time. We actually ended up calling my old pediatrician and just told him what was going on. We asked if he knew anyone. He was like, yeah, what’s going on is definitely a mental health thing. You know, you’re 22, you’re living a good life and you’re in college. This shouldn’t be happening. That wasn’t with judgment, that just was definitively, this is a mental health thing.
He knew a psychologist and I got very fortunate. The psychologist had availability for me, and I ended up seeing him like within a week at this moment. Looking back on it, if I knew then what I know now, I should have gone to the hospital and gotten immediate help. Because I really was not in a good place for those couple days. I shouldn’t have been trying to make it through that week. But that’s said and done with.
[00:32:05] Detective Ev: Yeah. Well, we’re just glad you’re here. That’s the thing is like, these calls are powerful, but it doesn’t necessarily fix like the eating thing right away. I mean, I’m sure there’s some weight off your shoulders, but what did happen that day? Were you able to eat the bagel or something else?
[00:32:16] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah, I was able to get soft foods down a little easier. You know, yogurt, soups, some ice cream, just enough to scrape by.
Mental Health Testimonial: Some Relief & Some Proof
I saw the psychologist and he was able to get me some emergency anti-anxiety medicine. We started on the antidepressants and that’s where all this stuff is really interesting. I know we’ve had discussions about it before. Really, I do believe that I was so far gone in that moment that I really needed medicine to bring me back. I just didn’t have the strength to do anything. Obviously, I needed that anti-anxiety medicine, and I was scared to death to take this stuff, absolutely terrified. I’m not a big medicine person; I don’t like to take it.
I do believe that we’re equipped to heal ourselves for the most part. I think medicine is great, it absolutely helps. So, I’m in no way against it. I just don’t want to take it unless I absolutely have to. And in this instance, I did.
The one thing that was really great about it was I truly believed that there was just no way back for me. I kind of was going through the motions and when I took this anti-anxiety medicine and I felt true, genuine relief, I knew, okay, this is a real thing. It is in some ways chemical and what I just took brought me actual true relief. I’m not high, I’m not outta my mind. I’m not a zombie; I actually just feel normal.
It felt so good to feel that way cause it had been so long since I experienced what it was to just be normal. I couldn’t believe it. When the medicine wore off and the pain and despair of depression was kind of coming back cause the anti-anxiety was just temporary, I had a little bit of hope. That gave me the drive that I needed to keep fighting through this thing.
Mental Health Testimonial: Advocating for the Meds When Necessary
[00:34:17] Detective Ev: I respect this because what sucks about social media is, it’s hard to see what someone truly thinks always, or we assume that they’re putting disclaimers on and stuff.
I would say I rarely get pushback with the things that I share in the functional world. But Lucas, one of the things I do get pushback on sometimes is I actually advocate very strongly for the validity of the mental health medication. People don’t want to hear it, especially in my space, especially that I advocate for it, for kids.
They’re like, you’re outta your mind. I’m like, okay, well, yes, but we’re not playing with an autoimmune disease. Now, some autoimmune diseases are very severe. You have like MS and stuff that can kill someone. Most autoimmune diseases would not kill you so directly. It would be something that you could deal with for decades before passing away if you passed away from it at all.
But my point in mentioning that is there is a certain level of urgency when you’re dealing with mental health stuff, especially in a young person, which at that age, I still consider that a young person. The brain is not fully developed. We’re not thinking as far ahead as we need to think.
It’s not as hard as one would want to believe for one little thing to happen that leads to the story that you just talked about becoming a suicide attempt versus calling your dad and saying, hey, something’s wrong. Like it is a very fine line that gets walked between that stuff. So, far be it from me to ever say that someone should not use medication for this stuff, especially when it worked. How could I argue that?
Mental Health Testimonial: Using the Life Jacket While Doing Investigative Work
That’s what I always just try to really paint the picture for with people and hopefully this story helps them understand that a little bit deeper. What we can also all agree on, especially you’d agree with this now, is we can give the person the medication, but also ask the commonsense questions.
Okay, Lucas Wolf is not deficient in anti-anxiety medication, nor is he deficient in an SSRI. So, let’s let him use this right now. This is his life jacket, it’s saving him. Can we figure out and do the investigative work to see what led to this to begin with?
And of course, the perfect person for you would’ve been like a functional medicine doctor who could’ve prescribed something. But then also, they would’ve made the connection saying like, huh, this guy had some really severe skin stuff too when he was younger. I’m oversimplifying it, but you’d probably make the connections to the gut right away as a functional practitioner, and now you’re looking a little deeper.
We can work through some of that stuff while you’re using the life jacket, no problem. The issue becomes when people get stuck on this stuff for 10, 20, 30 years. We had a young woman on, she was local to us, man. She went to Council Rock South. She was on Prozac from like nine years old to 18. The reason she stopped is because her psychiatrist, at 18, because it wasn’t working for her anymore, illegally prescribed to her a dose higher than the upper end of the limit. Even for herself, she’s like, this is insane. I can’t keep doing this. So, she got into a lot of the stuff that we’re into on this podcast.
Mental Health Testimonial: Meds Uncovered Anxiety Symptoms
That’s actually Courtney Hayes, she’s been on the show before for those wondering. Check that out at Episode 110. But these are common stories. That saved her life at the time.
The emergency anti-anxiety medication, I’m assuming you’re referring to some type of benzodiazepine, Xanax, Klonopin or something?
Lucas Wolfe: It was Klonopin.
Detective Ev: Gotcha. These medications in particular are dangerous, but at the same time, it’ll prove to you real fast that you have a problem or that something’s going on here. That was the same thing that happened to me. Now, unfortunately, it led to abuse, but when I took Xanax, I didn’t get it prescribed by a doctor, but it was at a prescribable dose. I was not taking two milligrams of Xanax. I took 0.25. That is the lowest prescribable dose you could get in this country.
When I took that, the issue was, how good it was for me. The shoulders dropped, the pain in my neck, like stuff I never even connected. The pain in my neck went away. I’m in the shower relaxing, listening to music, it sounds good. Focused, I’m just clearheaded. And that’s great but, again, for me doing it illegally, that was the problem. Cause I’m like, well if this is good, eight times this must be even better. That’s not how that math works just so you guys know from experience.
This stuff does work and I’m glad that it actually helped you validate this experience. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like this is what you meant. You’re saying you took that medication, it worked, and that was the thing where you realized this is a mental health issue. It has to be cause the medication worked.
Mental Health Testimonial: Combination of Meds & Therapy
[00:38:34] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. It was another really strong notch of evidence that said, you’re not making this up. Which was one of the things that kept me from talking about it for a long time. I thought I was making it up, thought I was trying to weave this woe-is-me story. That’s what I was telling myself.
Depression and anxiety is so interesting and conniving because it’s really an intelligent illness that can lie to you. That’s what it was doing. When I took this medicine and it helped, I said, oh, I’m not making this up. This is real. That helped me to accept it and move forward with it.
I agree with you, I never claimed the medicine to be this silver bullet. I think the therapy was actually more helpful. But I absolutely needed to be on this medicine to be able to do any of the things that we talked about in therapy or to even have the energy to make it to therapy.
[00:39:41] Detective Ev: I don’t want to oversimplify things today, but I think it should just be looked at as a tool. If I take a hammer and use it to hit someone on the head, that’s a bad use of the tool. If I take the hammer and build a house with it, that seems like a reasonably intelligent use.
Similarly, if I take medication to save my life when I need it, that’s cool. If I take it for three years straight, that particular one especially, the withdrawal alone could kill me at that point. That might not be the best use of the tool. So, it’s just a tool, guys, that’s all it is. We don’t have to be overly scared of it.
Mental Health Testimonial: A Real Fear
Most people, by the time they’ve gotten into our space, have been through so much Western medicine stuff, that’s why I always challenge them a little bit with that. I’m like, you really think the mental health medication, as not good as it is, is really the worst problem when like, this person’s been through chemo, this person’s been on Synthroid for 15 years. We all do the stuff; we all go through it first before we get to these things.
I don’t want to shorten too much of your story, so just please know in the back of your head, there’s nothing wrong if we have to add five to 10 minutes to this podcast. But there’s so much that happened after this, between 22 and 30 years old.
So, before we even talk about some of the stuff you’ve been doing recently, you got yourself to a good place and a good place in mental health means stable, productive member of society, able to live a good life. You have a wife and a kid now. This is beautiful how stuff worked out.
So, after this initial medication kind of being the life jacket, what was the freaking journey like after that? I imagine it was an interesting one.
[00:41:02] Lucas Wolfe: It was. I don’t think I seemed different to people on the outside, but I felt very different. At first, I didn’t like it because there was a real fear. The way that I explained it to my wife was, if you went skiing and wiped out, broke both your legs, your arms and your back, you wouldn’t even want to go near a mountain again, right? That’s essentially what happened to me, except the mountain is life and you can’t get off of it.
Mental Health Testimonial: A Tragic Suicide
There was a lot of fear and I wanted to live slowly is, I think, the best way to describe it. I wanted to work, and I wanted to hang out with my friends, but I didn’t lose. I actively decided, hey, this thing that I did like my whole life where I pushed myself really, really, really hard, I’m going to just put that on a shelf for now. I’m not going to get rid of it forever, but I’m going to put it on a shelf for now cause I don’t think it’s appropriate for this time of healing.
I just worked on the therapy and let the medicine work. Before, I had always been spiritual, but I got into that a little bit more. I prayed a lot. Then I graduated college, got a job, started working, and I was happy. Like you said, it was about stability, and I was stable. I was happy, I was really, really enjoying myself. I felt like I could live this sort of uncomplicated middle-class life for the rest of my life. I’m really happy doing this and I hope that this holds.
What got me into sort of the mental health space cause I had no plans to get into it. I wanted to run as far away as possible from it. All I wanted to do was forget about what happened to me. But there was in the high school that I went to, Holy Ghost in Bensalem, there was a junior who committed suicide.
His story was just the same as mine, the same as yours, Evan, the same as so many – no signs, no symptoms, no real warnings, happy guy, good life. It seemed to everybody looking in like it was out of the blue.
Mental Health Testimonial: Sharing the Journey to Help Others
I reached out to the principal who, you know, it was not so long since I’d been there that they still remembered me. He said when I came in and met him, he said he had to do a double take when he read the name in the email cause I emailed him. I said, look, this happened to me and I’m the last person that anybody would’ve ever thought this would happen to. Let me just come in and talk to the kids and tell them that it doesn’t have to be this way.
It went really well. I just thought, you know, maybe I had to experience this so that I could tell other people about it. I don’t know. We don’t always get to know the reasons or the purpose for why we go through things, but I thought this is as good a reason as any. It’s certainly a lot better than becoming bitter and thinking that what I had to go through was pointless.
That was something that I realized, you know, it was another thing that was kind of in the back of my mind where I recognized that that was there and if I didn’t ascribe some sort of purpose to what I went through, that I could become resentful and bitter about it. That led me to the organization that Evan and I met at. I went to schools and parent meetings and counselor conferences and just talked about my experience for a couple years. It was really great to be able to do that.
Mental Health Testimonial: Choosing to Turn Pain into Purpose
[00:44:37] Detective Ev: So much of this is so well worded, especially this part. Regardless of whether or not it’s a mental health thing for them, everyone that becomes kind of like an FDN or any type of functional practitioner, man, you’re living a passionate life. This isn’t something that you dreamt about at five years old to go do, but yet you find yourself doing it, and it’s the best work ever. I think there’s a huge lesson there that everyone can take today.
Even if you’re just listening for the sake of interest or understanding, but maybe the mental health thing isn’t actually as personal to you, this idea that you don’t have to know why things happen, but you can create a purpose with it, that’s how I approach it. You know, do I want to believe everything happens for a reason? Sure. You and I share this, I know for a fact, where we would never speak in such an absolute. Like we can say everything happens for a reason, but we’re also critical enough to be like, no, there’s a chance that this is all completely random too, that could be possible. I’m at least willing to humor that.
But then the idea is, okay, regardless of whether or not I can guarantee it happened for a reason, what is actually a better application of this experience? Do I become bitter, like you said, or do I use it to help other people? And man, when you get those first things of good feedback, I mean, it could be completely different for you in your job depending on who you are listening right now, but as speakers, it’s obvious.
Mental Health Testimonial: Understanding, Accepting, & Moving Forward
If someone comes up to you and says, I think this just saved my life today, I would go through what I went through a hundred times over again just to do that one time because you can’t buy that feeling.
I’ve done drugs, drugs don’t do that. I’ve made some bad decisions in my life to change the chemicals in my brain, nothing has helped with that. Money doesn’t do it. Love, honestly, as much as I love my girlfriend, it doesn’t even match that. It is something so deeply spiritual to know that there is purpose to your life right now on this earth in a major way.
That’s special and it’s something that we can all apply as people in this space of functional medicine. You take those things that happen to you, and you use it to help other people. It’s a whole different way of living. I’ll just leave it at that.
I’m glad that you got into the speaking thing, man. I know that wasn’t what you set out for originally. We aren’t mentioning the organization itself, but how did you get into that? I didn’t realize that you spoke at your school voluntarily first; I just assumed that you were already a part of the organization.
[00:46:47] Lucas Wolfe: No, I spoke voluntarily at my school first. A counselor there used to be a counselor at a different school. One of his students had joined the organization, so he knew about it. He gave me that contact info and it all just kind of worked out. As much as I was trying to escape thinking about the mental health stuff, I also felt I really needed to understand it to accept it and move on from it.
Mental Health Testimonial: Authoring My Perfect Life
So, I was reading a lot of books about mental health. I’m sure anybody listening to this podcast who’s dealt with health issues, has done something similar where you dive into sort of a deep info gathering moment of your life where you’re really trying to understand what happened to you or what’s happening to you.
A lot of the books that I read made me more depressed. They just weren’t that good. I didn’t think that they really offered hope. They were heavy. They just kind of weighed on me. That’s why, as Evan mentioned earlier, I wrote my book. I didn’t really intend for it to do anything.
It just kind of was therapeutic and a fun project. I thought, you know, if anything, at least maybe it’ll help my family understand what happened to me and maybe they can get some laughs along the way. Then it turned out to do a little bit more than that.
Detective Ev: I’d say.
Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. And I’m very happy about that.
[00:48:09] Detective Ev: So where can people find that now? And then just remind us of the title again, please. I’ll put it in the show notes.
Like I said, I try to keep it as light as I can when talking about this stuff. I try to keep it a little bit humorous. I think that that just makes it stick a little bit more when it’s not so wavy all the time.
Mental Health Testimonial: Doing Basic Functional Labs
[00:48:42] Detective Ev: I respect that. I have, I feel like, a different style. But you know, I think it matters. What I’ve learned with speaking especially, you gotta be in your own style.
Our friend, Jordan, I thought he was going to be like a Tony Robbins type speaker. Then I went and fanboyed one time and watched him at a college, and he’s as calm as can be up there. But it’s so well-crafted and so specific with how he says certain things. So yeah, whatever works for the person cause you’re going to relate to someone in a way that I can’t and vice versa. It’s beautiful. That’s all that matters.
Now I want to spend the last little bit here connecting this all together. It’s like we’ve been alluding to this the entire time, this idea of functional medicine helping to some degree. Again, guys, I can’t stress enough, I asked Lucas to come on because more than a few of you at this point have asked for clients to come on of people that work with FDNs, not just the FDN practitioners or functional medicine doctors themselves. So, you have a client, and you have a well-versed person that has tried many things, the therapies, the medications, all the stuff.
We did some very, in our world, at least, kind of fundamentals, like basic stuff. Maddy, my girlfriend, who was just on, actually worked with Lucas. Man, I was in the other room and was listening to you talk to her. I’m like, no way. I open up the door and I’m totally eavesdropping on this. I let him know I did this because I didn’t want to be rude, but I was like, dude, this is amazing.
Mental Health Testimonial: Trying to Get Off the Meds
So, what happened, basically? What did we discover? What did we look at? And how did it change the feelings for you pretty quickly?
[00:50:03] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. So, a little bit of background on that. Even though the medicine was super helpful, I had always wanted to get off of it. I just didn’t want to have to take it. I tried getting off of it, maybe four or five times in the last eight years and every time, disaster. You know, I looked into the withdrawal symptoms and how that could make you feel like you were depressed.
So, I fought through that for more than four months and still, just disaster. The last time that I had tried to go off was this past July. The reason that I did that was I didn’t want to rely on medicine because my wife was pregnant. We were going to have our first child, and I just wanted to be fully there.
I convinced myself that I didn’t need the medicine; it wasn’t helping me, yada, yada, yada. So, I weaned myself off. I was off of it for about seven months; everything was golden. Then in January, I started to kind of feel it a little bit and very quickly, by the time I got to February, I was just off a cliff all the way back to the way that it was when I was like 22.
What really did it for me was, my daughter, at this point, was born and I was watching my brother play with her. And I just was thinking to myself, I wasn’t trying to think it, this was very much like the suicidal ideation where the thoughts are just coming, and you don’t want them.
Mental Health Testimonial: Getting the Food Sensitivity Results
The thoughts that were coming into my head was, she’ll be okay. She’ll have a father figure; she’ll be taken care of when I’m gone. I just went home after that and it was devastating, just absolutely devastating. I was like, I gotta do something about this. Evan’s been talking to me about this functional diagnostic stuff forever, and just, what the heck am I waiting for, man? I gotta do this for my daughter, and I want to be around for her life. I don’t want to feel this way.
So, I got in touch with Evan and Maddy. I took the food sensitivity test and got the results. It’s funny man, because when Maddy called me with those results, I know it made no sense, but I was mad at her. She’s telling me all the things that I can’t eat, and I was just mad at her like it was personally her fault that I was sensitive to this stuff.
I mean, it was eggs. I ate eggs every day. Pork was on there. You know, no gluten. It’s like my favorite thing to eat in the morning was a sausage, egg, and cheese on a toasted everything bagel. Maddy was like, no more. A lot of things that I ate all the time were on that food sensitivity test.
It took me like an hour. I got the results, and I just went and sat on the couch. My wife, Erica, was like, are you okay? I was like, ah, I’m fine, except I’ll never be able to eat anything ever again. She was laughing.
Mental Health Testimonial: Getting Quick, Positive Effects
After I got done feeling sorry for myself, I looked at what I could eat, which is actually a ton of stuff and formulated a plan. I started eating those things. I have a fast metabolism, I was a high oxidizer, so a lot more proteins, fatty foods. So, I started eating that. I went on the essential amino acids that Evan recommended. I would take them every day, just dump them in some water and have them. And I started on the supplements that Evan and Maddy recommended for me.
I’m a skeptic. I, 100%, trusted Evan and Maddy because I had seen the results with them and with people that Evan had talked about. I just didn’t think that it would work for me. So, there’s no placebo effect here. That’s why I’m mentioning it.
[00:53:50] Detective Ev: Yeah, definitely not with Lucas. I’ll attest to that.
[00:53:52] Lucas Wolfe: There was no placebo effect. And within about five days, I was like, man, I’m starting to feel better. It was noticeable.
Within 10 days I felt better than I had since I was 15 years old before any of this had started. I mean, I had energy; I had hope; I could sleep and focus. Honestly, I felt like if I ran and spread my arms out that I was just going to take off and fly. That’s how excited I was.
Mental Health Testimonial: Annihilating Another Fear
The thing that I didn’t even really realize until I had done this was that before I had done this, all that time since I broke, there was always this underlying fear in the back of my mind that one day the depression was going to come back and the medicine wasn’t going to be able to fix it, and it was going to win. Ten days into doing this diet, that fear was gone.
I think that’s why I felt so light, so I’ll say, joyous, because it wasn’t as fleeting as happiness is. I realized, okay, there is something that I can do. There’s more that I can do than just take this medicine. It’s clearly real. Cause here I am, and I feel great.
[00:55:19] Detective Ev: This is amazing, man. For whatever it’s worth for those listening, we kind of started with a basic program that we run at our studio. This will make more sense to the audience. We’re not even talking about gut testing, or the hormones, or any of that stuff, even though that’s awesome if you can do that. There’s certain cases where the basics actually work really well because the person hasn’t done anything like this yet.
So, if someone comes to me and they’re like, all right, I’ve been eating organic for 10 years and I’ve been doing the gluten-free thing and this and that, which is a lot of the people that come to us, honestly. Okay, yeah. There’s no way you’re getting away with this without running everything.
But sometimes Lucas makes the best type of client. Because I’m like, all right, I don’t really need you to do much for you to know that this is going to work to some degree.
Mental Health Testimonial: Even After All That…
Those are profound results, but you’re an exceptional client, by definition of exceptional in the sense that most people who end up with people like me or like any of our listeners, they’ve tried a lot of holistic stuff. And for you, this was kind of the first holistic thing that you really like, hey, I’m going to dedicate to this and actually get some objective data to try. So, for me, that story, as relatively short as it is, cause these are new findings, this is, you know, we’re talking a month or two here, that’s worth the entire podcast.
Because it just goes to show, I mean, this is a long freaking time, man. We’re talking 16 to 30, this is 50% of the time you’ve been alive. For a good chunk of that, roughly 25% of that time, you’ve been actively working on it. You’ve been doing this stuff, the therapies, whatever, and this still had this profound of an effect that quickly.
So, is there going to be more work to do? Sure. Are there going to be bumps along the way just like anything? Yes. I don’t want to oversell this to anyone who’s listening. You never know what you’re missing with this stuff. And I think the one thing I would say definitively is if you are a person like myself, like Lucas, or unfortunately like that young man who took his own life at your school, who has an overall good life and you feel like heck and you don’t know why, we live in a cause-and-effect world. There is some cause you just don’t know the cause yet.
Mental Health Testimonial: It’s a Small Sacrifice to Make
There’s usually only two main causes of mental health stuff. You either went through the ringer or there’s something going on biochemically, hormonally, something in the body. It just so happens that our system and many other functional practitioners out there are equipped to look at that stuff and figure out what’s going on. This is something that I’m super passionate about.
I think you would’ve stuck through, especially with your daughter, because I can tell how much you care about her and love her. Actually, I can’t imagine you not being here even if those thoughts were present. I can’t help but sit here and think about how lucky I’ve gotten that I didn’t die when I’m driving around blacked out on drugs in a car at 17.
How many people are dying from this but don’t know that 10 days’ worth of dietary changes could give them enough hope to get through this? That’s where the passion, for me, comes from. It’s one thing to suffer with a health issue, it’s another thing to know that we are losing people’s lives because of this.
[00:58:11] Lucas Wolfe: Right. And at the end of the day, it’s a pretty small sacrifice that I think most people would make in a heartbeat if they knew. Now I’m at the point where I don’t even really miss the eggs that much cause I so much look forward to my ground beef and potatoes. I don’t mean to make light of it, I’m just saying it’s small in the grand scheme of things. What you get for such a small sacrifice, it’s a very small price to pay for a very large reward.
I do wish that more people knew about it because I absolutely believe that it would save lives.
Mental Health Testimonial: Some Food Sensitivities are Temporary
[00:58:48] Detective Ev: Yeah. Well, I just thank you for coming on today. Guys, he’s not here to push his book. I’m the one who actually kind of pulled it out of him. I’m like, dude, make sure we talk about this. And Lucas doesn’t even actively speak anymore. He’s a chemical engineer, like he said. He’s working somewhere else.
This guy just came on to let people know. Because if you touch one person, and we have a big audience. So, there’s going to be someone that clicks on this that maybe they already knew about this stuff, but they share it with someone like their son or whatever that wants to listen to two young guys talk about this in a vulnerable way, and then show them, hey, look at what this can do.
And a lot of the food stuff, perhaps you and Maddy haven’t even talked about this yet, the good news, man, is very little of this is permanent. I mean, the wheat thing, I’ve stuck away from that as long as I can remember, that’s been six, seven years. But almost everything else, sensitivity wise, that I had an issue with, like even dairy. I ate a ton of dairy today because I just reintroduced that. Finally, I gave it a try like three months ago, and it’s been going great. Actually, I feel better cause I’m getting so much more protein now because dairy’s obviously abundant in that, generally speaking. Not ice cream but like other things that are dairy oriented.
Lucas Wolfe: Oh, hey, hey, ice cream’s good.
Mental Health Testimonial: The Sacrifice Hurts at First
Detective Ev: Right. It can all work out. Things can get better.
And you hit the nail on the head, there’s an illusion that happens at first. Because when we feel like crap, the foods that we’re giving up, people don’t want to acknowledge this, but it might be the only source of darn dopamine that we have in our freaking lives at that point. You know, it’s like that’s our source of happiness. So, when we have to strip some of that away, oh man, there’s this nasty little curve where it’s like, all right, now I lost this, and I don’t feel that great.
But when you start walking around, like for me at 18, seven different diagnosed conditions, and now I feel happy, I have more energy than anyone, like to the point that it annoys the crap out of people, I’m able to work like heck, I love my life and love what I do; I’m not thinking about the foods that I gave up. I’m like, who the heck cares? I got the best gift from this on the other side.
You would’ve had this regardless of the food stuff, but there’s an appreciation to life that comes that I don’t think many people have. When you know what it is like to want to take your own life, and you have even a few days where that doesn’t exist, you operate in life a lot differently. There’s a genuine gratitude that I hope everyone gets to experience without having to go through that kind of stuff. But that’s real man. When, you know, it’s like, I’ve not wanted to be here, and I wake up today, I’m like, yeah, pretty happy to be here. That’s cool.
Conclusion
[01:00:56] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. It really helps keep things in perspective, it really does. There’s a joy to that that’s hard to describe. I, the same as you, I really hope that people can experience that without having to experience the sort of terrible things that we did, and that people do to get that feeling.
But yeah, definitely, if you’re listening to this and you know anyone who’s skeptical, as Evan vouched, I was a skeptic. It’s just my nature. If you know anyone that feels like healing is beyond them, I have felt that way many times and I keep finding another way.
And if you know someone that thinks that they just have to push themselves through a brick wall and there’s no other way to do it – you know, I mentioned earlier that I wanted to live kind of a slow life and I put that sort of push in myself on a shelf, the pushing myself has come off the shelf.
I think I push myself pretty hard. I work pretty hard. I love my life. I love being there for my family. And if you need hope, I hope that this conversation gives you some, I really truly do.
[01:02:04] Detective Ev: Thank you so much, man. I appreciate you coming on today.
[01:02:07] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. Thank you for having me, Ev.
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: What is going on, my friends? Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka, Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show about a mental health testimonial.
Well, this is probably, and hopefully my final wisdom tooth update. As you can hear, I’m sounding a lot better, feeling pretty good. This is an important lesson for people out there that I’ll keep really short, but it’s just something to advocate for yourself with.
We are not against Western medicine. Just in case this is your first time listening to the show, we’re not against Western medicine. However, when I got these three wisdom teeth removed recently, I was told I needed antibiotics. I was actually told on two separate occasions I needed antibiotics.
All I did, I didn’t say no, I didn’t say I’m never taking them. I said, are there any other options? Is there any possibility that I don’t need to take this and I can do something else? Both times the answer was yes, and so I didn’t end up needing antibiotics with this surgery. You say, well, it’s a course of antibiotics, who cares?
Well, for those of us in the functional space, we know first of all what this can do to you sometimes when you’ve taken these before. For myself who has taken 20 courses of these, over 20, throughout my life, I don’t want to mess with these things anymore.
Final Wisdom Tooth Surgery Update
I feel depressed typically for anywhere from six months to a year after taking them, which is terrible. My skin erupts, and I already knew I was going to have some minor skin issues with the surgery itself and all the other things that was coming with the ibuprofen I’d have to take. Because of this, the last thing I wanted to do was add on antibiotics to all of this, and it turns out there were alternative options.
If you’re not living in a healthy state like an FDN would, this might not work for you so well. And if you are still actively dealing with a lot of symptoms, this might not work as well for you. But I’m just saying, ask; advocate for yourself. See if it’s okay, because I wasn’t going to do something that the doctor said to not do.
But both times they were actually quite open to this. And once I told them my story about having been on all these courses and what it did to me, they said, okay, yeah, no problem. If you feel like you’re getting sick or you feel like the pain’s getting worse at all, please take them. But if this stays the same or gets a little better over the next several days, feel free to do what you gotta do.
That’s awesome. It worked out really well. So again, the one final tooth is healing, it’s taking a little longer than it probably would’ve without the antibiotics to be clear. But the pros outweigh the cons for me, and I think this is going to be just fine overall. With that said, again, my final update for the wisdom tooth thing, we’re not here to discuss that today.
Mental Health Testimonial: Symptoms Regardless of Decent Lives
What we are here to discuss is the story of my friend Lucas. Really cool. And you’ll hear most of this on the podcast, it was a longer one. I won’t go too deep into the intro today. But I met Lucas through an organization we were both speaking for at one point for mental health issues. He had been through a lot of stuff himself and so through this organization we spoke primarily to kids. Sometimes we were speaking to adults as well.
Basically, you’re just sharing your story and encouraging people to get help. You’re encouraging people that it is okay to deal with these types of problems and you’re not weird or crazy or anything like that for going through these things. I met Lucas in this program. Lucas and I relate a lot because our stories kind of start out similarly in that we both grew up in a very similar area. We both felt, perceived at least, that we had decent lives, and yet we dealt with these mental health symptoms.
Because of this there was a lot of rejection of ourselves around these symptoms and these feelings, invalidation. But Lucas was interesting because when I noticed this, I’m like, well, wait a second, I believe I can help this guy then. Not because I’m so great, but just because of the stuff that I know with FDN and holistic health, and I wouldn’t say that about everyone in the organization.
Some people had been through severe trauma and abuse. I’m not going to sit there and say, oh yeah, eat well and take some lab tests and everything’s going to be fine. That’s insulting. That’s an incomplete form of treatment for those types of individuals.
Mental Health Testimonial: Wanting to Share His Story
But then again, what about people like Lucas and I, there’s gotta be some cause to this stuff. If he’s dealing with this and he had a good life as proclaimed by him, there’s gotta be something else. Unfortunately, it took almost five years for this guy finally to run some labs with us and we started out on super basic stuff. We’ve only gone through metabolic typing and the MRT right now, but the results that this guy got from this is amazing.
What we will do today is we will talk about that. But Lucas, again, has spoken professionally. He’s a very good storyteller and has a powerful message for anyone out there, especially young men. This would be a good podcast probably to share with some young men in your life, or just men in general.
You guys are going to love this one. It’s heartfelt. There’s a lot to this. There’s some pretty serious parts. We’re going to guide you through the story, and then at the end we’re going to talk about the results he’s been getting lately with trying the more natural thing. It shows you guys, it’s never too late. It’s very inspiring for people that have tried a lot of things and haven’t had success. It’s just everything you’d want it to be in a podcast.
I appreciate Lucas so much for coming on. He has nothing really to offer you guys. Well, he does have a book, but I told him to mention that; he didn’t even want to mention that originally. But he has nothing for sale. He’s not a coach, he’s an engineer. Just a guy that wants to tell people that this exists because he’s suffered for so many years dealing with these things.
Mental Health Testimonial: Similar Stories
Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.
Alright. Hello there Lucas, welcome to the Health Detective Podcast. How are you my friend?
[00:05:18] Lucas Wolfe: I’m good, Evan. Good to see you. Thanks for having me.
[00:05:20] Detective Ev: Yeah, this is exciting. I would’ve already had said this in the intro to the audience and stuff, but they know over 230 episodes now, I do bring on, occasionally, people that I know personally. But I try not to prioritize that unless it’s very legitimate, right? I never want to be one of those people that just brings on people because I know them. I like to bring them on cause they have real stories and real things to share with people.
What’s cool about this episode today is you guys know we typically are story based. We’ll start off with the journey that someone went through and then we might spend half of the time talking about the resolution with the natural stuff. But the reason I invited Lucas on is not necessarily because everything’s perfect or a hundred percent figured out, or he has been doing the health thing for 10 years in the way that we do the health thing that is. Certainly not to suggest that there’s been a lack of effort over the last 10 years, there definitely has.
But Lucas is interesting because when I first met him through, well, we can’t mention the organization outside of this, but five, six years ago we met. When I first heard his story about mental health, I’m lighting up in my brain. I’m like, oh my gosh, this dude’s like so similar to me. It’s probably going to be impacted positively by a lot of the stuff that I learned.
Mental Health Testimonial: Pretty Easy Life Before Age 16
But for those listening, you know how hard it is to talk about these things really, if people haven’t heard of this stuff. And Lucas is a smart guy. I mean, he’s an engineer. But if you haven’t heard this alternative type of stuff, it can sound a little crazy. We’ll get into that later and what you’ve been experiencing recently, cause I just think it’s awesome man and I’m glad that you gave it a try.
But I’m more interested in the story, and we’ll focus on that a lot today. Lucas has spoken professionally for years. He’s got a wonderful book and we’ll shout that out at the end as well. For now, we’ll just dive into what he dealt with. So, Lucas, if we can, let’s just start from kind of the beginning with stuff, whether that’s childhood, teenage years, whatever you want to call it.
What was life like right before the mental health issues? Like what had life been up to, and then what started happening symptom-wise that led you to realize, hey, maybe something’s a little off here because it started a little bit later in life for you.
[00:07:22] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah, it did. You know, some people have stories where they recognize it as early as childhood. By childhood, I mean like seven, eight years old, something like that. But for me, I didn’t notice it until I was about 16. Everything before that, honestly, was pretty easy. I would say the hardest thing in my life was sort of the casual, normal bullying that everyone goes through, but it really wasn’t anything special.
Mental Health Testimonial: Didn’t Earn the Right to Be Depressed
But other than that, I mean, my life was a very happy life. I came from a two-parent family. I’m a twin brother. I have a younger brother, Gabriel, with special needs. We’ve always been close. My family was pretty well off, so I don’t really remember ever wanting for anything or ever feeling like I missed out on anything. I always knew that my parents loved me. I went through my time just not being the biggest fan of them like every kid does, but I never doubted for a second that they loved me.
So, my life was really good. It was really comfortable, just easy to be honest with you. Which is one of the things, and the reason I say it like that is because that was one of the things that really made the depression so difficult for me. Because as I’ve said, I just didn’t think that I earned the right to be depressed.
So, when I started to experience those kind of symptoms when I was 16, you know I was about a junior in high school, I really just didn’t understand what was going on. I had no idea what was happening to me; no idea how to talk to anybody about it or even what to say because my life was so good. Like, who is going to believe me? Right? I’m crazy. And that’s really what I thought.
[00:09:11] Detective Ev: The first time I heard that, I was like, whoa, overlap here. I like that you specified why you were saying it that way.
Mental Health Testimonial: Non-Circumstantial Mental Health Issues
Because the stereotypical image of someone still to this day in society that deals with mental health type stuff is someone who has had a circumstance or series of circumstances occur in their life that would lead to something like mental health issues. But then there are actually a lot of people, I would wager millions like me and you, who do feel these things, but we can’t clearly connect it to something else.
And it doesn’t suggest that everything is sunshine and rainbows. I don’t think either of us are saying that. But even your book titled My Perfect Life, How Depression Almost Ended It and How You Found Purpose Through Pain, I always love that. It’s this idea of, okay, my life is good. I don’t think this is justified for the feelings that I’m getting. Some people will take it to the next step and be like, oh, well maybe they were repressing the things that happened to them. You’ve went through all that work, man, this is not an unseasoned person. You’ve been there, you’ve done that; and no, that wasn’t it. There’s something else missing.
When we deal with that, I’ve always called this, it’s not clinical, but I’ve always referred to it as non-circumstantial mental health issues. There is a cause for it that just isn’t circumstantial. There’s something else, whether it’s biological, you can look at the biochemistry, which falls into the same category, but there’s something there. We live in a cause and effect world. We just gotta figure out what it is.
So, when you were dealing with the first symptoms at 16, what did that look like? What were those?
Mental Health Testimonial: Thoughts of Suicide
[00:10:37] Lucas Wolfe: Actually, for a lot of people, the symptoms kind of build from maybe something like a very strong blue mood to lack of interest to, eventually, if it became severe enough, suicidal ideation. For me, I didn’t follow that typical path. It was like a switch flipped off and I would be perfectly fine, then all of a sudden there would be those images of me taking my life in my mind’s eye, which would cause something like panic attacks.
Again, that just was so bizarre, so unknown to me. This was when I was 16, it was 14 years ago, so this stuff really wasn’t talked about at all. You know, I’m not upset about that, that’s just the way that it was. But I do think that if I had a little bit of education on the subject, that I would’ve felt more comfortable going to my parents and saying like, hey, I understand I have a good life, but these things are happening to me, and I think I need to do something about it.
Instead, I just tried to suppress it, to fight it. I thought, you know, I’m a teenager. Teenagers go through phases, and nobody ever mentioned this phase, this suicidal-thoughts-phase. But I guess that’s just what I’m going through, and it’ll pass. I’ll be fine.
It was easy to convince myself of that because most of the time I really did feel good. But there were times that those thoughts of suicide would come in. I noticed that I also didn’t really like to be alone and quiet, which is something that, reflecting back on, I realized was very much a sign of the depression.
Mental Health Testimonial: No Warning Signs
I always was trying to keep my mind active; I was keeping my body active. I really couldn’t sleep much unless I had worn myself out so much during the day that I just kind of passed out when I went to bed. You know, I was so used to doing that, that I saw that as normal. I now know maybe a better term for that is that it’s not healthy to be doing it that way. That’s not how we should be sleeping. We shouldn’t have to live that way either.
[00:12:51] Detective Ev: Right. This is actually just a question. I don’t believe one way or the other right now, I’m curious though. The way that you talk about when you finally did experience something as severe as the suicidal ideations, there is this justification and trying to explain this away as maybe things that teenagers just deal with or a phase, is it possible that you were going through some early-stage symptoms before this, but it was just completely repressed? Or is it really your understanding that, hey, one day it just turned on for whatever reason? I can buy either. I’m just curious now thinking about it from that perspective.
[00:13:25] Lucas Wolfe: It’s a great question. Honestly, when I think back on it, I just can’t see any symptoms other than when that suicidal ideation started and the sort of keeping myself busy. But I was always hyper energetic when I was younger. So, some of that was just being a super energy ball kid.
You know, some of it was the depression and it was very hard to see where that line was when you’re 16 and you got no idea what’s going on.
Mental Health Testimonial: Severe Eczema
[00:13:57] Detective Ev: Fair enough. We’ve definitely never talked about this; did you have any physical stuff as a kid that would be looked at by society as normal? We’ve followed each other long enough that you know what my opinion is on this. Like even the headaches, even the stomach aches, I don’t look at that as normal at all really, especially if it’s happening regularly. Did you have any physical stuff as a kid that might have just been underplayed?
[00:14:17] Lucas Wolfe: Well, I do actually. I do laugh about that now because I’ve seen so much of your work and your posts. So, I had acne; it wasn’t severe, severe, but it was pretty bad. Also, I had the most severe eczema of anyone that I’ve seen in person. It used to be so bad that I would bleed through it. The doctors, when I was in fifth grade, they thought that I had a flesh-eating disease, that’s how bad it was.
[00:14:46] Detective Ev: Wow! We’ve never talked about that.
[00:14:48] Lucas Wolfe: No, we haven’t. We haven’t talked about that. But from seeing some of your posts talking about skin reactions and really how that’s a sign that something’s off in the body, I’ve thought of that myself. I’m like, ah, geez, I wonder if there was something going on all the way back then. I didn’t know. And that’s not how the doctors are really trained. You know, it just got missed.
[00:15:11] Detective Ev: Yeah. Definitely not trained that way. It is actually fascinating to me.
Mental Health Testimonial: Symptoms Aren’t Normal
The reason I went with the physical side, I’m like, all right, anything’s possible in medicine and health, but it is odd. We both know it’s rare to jump to that level of depression or level of anxiety even. Then I’m like, all right there’s probably something else warning us here. And of course, who on earth except very specific types of people that are interested in this functional side would ever even connect something like severe eczema and acne, in fifth grade eczema, with depression symptoms that you’re dealing with at 16.
In my professional experience, I would never be able to predict that that would lead to depression specifically to be clear, I’m not saying that. But when you connect the dots, looking back, I would bet everything to my name that those are not disconnected. The same things that were perhaps leading to those symptoms in fifth grade were actually just the first little trickles going into the mental health stuff later.
I mean, for myself, it was a 13-year experience before I really got to the diagnoses that were starting to really scare me. Stuff that I was told was incurable or I’d need surgery for, or whatever, it was 13 years of dealing with stuff before we ever got to that.
Now is everyone going to be that drawn out? No. I’ve had plenty of people on this show that it’s not the case for them, but there’s usually something that’s going on before we get to the major stuff. So, that’s interesting. It’s just a lesson for everyone. We always say don’t look at any symptom as normal, because by definition it’s not.
Mental Health Testimonial: Connecting the Dots Holistically
And is everyone that has eczema going to get depression or suicidal ideations? No. That’s ridiculous. But it’s a warning sign from the body letting you know, hey, something’s pissing me off right now. We either fix this now or you give me enough time and it’s going to manifest to something else, probably.
[00:16:49] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah, exactly. That’s a very interesting way to look at it. And that’s why I say, you know, I kind of laugh a little bit now because it’s nothing that I would’ve thought of either. But when you take sort of the holistic view and you’re looking backwards, it makes a little bit more sense.
Detective Ev: Sure.
Lucas Wolfe: Which is great knowledge to have in your back pocket going forward, absolutely.
[00:17:12] Detective Ev: Yeah. Only like 15, 20 years too late.
Lucas Wolfe: Yeah.
Detective Ev: Cool. So, when you were starting to accept these symptoms as part of your identity, just, oh, as a teenager, this is something that people just deal with, I know that there was a breaking point. Of course, I know your story. But let’s talk about between 16 when these suicidal ideations start and that breaking point that occurred, I believe in college, if I remember correctly. How is this going over time? Is it getting worse or is it just kind of this thing that’s lingering in the background?
[00:17:40] Lucas Wolfe: It definitely was a slow burn, right? You know, it started when I was 16 and the breaking point occurred when I was 22. It was a slow burn and it consistently got worse, but it didn’t get worse every day.
Mental Health Testimonial: A Terrifying Belief
Sometimes I was fine, and I didn’t have these awful thoughts, nightmares, or trouble eating. I didn’t have trouble sleeping. There would be things in the back of my mind that seemed to me to be not quite right.
One of the ones that I noticed in my freshman year when I was trying to decide a major and I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to pick, I entered Penn State undecided. I just could not see a future for myself, everything was just black. What really terrified me about it, and I stopped taking time to think about my future, is I understood that part of me believed I wasn’t going to live very long and that’s why I couldn’t see my future. That was such a terrifying prospect that I couldn’t even deal with it.
I couldn’t tell anybody about that, couldn’t deal with it myself, couldn’t confront it. So, I just put it in the back of my mind and just chugged along. That was what I thought was the right thing to do. There was certainly some ego involved. I don’t pretend that I had no ego. I was a bit of an egomaniac, so there was certainly some ego involved.
[00:19:10] Detective Ev: That’s interesting. I can’t picture you like that. I didn’t mean to cut you off, but it’s a compliment. I’ve never perceived you like that at all. So, something worked.
[00:19:16] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. You know, I was younger and that’s just the way that I used to be. But I also really did believe that this was the right thing. I was like, I have this good life; I can’t throw it away.
Mental Health Testimonial: An Entirely Foreign Concept
That was also really when sort of the little bit of victim mentality seemed to be kind of becoming culturally mainstream and it just didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t want to be part of that. I thought that some of what was going on in my head was maybe some part of me trying to get attention through this sort of victim mentality. Like I said, I really believed that I was doing the right thing, just sort of pushing that off to the side, fighting it and moving forward. Obviously, I learned otherwise.
[00:19:59] Detective Ev: Right. Wow. Yeah, you’re just kind of rejecting yourself at all angles there.
When you’re in college, cause 22, you’re four years into college, you’re obviously getting educated. Penn State, for those that somehow don’t know is in Pennsylvania and it’s a great place. A lot of people go there, especially from the area that Lucas and I live in. I mean, I think they have like 50,000 students just on the main campus some years, let alone all the other satellite campuses that they have. It’s a very popular school, very good school.
But my point is, you’re getting educated. Even if you don’t think it’s valid, are you connecting yet the idea that, hey, this is a mental health thing, this is a depression thing, or is this still just, oh, feelings that I have?
[00:20:37] Lucas Wolfe: I had no concept that this might be a mental health issue. Zero. It was entirely foreign to me, entirely, that somebody with a good life could struggle with their mental health.
Mental Health Testimonial: Not Telling a Soul
I was such a laid back, easygoing, fun guy that the thought of me being depressed or anxious, yeah, I mean, it was diametrically opposed to my character. So, it didn’t even enter the realm of possibility, which was why the easier explanation was I’m crazy and I certainly don’t want to tell anybody that I’m crazy.
I mean, I really did have a very real fear that if I tried to tell my parents, or if I tried to tell anyone at all, that I was going to be locked away in a mental institution because I was a nut case. Nobody wants that to happen. I didn’t want that to happen. So, I just kept hoping that these feelings would go away.
[00:21:38] Detective Ev: I get you man.
You already know this part of my story, crazy is the word that I used, especially with the panic attacks. Because panic attacks to me, I could be fine one minute, and then for 20 minutes I convinced myself for like the hundredth time that I’m going to die. I, 100%, believe it even though I’ve been through this, again, a bunch of other times. Then afterwards I’m fine, I’m tired, but I’m fine.
That to me was the definition of crazy. I mean, how could, one second, I believe that I’m going to die, and then the next second I’m totally fine and realized, oh yeah, you dealt with this a bunch of other times. Remember those? Nothing ever happened and you were totally fine afterwards. That seems crazy to me, at least at the time that was the perspective. So, it’s interesting.
Mental Health Testimonial: No One Was Taking About It
You touched on a few things that I want to just review for people before we kind of move on to the breaking point and when things got worse, but then eventually, of course, got better, which is awesome.
One is this idea of what was actually going on in terms of the conversation around this 15 years ago, 20 years ago. I think we forget that pretty rapidly, like even the adults in our lives. Now it seems like we talk about mental health all the time. But I remember being in school. I mean, you’re 30, I’m 27. When I was in school, I think I had like a suicide speaker in high school one time, like very focused just on suicide, you know. Then everything else, I don’t remember anything about that.
No one came in and talked about anxiety. And no one came in and talked about the other 20 symptoms of depression that there can be outside of suicidal ideation let alone the 100+ mental health issues that we know of that are out there. They just didn’t talk about any of that stuff.
If no one was talking to us, certainly no one was talking to our parents unless they happened to choose that career path. So our parents, all great people, God bless them, but my parents didn’t know anything about mental health. They didn’t have any concept of this either. So that’s one thing to recognize.
And two, you mentioned two very specific things that I think challenge even the narrative of what depression could be. It’s just worth revisiting really quick. You talked about how you weren’t eating. You said that pretty quick, but you said that you weren’t eating sometimes, like having trouble with the appetite.
Mental Health Testimonial: The Life of the Party
Then you also mentioned something that in many people’s minds would seem like the opposite of what depression is. If you’re trained in this stuff, you know, it can present in different ways. You talked about how you actually couldn’t be alone when you were depressed, where the movie image of this is someone who only wants to be alone and doesn’t want to be around other people.
It just goes to show, I mean, depression can manifest really differently for different people.
[00:23:58] Lucas Wolfe: Absolutely. It was like a medicine for me. Being social, being around people making myself the life of a party in a way, if I did that, I didn’t have time to think about the depression. I didn’t have time to think about the dark feelings that were progressively getting worse and seemed to be haunting me more and more often. It was an escape, and it was a healthy escape.
It was interesting, because again, I knew that I was doing that in the same way that I absolutely knew I couldn’t do drugs in college. I just knew it. Somehow, I knew that if I started on drugs, I was done for. The absolute certainty with which I knew that, led me to believe, like, I know something isn’t right with me, but I still don’t know how to talk about it. That just kind of worked out, right? Cause I don’t recommend anybody does drugs. I had a very good reason to stay away from them because I was just so certain that would be the end of me if I did that. But that was a real sign.
Mental Health Testimonial: Depression Doesn’t Always Look the Same
[00:25:03] Detective Ev: Right. So even that kind of challenges it because I chose substances with this stuff and so do many people. And you’re like, no, I shouldn’t do this.
So just, guys, keep an eye out. We’re better at this, I think, in the functional space, thankfully, but still, we don’t want to have stereotypes necessarily of what this stuff can look like. It can look a variety of different ways for different people, especially between male and female, depression can look a lot different.
So, I want to talk about kind of the big moment for you here, because this is something that I think, especially for people who speak, seems to be universal, where there is like a profound moment where life is like this up to here and then it is completely different afterwards. Whether it’s good or bad in the moment, it exists, and it’s a profound moment.
What was that for you that led to actually recognizing this stuff or getting help, at the very least, and then recognizing this stuff?
[00:25:50] Lucas Wolfe: That moment for me was in my final semester at Penn State. Just a little background leading up to that. I always believed that there was something just over the horizon that was going to fix me.
Mental Health Testimonial: Spiraling into Bad Shape
When I was a teenager, it was like, this is a phase of adolescence. This’ll pass once I get out of being a teenager. And then it was, you know, that didn’t go away. In my senior year of college, it was like, okay, I’m stressed about college. When I pick a college, I’ll be fine. That worked out, so then it was, when I pick a major. When I picked a major, it was, well, I don’t know if I can make it in this, this is a really hard major. I did chemical engineering, and I was just barely passing.
Even if I do graduate, I don’t know if I can make it in a job. In my mind it was like, I need to be able to graduate and get an internship. If I can do those two things, then I’ll be successful, and all this fear is going to go away. I ended up getting an internship after my senior year and had one extra semester to go. So, I did four and a half years to graduate college. I got an internship going into that summer, and also passed all the rest of my difficult engineering classes.
So, for all intents and purposes, I had graduated. I just had a couple of easy credits that I had to tie up in that last semester, and I had that internship. The internship was off in New Mexico. Things really spiraled there, especially because I was isolated and alone. And I was really already breaking down when I got there.
When I came home, I was a mess. I wasn’t eating anymore. I wasn’t sleeping. I’m six feet tall and I had dropped to under 130 pounds, that’s how bad a shape I was in.
Mental Health Testimonial: The Breaking Point
About five days into the final semester at Penn State, I hadn’t eaten anything in two days. I just told myself, I’m going to eat this bagel this morning, and that’s it. I’m going to eat it; I’m going to win. Whatever this thing is that’s going on with me, I’m done with it.
I tried to take a bite of the bagel and my body just started to try to throw up but there wasn’t any food in my stomach. And every time I tried to take a bite of this bagel; I just would start gagging. And that was it. That was just when I broke, and I realized I am either going to call somebody right now or I’m not going to make it through the day.
I got up and went outta my apartment. I gave my dad a call at seven in the morning on a Wednesday at college. He knew I wasn’t calling to say, hey, how’s it going? Seven in the morning was kind of early for me still. So, that was the breaking point.
[00:28:39] Detective Ev: I actually appreciate us revisiting this. I don’t know if it’s because we have a network of speakers, but I actually mixed up the story. I didn’t think that’s what actually led to this.
That’s powerful cause there’s a simplicity to this. We’re talking about eating a bagel. But there’s something obviously wrong that even you trying to protect yourself in a way from this but rejecting the validity of it through all these years; you can’t ignore this. It’s like, dude, I haven’t eaten in two days. I can’t even eat this. Like, something is clearly there. It’s just sad that that happened, but I’m glad that it led to something good.
Mental Health Testimonial: A Conversation with Dad
So, when you called your dad, if I’m not mistaken, this part, I feel like I do remember, this was still not necessarily connected to mental health, right? It took a few days before we realized, okay, this is still a mental health thing that’s connected to all of this.
[00:29:25] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. Which is, I mean, it’s almost embarrassing, right? Because it was so obvious but I still had no idea what was wrong.
I remember calling him and you know, I planned on just having a conversation and telling him, something seems off. I think I need some help. He answered the phone and there was obviously a note of concern in his voice. The strangest thing happened, but I just broke down, man, and I just started crying. I mean, that’s really unlike me. Normally, I would not cry. And I especially would not cry in front of others probably most of all in front of my dad. So, it had to be bad for me to start doing that.
I just told him that I was sad, and it didn’t make any sense why I was sad. Obviously, I didn’t understand why I was sad. I explained it was more than just sadness, but I didn’t know what to call it. Then I told him I wasn’t eating; I wasn’t sleeping.
He didn’t jump right to depression either. He kept a cool head and we talked. That really helped me to at least feel like, you know, subside the panic in that moment. He helped subside the panic and I was able to calm down enough for us to be like, okay, let’s just call a doctor and we’ll figure it out. That was what he said to me and that’s what we ended up doing.
Mental Health Testimonial: A Way is Made for Help
[00:30:51] Detective Ev: So, how long does it take you to get into the doctor and what does that consultation, session, whatever, look like? Is that where things got recognized?
[00:31:00] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. So, I got really fortunate with that. We understood at the very least that we needed to call a doctor.
Now I hadn’t been to a doctor in a long time. We actually ended up calling my old pediatrician and just told him what was going on. We asked if he knew anyone. He was like, yeah, what’s going on is definitely a mental health thing. You know, you’re 22, you’re living a good life and you’re in college. This shouldn’t be happening. That wasn’t with judgment, that just was definitively, this is a mental health thing.
He knew a psychologist and I got very fortunate. The psychologist had availability for me, and I ended up seeing him like within a week at this moment. Looking back on it, if I knew then what I know now, I should have gone to the hospital and gotten immediate help. Because I really was not in a good place for those couple days. I shouldn’t have been trying to make it through that week. But that’s said and done with.
[00:32:05] Detective Ev: Yeah. Well, we’re just glad you’re here. That’s the thing is like, these calls are powerful, but it doesn’t necessarily fix like the eating thing right away. I mean, I’m sure there’s some weight off your shoulders, but what did happen that day? Were you able to eat the bagel or something else?
[00:32:16] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah, I was able to get soft foods down a little easier. You know, yogurt, soups, some ice cream, just enough to scrape by.
Mental Health Testimonial: Some Relief & Some Proof
I saw the psychologist and he was able to get me some emergency anti-anxiety medicine. We started on the antidepressants and that’s where all this stuff is really interesting. I know we’ve had discussions about it before. Really, I do believe that I was so far gone in that moment that I really needed medicine to bring me back. I just didn’t have the strength to do anything. Obviously, I needed that anti-anxiety medicine, and I was scared to death to take this stuff, absolutely terrified. I’m not a big medicine person; I don’t like to take it.
I do believe that we’re equipped to heal ourselves for the most part. I think medicine is great, it absolutely helps. So, I’m in no way against it. I just don’t want to take it unless I absolutely have to. And in this instance, I did.
The one thing that was really great about it was I truly believed that there was just no way back for me. I kind of was going through the motions and when I took this anti-anxiety medicine and I felt true, genuine relief, I knew, okay, this is a real thing. It is in some ways chemical and what I just took brought me actual true relief. I’m not high, I’m not outta my mind. I’m not a zombie; I actually just feel normal.
It felt so good to feel that way cause it had been so long since I experienced what it was to just be normal. I couldn’t believe it. When the medicine wore off and the pain and despair of depression was kind of coming back cause the anti-anxiety was just temporary, I had a little bit of hope. That gave me the drive that I needed to keep fighting through this thing.
Mental Health Testimonial: Advocating for the Meds When Necessary
[00:34:17] Detective Ev: I respect this because what sucks about social media is, it’s hard to see what someone truly thinks always, or we assume that they’re putting disclaimers on and stuff.
I would say I rarely get pushback with the things that I share in the functional world. But Lucas, one of the things I do get pushback on sometimes is I actually advocate very strongly for the validity of the mental health medication. People don’t want to hear it, especially in my space, especially that I advocate for it, for kids.
They’re like, you’re outta your mind. I’m like, okay, well, yes, but we’re not playing with an autoimmune disease. Now, some autoimmune diseases are very severe. You have like MS and stuff that can kill someone. Most autoimmune diseases would not kill you so directly. It would be something that you could deal with for decades before passing away if you passed away from it at all.
But my point in mentioning that is there is a certain level of urgency when you’re dealing with mental health stuff, especially in a young person, which at that age, I still consider that a young person. The brain is not fully developed. We’re not thinking as far ahead as we need to think.
It’s not as hard as one would want to believe for one little thing to happen that leads to the story that you just talked about becoming a suicide attempt versus calling your dad and saying, hey, something’s wrong. Like it is a very fine line that gets walked between that stuff. So, far be it from me to ever say that someone should not use medication for this stuff, especially when it worked. How could I argue that?
Mental Health Testimonial: Using the Life Jacket While Doing Investigative Work
That’s what I always just try to really paint the picture for with people and hopefully this story helps them understand that a little bit deeper. What we can also all agree on, especially you’d agree with this now, is we can give the person the medication, but also ask the commonsense questions.
Okay, Lucas Wolf is not deficient in anti-anxiety medication, nor is he deficient in an SSRI. So, let’s let him use this right now. This is his life jacket, it’s saving him. Can we figure out and do the investigative work to see what led to this to begin with?
And of course, the perfect person for you would’ve been like a functional medicine doctor who could’ve prescribed something. But then also, they would’ve made the connection saying like, huh, this guy had some really severe skin stuff too when he was younger. I’m oversimplifying it, but you’d probably make the connections to the gut right away as a functional practitioner, and now you’re looking a little deeper.
We can work through some of that stuff while you’re using the life jacket, no problem. The issue becomes when people get stuck on this stuff for 10, 20, 30 years. We had a young woman on, she was local to us, man. She went to Council Rock South. She was on Prozac from like nine years old to 18. The reason she stopped is because her psychiatrist, at 18, because it wasn’t working for her anymore, illegally prescribed to her a dose higher than the upper end of the limit. Even for herself, she’s like, this is insane. I can’t keep doing this. So, she got into a lot of the stuff that we’re into on this podcast.
Mental Health Testimonial: Meds Uncovered Anxiety Symptoms
That’s actually Courtney Hayes, she’s been on the show before for those wondering. Check that out at Episode 110. But these are common stories. That saved her life at the time.
The emergency anti-anxiety medication, I’m assuming you’re referring to some type of benzodiazepine, Xanax, Klonopin or something?
Lucas Wolfe: It was Klonopin.
Detective Ev: Gotcha. These medications in particular are dangerous, but at the same time, it’ll prove to you real fast that you have a problem or that something’s going on here. That was the same thing that happened to me. Now, unfortunately, it led to abuse, but when I took Xanax, I didn’t get it prescribed by a doctor, but it was at a prescribable dose. I was not taking two milligrams of Xanax. I took 0.25. That is the lowest prescribable dose you could get in this country.
When I took that, the issue was, how good it was for me. The shoulders dropped, the pain in my neck, like stuff I never even connected. The pain in my neck went away. I’m in the shower relaxing, listening to music, it sounds good. Focused, I’m just clearheaded. And that’s great but, again, for me doing it illegally, that was the problem. Cause I’m like, well if this is good, eight times this must be even better. That’s not how that math works just so you guys know from experience.
This stuff does work and I’m glad that it actually helped you validate this experience. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like this is what you meant. You’re saying you took that medication, it worked, and that was the thing where you realized this is a mental health issue. It has to be cause the medication worked.
Mental Health Testimonial: Combination of Meds & Therapy
[00:38:34] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. It was another really strong notch of evidence that said, you’re not making this up. Which was one of the things that kept me from talking about it for a long time. I thought I was making it up, thought I was trying to weave this woe-is-me story. That’s what I was telling myself.
Depression and anxiety is so interesting and conniving because it’s really an intelligent illness that can lie to you. That’s what it was doing. When I took this medicine and it helped, I said, oh, I’m not making this up. This is real. That helped me to accept it and move forward with it.
I agree with you, I never claimed the medicine to be this silver bullet. I think the therapy was actually more helpful. But I absolutely needed to be on this medicine to be able to do any of the things that we talked about in therapy or to even have the energy to make it to therapy.
[00:39:41] Detective Ev: I don’t want to oversimplify things today, but I think it should just be looked at as a tool. If I take a hammer and use it to hit someone on the head, that’s a bad use of the tool. If I take the hammer and build a house with it, that seems like a reasonably intelligent use.
Similarly, if I take medication to save my life when I need it, that’s cool. If I take it for three years straight, that particular one especially, the withdrawal alone could kill me at that point. That might not be the best use of the tool. So, it’s just a tool, guys, that’s all it is. We don’t have to be overly scared of it.
Mental Health Testimonial: A Real Fear
Most people, by the time they’ve gotten into our space, have been through so much Western medicine stuff, that’s why I always challenge them a little bit with that. I’m like, you really think the mental health medication, as not good as it is, is really the worst problem when like, this person’s been through chemo, this person’s been on Synthroid for 15 years. We all do the stuff; we all go through it first before we get to these things.
I don’t want to shorten too much of your story, so just please know in the back of your head, there’s nothing wrong if we have to add five to 10 minutes to this podcast. But there’s so much that happened after this, between 22 and 30 years old.
So, before we even talk about some of the stuff you’ve been doing recently, you got yourself to a good place and a good place in mental health means stable, productive member of society, able to live a good life. You have a wife and a kid now. This is beautiful how stuff worked out.
So, after this initial medication kind of being the life jacket, what was the freaking journey like after that? I imagine it was an interesting one.
[00:41:02] Lucas Wolfe: It was. I don’t think I seemed different to people on the outside, but I felt very different. At first, I didn’t like it because there was a real fear. The way that I explained it to my wife was, if you went skiing and wiped out, broke both your legs, your arms and your back, you wouldn’t even want to go near a mountain again, right? That’s essentially what happened to me, except the mountain is life and you can’t get off of it.
Mental Health Testimonial: A Tragic Suicide
There was a lot of fear and I wanted to live slowly is, I think, the best way to describe it. I wanted to work, and I wanted to hang out with my friends, but I didn’t lose. I actively decided, hey, this thing that I did like my whole life where I pushed myself really, really, really hard, I’m going to just put that on a shelf for now. I’m not going to get rid of it forever, but I’m going to put it on a shelf for now cause I don’t think it’s appropriate for this time of healing.
I just worked on the therapy and let the medicine work. Before, I had always been spiritual, but I got into that a little bit more. I prayed a lot. Then I graduated college, got a job, started working, and I was happy. Like you said, it was about stability, and I was stable. I was happy, I was really, really enjoying myself. I felt like I could live this sort of uncomplicated middle-class life for the rest of my life. I’m really happy doing this and I hope that this holds.
What got me into sort of the mental health space cause I had no plans to get into it. I wanted to run as far away as possible from it. All I wanted to do was forget about what happened to me. But there was in the high school that I went to, Holy Ghost in Bensalem, there was a junior who committed suicide.
His story was just the same as mine, the same as yours, Evan, the same as so many – no signs, no symptoms, no real warnings, happy guy, good life. It seemed to everybody looking in like it was out of the blue.
Mental Health Testimonial: Sharing the Journey to Help Others
I reached out to the principal who, you know, it was not so long since I’d been there that they still remembered me. He said when I came in and met him, he said he had to do a double take when he read the name in the email cause I emailed him. I said, look, this happened to me and I’m the last person that anybody would’ve ever thought this would happen to. Let me just come in and talk to the kids and tell them that it doesn’t have to be this way.
It went really well. I just thought, you know, maybe I had to experience this so that I could tell other people about it. I don’t know. We don’t always get to know the reasons or the purpose for why we go through things, but I thought this is as good a reason as any. It’s certainly a lot better than becoming bitter and thinking that what I had to go through was pointless.
That was something that I realized, you know, it was another thing that was kind of in the back of my mind where I recognized that that was there and if I didn’t ascribe some sort of purpose to what I went through, that I could become resentful and bitter about it. That led me to the organization that Evan and I met at. I went to schools and parent meetings and counselor conferences and just talked about my experience for a couple years. It was really great to be able to do that.
Mental Health Testimonial: Choosing to Turn Pain into Purpose
[00:44:37] Detective Ev: So much of this is so well worded, especially this part. Regardless of whether or not it’s a mental health thing for them, everyone that becomes kind of like an FDN or any type of functional practitioner, man, you’re living a passionate life. This isn’t something that you dreamt about at five years old to go do, but yet you find yourself doing it, and it’s the best work ever. I think there’s a huge lesson there that everyone can take today.
Even if you’re just listening for the sake of interest or understanding, but maybe the mental health thing isn’t actually as personal to you, this idea that you don’t have to know why things happen, but you can create a purpose with it, that’s how I approach it. You know, do I want to believe everything happens for a reason? Sure. You and I share this, I know for a fact, where we would never speak in such an absolute. Like we can say everything happens for a reason, but we’re also critical enough to be like, no, there’s a chance that this is all completely random too, that could be possible. I’m at least willing to humor that.
But then the idea is, okay, regardless of whether or not I can guarantee it happened for a reason, what is actually a better application of this experience? Do I become bitter, like you said, or do I use it to help other people? And man, when you get those first things of good feedback, I mean, it could be completely different for you in your job depending on who you are listening right now, but as speakers, it’s obvious.
Mental Health Testimonial: Understanding, Accepting, & Moving Forward
If someone comes up to you and says, I think this just saved my life today, I would go through what I went through a hundred times over again just to do that one time because you can’t buy that feeling.
I’ve done drugs, drugs don’t do that. I’ve made some bad decisions in my life to change the chemicals in my brain, nothing has helped with that. Money doesn’t do it. Love, honestly, as much as I love my girlfriend, it doesn’t even match that. It is something so deeply spiritual to know that there is purpose to your life right now on this earth in a major way.
That’s special and it’s something that we can all apply as people in this space of functional medicine. You take those things that happen to you, and you use it to help other people. It’s a whole different way of living. I’ll just leave it at that.
I’m glad that you got into the speaking thing, man. I know that wasn’t what you set out for originally. We aren’t mentioning the organization itself, but how did you get into that? I didn’t realize that you spoke at your school voluntarily first; I just assumed that you were already a part of the organization.
[00:46:47] Lucas Wolfe: No, I spoke voluntarily at my school first. A counselor there used to be a counselor at a different school. One of his students had joined the organization, so he knew about it. He gave me that contact info and it all just kind of worked out. As much as I was trying to escape thinking about the mental health stuff, I also felt I really needed to understand it to accept it and move on from it.
Mental Health Testimonial: Authoring My Perfect Life
So, I was reading a lot of books about mental health. I’m sure anybody listening to this podcast who’s dealt with health issues, has done something similar where you dive into sort of a deep info gathering moment of your life where you’re really trying to understand what happened to you or what’s happening to you.
A lot of the books that I read made me more depressed. They just weren’t that good. I didn’t think that they really offered hope. They were heavy. They just kind of weighed on me. That’s why, as Evan mentioned earlier, I wrote my book. I didn’t really intend for it to do anything.
It just kind of was therapeutic and a fun project. I thought, you know, if anything, at least maybe it’ll help my family understand what happened to me and maybe they can get some laughs along the way. Then it turned out to do a little bit more than that.
Detective Ev: I’d say.
Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. And I’m very happy about that.
[00:48:09] Detective Ev: So where can people find that now? And then just remind us of the title again, please. I’ll put it in the show notes.
Like I said, I try to keep it as light as I can when talking about this stuff. I try to keep it a little bit humorous. I think that that just makes it stick a little bit more when it’s not so wavy all the time.
Mental Health Testimonial: Doing Basic Functional Labs
[00:48:42] Detective Ev: I respect that. I have, I feel like, a different style. But you know, I think it matters. What I’ve learned with speaking especially, you gotta be in your own style.
Our friend, Jordan, I thought he was going to be like a Tony Robbins type speaker. Then I went and fanboyed one time and watched him at a college, and he’s as calm as can be up there. But it’s so well-crafted and so specific with how he says certain things. So yeah, whatever works for the person cause you’re going to relate to someone in a way that I can’t and vice versa. It’s beautiful. That’s all that matters.
Now I want to spend the last little bit here connecting this all together. It’s like we’ve been alluding to this the entire time, this idea of functional medicine helping to some degree. Again, guys, I can’t stress enough, I asked Lucas to come on because more than a few of you at this point have asked for clients to come on of people that work with FDNs, not just the FDN practitioners or functional medicine doctors themselves. So, you have a client, and you have a well-versed person that has tried many things, the therapies, the medications, all the stuff.
We did some very, in our world, at least, kind of fundamentals, like basic stuff. Maddy, my girlfriend, who was just on, actually worked with Lucas. Man, I was in the other room and was listening to you talk to her. I’m like, no way. I open up the door and I’m totally eavesdropping on this. I let him know I did this because I didn’t want to be rude, but I was like, dude, this is amazing.
Mental Health Testimonial: Trying to Get Off the Meds
So, what happened, basically? What did we discover? What did we look at? And how did it change the feelings for you pretty quickly?
[00:50:03] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. So, a little bit of background on that. Even though the medicine was super helpful, I had always wanted to get off of it. I just didn’t want to have to take it. I tried getting off of it, maybe four or five times in the last eight years and every time, disaster. You know, I looked into the withdrawal symptoms and how that could make you feel like you were depressed.
So, I fought through that for more than four months and still, just disaster. The last time that I had tried to go off was this past July. The reason that I did that was I didn’t want to rely on medicine because my wife was pregnant. We were going to have our first child, and I just wanted to be fully there.
I convinced myself that I didn’t need the medicine; it wasn’t helping me, yada, yada, yada. So, I weaned myself off. I was off of it for about seven months; everything was golden. Then in January, I started to kind of feel it a little bit and very quickly, by the time I got to February, I was just off a cliff all the way back to the way that it was when I was like 22.
What really did it for me was, my daughter, at this point, was born and I was watching my brother play with her. And I just was thinking to myself, I wasn’t trying to think it, this was very much like the suicidal ideation where the thoughts are just coming, and you don’t want them.
Mental Health Testimonial: Getting the Food Sensitivity Results
The thoughts that were coming into my head was, she’ll be okay. She’ll have a father figure; she’ll be taken care of when I’m gone. I just went home after that and it was devastating, just absolutely devastating. I was like, I gotta do something about this. Evan’s been talking to me about this functional diagnostic stuff forever, and just, what the heck am I waiting for, man? I gotta do this for my daughter, and I want to be around for her life. I don’t want to feel this way.
So, I got in touch with Evan and Maddy. I took the food sensitivity test and got the results. It’s funny man, because when Maddy called me with those results, I know it made no sense, but I was mad at her. She’s telling me all the things that I can’t eat, and I was just mad at her like it was personally her fault that I was sensitive to this stuff.
I mean, it was eggs. I ate eggs every day. Pork was on there. You know, no gluten. It’s like my favorite thing to eat in the morning was a sausage, egg, and cheese on a toasted everything bagel. Maddy was like, no more. A lot of things that I ate all the time were on that food sensitivity test.
It took me like an hour. I got the results, and I just went and sat on the couch. My wife, Erica, was like, are you okay? I was like, ah, I’m fine, except I’ll never be able to eat anything ever again. She was laughing.
Mental Health Testimonial: Getting Quick, Positive Effects
After I got done feeling sorry for myself, I looked at what I could eat, which is actually a ton of stuff and formulated a plan. I started eating those things. I have a fast metabolism, I was a high oxidizer, so a lot more proteins, fatty foods. So, I started eating that. I went on the essential amino acids that Evan recommended. I would take them every day, just dump them in some water and have them. And I started on the supplements that Evan and Maddy recommended for me.
I’m a skeptic. I, 100%, trusted Evan and Maddy because I had seen the results with them and with people that Evan had talked about. I just didn’t think that it would work for me. So, there’s no placebo effect here. That’s why I’m mentioning it.
[00:53:50] Detective Ev: Yeah, definitely not with Lucas. I’ll attest to that.
[00:53:52] Lucas Wolfe: There was no placebo effect. And within about five days, I was like, man, I’m starting to feel better. It was noticeable.
Within 10 days I felt better than I had since I was 15 years old before any of this had started. I mean, I had energy; I had hope; I could sleep and focus. Honestly, I felt like if I ran and spread my arms out that I was just going to take off and fly. That’s how excited I was.
Mental Health Testimonial: Annihilating Another Fear
The thing that I didn’t even really realize until I had done this was that before I had done this, all that time since I broke, there was always this underlying fear in the back of my mind that one day the depression was going to come back and the medicine wasn’t going to be able to fix it, and it was going to win. Ten days into doing this diet, that fear was gone.
I think that’s why I felt so light, so I’ll say, joyous, because it wasn’t as fleeting as happiness is. I realized, okay, there is something that I can do. There’s more that I can do than just take this medicine. It’s clearly real. Cause here I am, and I feel great.
[00:55:19] Detective Ev: This is amazing, man. For whatever it’s worth for those listening, we kind of started with a basic program that we run at our studio. This will make more sense to the audience. We’re not even talking about gut testing, or the hormones, or any of that stuff, even though that’s awesome if you can do that. There’s certain cases where the basics actually work really well because the person hasn’t done anything like this yet.
So, if someone comes to me and they’re like, all right, I’ve been eating organic for 10 years and I’ve been doing the gluten-free thing and this and that, which is a lot of the people that come to us, honestly. Okay, yeah. There’s no way you’re getting away with this without running everything.
But sometimes Lucas makes the best type of client. Because I’m like, all right, I don’t really need you to do much for you to know that this is going to work to some degree.
Mental Health Testimonial: Even After All That…
Those are profound results, but you’re an exceptional client, by definition of exceptional in the sense that most people who end up with people like me or like any of our listeners, they’ve tried a lot of holistic stuff. And for you, this was kind of the first holistic thing that you really like, hey, I’m going to dedicate to this and actually get some objective data to try. So, for me, that story, as relatively short as it is, cause these are new findings, this is, you know, we’re talking a month or two here, that’s worth the entire podcast.
Because it just goes to show, I mean, this is a long freaking time, man. We’re talking 16 to 30, this is 50% of the time you’ve been alive. For a good chunk of that, roughly 25% of that time, you’ve been actively working on it. You’ve been doing this stuff, the therapies, whatever, and this still had this profound of an effect that quickly.
So, is there going to be more work to do? Sure. Are there going to be bumps along the way just like anything? Yes. I don’t want to oversell this to anyone who’s listening. You never know what you’re missing with this stuff. And I think the one thing I would say definitively is if you are a person like myself, like Lucas, or unfortunately like that young man who took his own life at your school, who has an overall good life and you feel like heck and you don’t know why, we live in a cause-and-effect world. There is some cause you just don’t know the cause yet.
Mental Health Testimonial: It’s a Small Sacrifice to Make
There’s usually only two main causes of mental health stuff. You either went through the ringer or there’s something going on biochemically, hormonally, something in the body. It just so happens that our system and many other functional practitioners out there are equipped to look at that stuff and figure out what’s going on. This is something that I’m super passionate about.
I think you would’ve stuck through, especially with your daughter, because I can tell how much you care about her and love her. Actually, I can’t imagine you not being here even if those thoughts were present. I can’t help but sit here and think about how lucky I’ve gotten that I didn’t die when I’m driving around blacked out on drugs in a car at 17.
How many people are dying from this but don’t know that 10 days’ worth of dietary changes could give them enough hope to get through this? That’s where the passion, for me, comes from. It’s one thing to suffer with a health issue, it’s another thing to know that we are losing people’s lives because of this.
[00:58:11] Lucas Wolfe: Right. And at the end of the day, it’s a pretty small sacrifice that I think most people would make in a heartbeat if they knew. Now I’m at the point where I don’t even really miss the eggs that much cause I so much look forward to my ground beef and potatoes. I don’t mean to make light of it, I’m just saying it’s small in the grand scheme of things. What you get for such a small sacrifice, it’s a very small price to pay for a very large reward.
I do wish that more people knew about it because I absolutely believe that it would save lives.
Mental Health Testimonial: Some Food Sensitivities are Temporary
[00:58:48] Detective Ev: Yeah. Well, I just thank you for coming on today. Guys, he’s not here to push his book. I’m the one who actually kind of pulled it out of him. I’m like, dude, make sure we talk about this. And Lucas doesn’t even actively speak anymore. He’s a chemical engineer, like he said. He’s working somewhere else.
This guy just came on to let people know. Because if you touch one person, and we have a big audience. So, there’s going to be someone that clicks on this that maybe they already knew about this stuff, but they share it with someone like their son or whatever that wants to listen to two young guys talk about this in a vulnerable way, and then show them, hey, look at what this can do.
And a lot of the food stuff, perhaps you and Maddy haven’t even talked about this yet, the good news, man, is very little of this is permanent. I mean, the wheat thing, I’ve stuck away from that as long as I can remember, that’s been six, seven years. But almost everything else, sensitivity wise, that I had an issue with, like even dairy. I ate a ton of dairy today because I just reintroduced that. Finally, I gave it a try like three months ago, and it’s been going great. Actually, I feel better cause I’m getting so much more protein now because dairy’s obviously abundant in that, generally speaking. Not ice cream but like other things that are dairy oriented.
Lucas Wolfe: Oh, hey, hey, ice cream’s good.
Mental Health Testimonial: The Sacrifice Hurts at First
Detective Ev: Right. It can all work out. Things can get better.
And you hit the nail on the head, there’s an illusion that happens at first. Because when we feel like crap, the foods that we’re giving up, people don’t want to acknowledge this, but it might be the only source of darn dopamine that we have in our freaking lives at that point. You know, it’s like that’s our source of happiness. So, when we have to strip some of that away, oh man, there’s this nasty little curve where it’s like, all right, now I lost this, and I don’t feel that great.
But when you start walking around, like for me at 18, seven different diagnosed conditions, and now I feel happy, I have more energy than anyone, like to the point that it annoys the crap out of people, I’m able to work like heck, I love my life and love what I do; I’m not thinking about the foods that I gave up. I’m like, who the heck cares? I got the best gift from this on the other side.
You would’ve had this regardless of the food stuff, but there’s an appreciation to life that comes that I don’t think many people have. When you know what it is like to want to take your own life, and you have even a few days where that doesn’t exist, you operate in life a lot differently. There’s a genuine gratitude that I hope everyone gets to experience without having to go through that kind of stuff. But that’s real man. When, you know, it’s like, I’ve not wanted to be here, and I wake up today, I’m like, yeah, pretty happy to be here. That’s cool.
Conclusion
[01:00:56] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. It really helps keep things in perspective, it really does. There’s a joy to that that’s hard to describe. I, the same as you, I really hope that people can experience that without having to experience the sort of terrible things that we did, and that people do to get that feeling.
But yeah, definitely, if you’re listening to this and you know anyone who’s skeptical, as Evan vouched, I was a skeptic. It’s just my nature. If you know anyone that feels like healing is beyond them, I have felt that way many times and I keep finding another way.
And if you know someone that thinks that they just have to push themselves through a brick wall and there’s no other way to do it – you know, I mentioned earlier that I wanted to live kind of a slow life and I put that sort of push in myself on a shelf, the pushing myself has come off the shelf.
I think I push myself pretty hard. I work pretty hard. I love my life. I love being there for my family. And if you need hope, I hope that this conversation gives you some, I really truly do.
[01:02:04] Detective Ev: Thank you so much, man. I appreciate you coming on today.
[01:02:07] Lucas Wolfe: Yeah. Thank you for having me, Ev.
Canned fish is making a comeback – and not just in your lunchbox as a tuna sandwich. This nutrient-dense and economical pantry staple is enjoying a new state of fandom, due to tightening food budgets as well as a viral Tiktok recipe trend (search for #tinnedfishdatenight and you’ll see what we mean).
If you’ve long been a tinned fish fan and are looking for novel ways to enjoy it, we have loads of ideas for you. Or, maybe you have some sour childhood memories of funky fish lunches and need us to convince you of more delicious ways to eat canned fish. Either way, we hope we can inspire you to grab a tin or two during your next shopping trip!
Culinary Nutrition Benefits of Canned Fish
Image: iStock
Fish canning is a preservation method that’s been used since the 1800s to store and maintain the nutrients and flavour of seafood.
Fish are incredibly nutritious, and generally speaking, are rich in:
Aside from their nutrients, many varieties of canned fish are extremely budget-friendly and last for a while in your pantry – and that means less food (and money) will go to waste. Tinned fish is also portable, so you can take it with you to work, on a camping trip, or on your travels.
Downsides of Tinned Fish
There are a few warning signs to be mindful of with tinned fish, such as:
Some of the most common, and readily available, types of canned fish include:
salmon
tuna
sardines
herring
mackerel
trout
anchovies
You can also find plenty of fancier items like lobster, caviar, oysters and mussels (as well as smoked versions).
How to Choose Tinned Fish
With their benefits and downsides, these are some of the primary qualities we look for when choosing fish:
Wild Fish: When compared to farmed, wild fish has a better nutrient profile and is lower in contaminants such as PCBs and dioxins.
BPA-Free: Look for BPA-free canned fish or options packaged in jars.
Sustainability: We aim to purchase tinned fish that was caught sustainably to protect the health of the oceans, environment and marine life. Look at sustainable seafood certifications, or consult with Ocean Wise or Seafood Watch for more information on sustainable types of seafood.
Cost: Find a canned fish that works with your budget.
Skin and Bones: When available, tinned fish that includes the skin and bones is a great option for extra nutritious fats and calcium.
Personal Preference: What canned fish do you truly love, and can fold into your routine in a delicious way? We adore using salmon and sardines in all kinds of ways and reserve tuna for a more occasional treat due to its mercury levels.
What To Do With Canned Fish: Ideas and Canned Fish Recipes
Canned and tinned fish is incredibly versatile in your everyday cooking. Try one of these healthy canned fish recipes and ideas for tasty, easeful meals.
Patties or Burgers
A few cans of fish, your favourite herbs and spices, a little almond flour and an egg (or egg replacer) to bring it all together and you have delicious salmon burgers ready. You can also make smaller fish cakes for a bite-sized appie or snack.
Move over, avocado toast. Smash sardines with some olive oil, lemon, mint and parsley and spread onto your gluten-free toast. Or mash canned salmon with minced ginger, sesame oil and green onion. Or combine mackerel with your favourite dairy-free yogurt, lime and chili flakes. You get the idea!
There’s more to tinned fish spreads than tuna and mayo! Fold canned smoked salmon into cashew cream, add anchovies to your favourite tapenade recipe or blend sardines with sundried tomatoes to make a pate.
Cheese and pepperoni? Nah. Use canned fish as a pizza topping! As with pasta dishes, many tinned fish varieties will work – or you can blend them into the pizza sauce.
Tuna casseroles became popular in the 1950s – and people have strong feelings about them. Update your casserole with your canned fish of choice, and swap in your favourite gluten-free noodle.
“Vaping is likely less harmful than smoking marijuana,” and edibles are another alternative, but they may carry increased risks to children and increased risk of overdosing. I’d add a third risk—to pets. “Since the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado in January 2014, edibles comprise almost half of total cannabis sales,” and a “significant correlation” has been found between the rise in use and the rise in marijuana toxicosis cases at veterinary hospitals, thought to have contributed to two dog deaths in the state.
“There have been no reported deaths in young children from marijuana exposure,” thankfully, though some have ended up on life support because an edible marijuana overdose can lead to severe respiratory depression. As you can see in the graph below and at 1:09 in my video, Colorado regional poison control cases increased significantly after recreational pot became legal and at a higher rate than the rest of the United States, which is one reason the American Academy of Pediatrics continues to oppose legalization.
At the very least, cannabis edibles shouldn’t be packaged to look like popular candy, as you can see below and at 1:29 in my video. (Keef Kat, Buddahfinger, and Munchy Way, to name a few.) Some states have since banned selling marijuana-infused candy with that kind of imagery, but, to play it safe, maybe we shouldn’t be making cannabis candy at all.
How big of a problem is this, really? “To put this in perspective, the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center reported…that 2,700 children in Colorado required treatment after accidentally ingesting cosmetics or personal care products, and 739 after eating large amounts of vitamins…Compare that with the dozen or so reports of kids accidentally eating marijuana edibles last year.” And if you want to talk about poisoning deaths, how about alcohol? “More than 2,200 alcohol poisoning deaths occur among adults in the United States every year, or about six per day,” whereas deaths attributed to marijuana are few and far between, though there have been a few.
The problem is that you may not feel an effect from edibles for an hour or two after consumption and may not know how much to take, so you might then “overconsume, thinking in the first hour or so after initial consumption that [you] have not ingested enough product to feel an effect.” As you can see in the graph below and at 2:22 in my video, it takes about three hours for cannabis compounds to peak in your bloodstream compared to just ten minutes when you smoke it and at least a full hour before you feel much at all.
This happened right after legalization in Colorado: A 19-year-old died after consuming a marijuana cookie. He had one piece. “Approximately 30–60 minutes later, not feeling any effects, he consumed the remainder of the cookie.” Two-and-a-half hours later, he jumped to his death from a fourth-floor balcony. A month later, a “second man developed hallucinations and rambling speech…and in the midst of an apparent psychotic break, fatally shot his wife while she was calling 911 for help.”
These kinds of cases, as you can see below and at 3:10 in my video, commonly involved someone eating the recommended serving size, feeling nothing, deciding to eat the rest, then ending up restrained in the psych ward, claiming they’re God or mutilating themselves because “friends wanted their energy back.”
The cannabis industry responded by blaming the victims. “No one buys a bottle of Jim Beam and thinks they should consume it all in one sitting.” Maybe not, but people do expect to be able to eat a whole cookie. Who eats just one-tenth of a cookie?
Other over-the-counter products “are required to carry specific labeling for dosing and adverse events. It seems odd, to say the least, that edible cannabis, which contains a known psychoactive substance, is not held to the same standard as a bottle of acetaminophen tablets,” like Tylenol. In 2016, Colorado regulators enacted new rules for labeling edibles, including mandating their THC content be listed right on the label. How accurate are those labels, though? We didn’t know until they were put to the test. Of 75 products purchased, involving 47 different brands of edibles, only 17 percent were accurately labeled, and only about one in six came within 10 percent of the labeled value. The greatest likelihood of obtaining more-than-you-bargained-for products was in Los Angeles, whereas Seattle seemed to tend to overinflate its labels.
It’s hard to study cannabis of any kind due to illegality, but according to a hundred thousand tweets about edibles, most people express a positive opinion. One unexpected benefit arose in a focus group of teens on marijuana edibles: Several students in a high school culinary class were “there to learn how to cook in order to be able to produce edibles.”
I have a whole treasure chest of cannabis videos. If you want to see them all, I put them in a digital DVD that you can stream now.
“Vaping is likely less harmful than smoking marijuana,” and edibles are another alternative, but they may carry increased risks to children and increased risk of overdosing. I’d add a third risk—to pets. “Since the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado in January 2014, edibles comprise almost half of total cannabis sales,” and a “significant correlation” has been found between the rise in use and the rise in marijuana toxicosis cases at veterinary hospitals, thought to have contributed to two dog deaths in the state.
“There have been no reported deaths in young children from marijuana exposure,” thankfully, though some have ended up on life support because an edible marijuana overdose can lead to severe respiratory depression. As you can see in the graph below and at 1:09 in my video, Colorado regional poison control cases increased significantly after recreational pot became legal and at a higher rate than the rest of the United States, which is one reason the American Academy of Pediatrics continues to oppose legalization.
At the very least, cannabis edibles shouldn’t be packaged to look like popular candy, as you can see below and at 1:29 in my video. (Keef Kat, Buddahfinger, and Munchy Way, to name a few.) Some states have since banned selling marijuana-infused candy with that kind of imagery, but, to play it safe, maybe we shouldn’t be making cannabis candy at all.
How big of a problem is this, really? “To put this in perspective, the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center reported…that 2,700 children in Colorado required treatment after accidentally ingesting cosmetics or personal care products, and 739 after eating large amounts of vitamins…Compare that with the dozen or so reports of kids accidentally eating marijuana edibles last year.” And if you want to talk about poisoning deaths, how about alcohol? “More than 2,200 alcohol poisoning deaths occur among adults in the United States every year, or about six per day,” whereas deaths attributed to marijuana are few and far between, though there have been a few.
The problem is that you may not feel an effect from edibles for an hour or two after consumption and may not know how much to take, so you might then “overconsume, thinking in the first hour or so after initial consumption that [you] have not ingested enough product to feel an effect.” As you can see in the graph below and at 2:22 in my video, it takes about three hours for cannabis compounds to peak in your bloodstream compared to just ten minutes when you smoke it and at least a full hour before you feel much at all.
This happened right after legalization in Colorado: A 19-year-old died after consuming a marijuana cookie. He had one piece. “Approximately 30–60 minutes later, not feeling any effects, he consumed the remainder of the cookie.” Two-and-a-half hours later, he jumped to his death from a fourth-floor balcony. A month later, a “second man developed hallucinations and rambling speech…and in the midst of an apparent psychotic break, fatally shot his wife while she was calling 911 for help.”
These kinds of cases, as you can see below and at 3:10 in my video, commonly involved someone eating the recommended serving size, feeling nothing, deciding to eat the rest, then ending up restrained in the psych ward, claiming they’re God or mutilating themselves because “friends wanted their energy back.”
The cannabis industry responded by blaming the victims. “No one buys a bottle of Jim Beam and thinks they should consume it all in one sitting.” Maybe not, but people do expect to be able to eat a whole cookie. Who eats just one-tenth of a cookie?
Other over-the-counter products “are required to carry specific labeling for dosing and adverse events. It seems odd, to say the least, that edible cannabis, which contains a known psychoactive substance, is not held to the same standard as a bottle of acetaminophen tablets,” like Tylenol. In 2016, Colorado regulators enacted new rules for labeling edibles, including mandating their THC content be listed right on the label. How accurate are those labels, though? We didn’t know until they were put to the test. Of 75 products purchased, involving 47 different brands of edibles, only 17 percent were accurately labeled, and only about one in six came within 10 percent of the labeled value. The greatest likelihood of obtaining more-than-you-bargained-for products was in Los Angeles, whereas Seattle seemed to tend to overinflate its labels.
It’s hard to study cannabis of any kind due to illegality, but according to a hundred thousand tweets about edibles, most people express a positive opinion. One unexpected benefit arose in a focus group of teens on marijuana edibles: Several students in a high school culinary class were “there to learn how to cook in order to be able to produce edibles.”
I have a whole treasure chest of cannabis videos. If you want to see them all, I put them in a digital DVD that you can stream now.
A couple of events coincided last week. First, someone I know in the real food world emailed me to say that his wife had been diagnosed with pre-diabetes. The reason for the email was to share the diet advice that she had been given (Ref 1). The next morning, Diabetes UK reported that “The number of people living with diabetes in the UK tops 5 million for the first time” (Ref 2). (Please note Diabetes UK – on the diabetes.org web site – is the charity for diabetes in the UK. It gets confused with the diabetes.co.uk website, which is a commercial venture helping people to manage their diabetes with diet – low-carb diets especially).
When you see the UK National Health Service diet advice sheet for pre-diabetes, you will completely understand the Diabetes UK headline. The diet advice for pre-diabetes is a perfect prescription to give someone type 2 diabetes.
The Diabetes UK report
The Diabetes UK report provided new figures that 4.3 million people had been officially diagnosed with diabetes in the UK. The charity estimated that 850,000 were type 2 diabetic, but not yet diagnosed. I suspect that the number is even higher than this.
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show about self-love.
We are back post wisdom tooth surgery, feeling good, but it’s a little interesting. I’m going to the doctors actually again today. I got this crazy pain in the almost cheekbone now. Supposedly it could be normal, but apparently not normal enough that they’re bringing me back in.
The good news is the teeth themselves have very little pain. In fact, I would go as far as to say two out of the three of them are kind of fine. I mean, they’re just good, they’re healed. The one that seems to be connected to the cheekbone pain, is still a little raw, still a little tender, but I’ll get that all checked out today. Hopefully there’s nothing major here.
The good and bad news is that I can be pain free, that’s good. But the bad news is I have to take like 400 to 600 milligrams of ibuprofen to actually do it. Obviously, I do not want to keep eating ibuprofen nonstop. So, we’re working through that. But hey, we’re able to do interviews and sound half normal again on the podcast.
She’s not someone that has had like autoimmunity or anything like that. She is someone who helps individuals focus on the self-love side of things and really getting to the core of what might be going on emotionally. We thought she’d be an interesting person to bring on and talk to, especially because of her career that she had prior to getting into this work. We did talk about that in the beginning of the podcast.
Let me read her bio. It’ll give you some background and then we’ll get right to this one. Kat is a radiation therapist turned holistic wellness coach. Working in a radiotherapy department and treating cancer patients for 13 years, taught her how short life can be. It gave her the momentum and courage to start her own coaching business, helping people to love themselves, feel mentally and emotionally balanced, and enjoy the gift of life through a holistic lifestyle.
She focuses on self-love, self-care, and mindset, providing people with both practical and spiritual tools that equip them to handle whatever life throws at them. Her mission is to help people create their own sunshine, get to a calm and balanced state, fuel internal harmony and love, and forgive and accept themselves, whether that is in mind, body, or soul. It helps them also enjoy the gift of life and ultimately have fun.
I would like to do all of those things, I’m kind of doing all of those things, but there’s always room for improvement. Hey, I’m sure you’d like to do that as well. Without further ado, let us get to today’s episode.
Hello there, Kat. Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast. How are you?
[00:02:49] Kat Burdett: I am great. Thank you Evan. Excited to be here today.
Self-Love: The Unique Perspective on Health
[00:02:52] Detective Ev: Yeah, I’m excited to have you. This is going to be fun. I already had mentioned to the audience in the intro, this is gonna take a little bit of a different route. I think they really appreciate it at this point, 200 something episodes in.
You know, it’s amazing to hear these very similar health stories of people going through the mystery symptoms, utilizing lab testing, and all that stuff. But there’s more to healing than just those aspects. We do need that as a core part of FDN, but we like to bring on people who can offer unique perspectives on the health side of things so that you guys have more tools in your tool belt.
I was talking to Kat off air before we were recording. It took me several years before I even was identifying as like the emotional or spiritual side as being on my radar for health stuff. I was very, okay, if I eat this food, it will do this to my labs probably, and then I should be better, and all my problems will be fixed. But I’ve had just such a deeper understanding over the years of like how much the emotional and trauma side matters.
Then there’s people that come on here and it’s amazing what they deal with. They were eating all the right foods, they’re taking all the right supplements, but they finally deal with that stuff, and that was what led them to getting there. I’m getting ahead of myself. I want to start with your journey.
Self-Love: A Completely Exhausting Job
Normally we start off the show with what health symptoms was the person dealing with. And we had discussed that you had some mental health stuff going on, but I’m mostly curious right now about what job and career path you were in prior to becoming the person you are now, because I know that you were working with cancer patients.
[00:04:19] Kat Burdett: Yes, I was. I am actually a qualified radiation therapist or therapeutic radiographers we say in the UK. Within that job I work in a radiotherapy department, and I treat people’s cancer to either cure the cancer or to palliate the pain. I did that job for 13 years and three years training involved in that. I can always dip back into that if I want to as well.
It is a very intensive job. You literally don’t stop, you can’t make any mistakes, and you’re obviously caring for people as well. That’s the part of the job that I really, really loved. I always just had this instant rapport with people. People just naturally wanted to open up to me, they trusted me straight away, and it made me a really good radiographer. I like to think I was more so good at the technical stuff, I guess my colleagues can tell you that. But yeah, that was the part that I really loved.
But the job itself, it wasn’t serving me. I was obviously in a hospital. There’s artificial light. I didn’t have time to go to the toilet. I didn’t have time to fill up my water bottle when I was on the treatment units. I was treating 30 to 40 patients a day.
Self-Love: A Calling to Help People
You’re going in and out, in and out of a room and then hearing the same issues all the time. You’re dealing with people’s anxieties, dealing with people’s side effects of the treatment. Some of them are having chemotherapy at the same time. As you can imagine, it was completely exhausting.
As I say, I love, love, love the people’s side of it. That’s why I do what I do now, because I want to help. But it wasn’t helping me. It just left me burnt out, it left me exhausted. In all honesty, I’m still really recovering from that today. I think burnout, especially in a workplace, especially in a hospital, can take a very, very long time to actually recover from that and feel the body to regulate again. Obviously, I realized that I was capable of helping people in a different way.
[00:06:21] Detective Ev: Cool. When you got into that job, I can only think from an American perspective, when someone gets into a job like that, it’s usually one of two things. Either one, I mean, maybe they did have a personal experience in their family and that’s how they want to help the patients. But two, it’s also just considered like a decent career path here. Like it’s a good job, it’s technical, would pay well.
Was this just something that you got into originally because I know you like the people side, a job’s sake, or was there something that called you specifically to it?
[00:06:47] Kat Burdett: Yeah, absolutely. There was something that called me. This wasn’t even on my radar. Like before this I started at my career wanting to be a graphic designer. I went all the way to film with College of Arts, did three months and thought, no.
Self-Love: Needing a Deep Connection with People
After that I was training to be a dancer. Then I realized that I wanted a job helping people. I didn’t know what that was. You know, I looked up about nursing and I was like, it sounds good, but it just doesn’t really resonate. Then I read about radiotherapy, and I just had this gut feeling, this intuitive, yes. I was like, this is the job for me. I want to help people. That’s what got me into radiotherapy.
But what I didn’t realize is it was just a part of my path, and it wasn’t everything I was supposed to be doing. It may be a steppingstone that has taken me to where I am today. The other thing is, the bit I love the most is talking with people, helping people emotionally, and it never went deep enough for me. I mean, also, we only got 15 minutes with each patient upon average. So, I wanted something deeper; I wanted more connection.
To answer your question, that’s initially why I got started with it. I always knew that working with people and helping them is something I wanted to do.
[00:07:59] Detective Ev: Yeah. Well, you said on average it could be like 30 to 40 patients a day. I mean, there’s barely any time to get your first and last name, let alone actually connect with this individual. And the burnout for people that are in these careers is so true. I feel like this is actually universally true. I know America handles the healthcare thing a little differently. For better, in some ways, for worse in others, obviously.
Self-Love: Burnout Leads to Mistakes
My sister’s a nurse and I love her to death. She is not as open yet to the holistic side of things. This poor girl is going out, I mean, three nights, four nights a week, sometimes doing night shift, like literally starting the shift, I believe, at 7:00 PM or 9:00 PM and working all the way into the morning. What’s so crazy to me is, we know as health professionals that this is killing people, but the people that are working these jobs are supposed to be helping the sick people. That’s where it’s kind of scary.
You’re talking about how burnt out you got, which is totally justified and makes sense, but you are treating people, in a certain way. It’s like we need to honor our folks that are treating the sick people a little better and help make it a more sustainable system. Something seems like not a great idea to me to have these burnt out, exhausted people helping the sick people that need it most and are probably burnt out and exhausted in their own way. That’s kind of crazy. Right?
[00:09:11] Kat Burdett: Absolutely, yeah.
Also, that’s how mistakes happen. You can’t push your staff too much. And with something like radiotherapy, you know, you’re delivering radiation to a person, there is no room for mistakes. Occasionally mistakes happen, and they usually happen because of burnout, because of exhaustion. This is why healthcare professionals in particular, I feel, really need to prioritize their self-care and really need to show themselves a lot of love because it is highly stressful. I have so much respect for the people that have done it for like 10, 20, 30 years.
Self-Love: Care Givers are Affected Emotionally and Physically
They’re still out there on the treatment floor doing this, walking in and out of a treatment room, out of a bunker all day long, and dealing with everything. It’s not an easy job and I really think that the pay should be better for one thing. I’m just gonna say that. They should be given a lot more credit.
It’s like with my job, you know, you’ve got the physical aspect, you’ve got the mental aspect, and the emotional as well. Of course, there are also times when you get upset by what you see. Because some people come to us, and then they find out the day before that they’ve got metastatic cancer, cancer that has spread to everywhere. Then they’re told, oh, you’ve got a week to live. Then we have to then just go in, give them a single blast of radiation to help palliate the pain. Sometimes it upsets you.
I’m actually a highly, highly sensitive person, which I pride myself on now, I never used to. You know, you think how could I even survive in that environment? The sad thing is you do kind of get used to it and build a resilience. But occasionally there are times when you might get that one patient that reminds you of your mom or reminds you of your dad or reminds you of a friend, and that’s when it makes it really hard.
I just wanted to put that point across to say like nobody thinks about the people that are doing the treating, the caring, like how they are emotionally affected by this and physically, like you say, affected by it and burnt out as well.
[00:11:08] Detective Ev: There’s a real lesson there that actually I don’t think I think about enough.
Self-Love: Too Much in Too Little Time
But one of the things that we advocate for all the time on this show is this merger between functional/natural medicine and Western. I’m sure you see this as well. It’s getting better, but there’s still this dilemma where like Western thinks the functional people are all voodoo, science, hippie, which is not true. But then you get some people that are in the functional/natural side and now they’re against everything Western, thinking that they’re the bad people. I’m like, all right, this is a little crazy. If we’re actually trying to help people, we should want the best of both worlds. That should be the goal.
But I think what you just said really brings something to light. I mean, the job itself, even just physically, is hard. But let alone what you’re actually seeing, 30, 40 people a day, and you’re working with people who have cancer. These are not particularly light diagnoses. I was just actually thinking about this two weeks ago. I know it sounds a lot simpler than cancer, but it is something to actually ponder.
I got my wisdom teeth out. It was just amazing to me that this doctor has like three different patients in other rooms. He is about to have me go under on drugs, which potentially could cause complications if they mess up even a little bit, rip three teeth out of my mouth in 30 minutes, then bam, onto the next one. Again, I don’t think that’s the same emotional type of thing as seeing someone with cancer or a week to live come into your area.
Self-Love: Western Medicine Vs. Holistic Side of Things
I don’t want to remove teeth from someone’s mouth. It’s like creepy, you know what I mean? Like there’s all this stuff going on and then he’s gonna go do that 10, 12 more times that day, at least probably. So, yeah, I think what you just said is really fair.
Not only should we not hate Western medicine, we’ve got to give some grace to the people that are working in this. Cause we’re creating our own schedules as functional people, right? Like, we got our vacations and we got our morning light that we gotta get and we’re going to bed at 9:00 PM. They don’t get any of those luxuries, do you?
[00:12:57] Kat Burdett: Yeah. I think Western medicine is great if you definitely know what the issue is, what you are actually treating. Also, if you’ve broken your leg or something like that, or you do need cancer treatment, then of course that’s very specific. Without that medicine or that treatment, that person wouldn’t live for as long as they could.
So, there’s always a place for Western medicine but the holistic side of things is all about the prevention. It’s all about changing your lifestyle so that you hopefully never reach that point of needing the Western medicine. I think everything is needed, absolutely.
[00:13:38] Detective Ev: Yeah. You said you’re in the UK correct?
Kat Burdett: At the moment. Yeah.
Detective Ev: Awesome. Well, it’s interesting because every month you get your stats on the podcast, of course. The United States is always our number one, but number two and three is usually a competition between either like Canada, UK, or Australia. So, UK’s actually winning this month, which is interesting.
Self-Love: Provoking a Healthier Lifestyle
I’m just curious, I know this isn’t the point of the podcast, but it’s worth talking about. What is the perspective over there? Because I’m starting to think about a general American perspective.
I do believe a lot more people now are open to the idea that natural might work. But even more so, which again is not necessarily a great thing, it’s more that Americans are against Western medicine as opposed to being open to the natural side. Like they think the doctor is screwing them over, which I’m not saying is correct. I’m saying that they think that. But they don’t have any other solutions like we might have on this podcast, so they still end up subject to it.
Do you think people in the UK, are they more naturally minded? Are they thinking about these things or do they just kind of get the diagnosis and do what they’re told?
[00:14:40] Kat Burdett: I think it’s a real mixture, to be honest with you. I think the people that are more in touch with themselves and who have more self-love, they’re the ones that kind of dig deeper and try and find these natural remedies. People who look after themselves, you know, if you love yourself, you look after yourself; then you lead a very different kind of lifestyle. You start to look for more natural, organic things.
But there are people, of course, just like in America as well, who don’t care, who have no self-love. They don’t look after themselves. They’re possibly overweight or whatever the issue might be. You know, they’re the ones that end up needing the support of the system.
Self-Love: How About an Actual Healthcare System?
The difference in America to the UK of course, is we have the National Health Service, so that’s free healthcare. People become very reliant and dependent on it. It means that they don’t always take responsibility for their lifestyle. It’s actually putting a lot of strain on the NHS.
I could go off on here now and talk all about how the government still sells cigarettes and sugary products on the shelf and processed food and things like that. I’m not gonna go off on that tangent, but just to say, it’s not really helping. And I don’t think the system is working to promote health and wellbeing.
[00:15:54] Detective Ev: Well, I appreciate you not going off on the tangent, but I think that’s a good point though. That’s actually the first even mild critique I’ve ever heard of the free healthcare thing.
We have employees that work in Europe and stuff, and they’ll look at it as almost like primitive or barbaric that we have the healthcare system that we do here. I am not making a political statement one way or the other, but we’re constantly going back and forth with the debate in America.
Like even in America itself, it’s debated the free healthcare universal versus the more private stuff. I’m like, why don’t we start with this before we debate any of that. How about we start with an actual healthcare system as opposed to a sick care system? Because what you just talked about I think is a key thing that people miss. Since they are so reliant on it and people aren’t taking responsibility for their health, it’s just adding more and more of a burden.
Self-Love: Trust & Reliance on a System
We can all agree. I think even the most liberal of people would certainly agree that free healthcare, if everyone is sick, is not going to work. I actually believe that there’s probably a reality where the private stuff or the universal healthcare can work if people are actually getting treated with health stuff instead of just sick care stuff once they have a chronic disease or cancer.
I think both of these actually have their validity and you can make a case for either one. But we can’t even start to argue this until we actually have a system that gets people healthy. I’ve never heard that perspective of like people just being reliant on this. So, there’s almost a thought process then, you’re saying, for some people that, oh, well health doesn’t matter because something will take care of me.
[00:17:20] Kat Burdett: I think so. I mean, it’s like if you always know that someone’s gonna be there to catch you when you fall, you’re not gonna be as careful. Do you know what I mean? Obviously, I can’t generalize it. And that’s not the way everyone thinks.
Actually, there are some people who do a beautiful job of taking care of themselves. But I just have noticed that in our society here, that there are some people who literally do depend on that and also the government and things like that because we do give a lot away for free.
But it is a wonderful, wonderful system. I think it’s one of the best things that we’ve got here actually.
All right, so going back to your personal story then, and we’ll talk about what you’re doing today. Thirteen years in a career, I mean, I know back in the day people stuck with things for like 40 years, but I think nowadays, 13 years is actually a good amount of time. Everyone is normally hopping around a different thing.
You said yourself, you’re surprised sometimes when you see people that were doing the job that you were doing that have been doing it for 20 or 30 years. At the same time, I feel like the longer you’re in something, it’s almost hard to leave that. You kind of become routine, it’s what you know. Even though the job is so tough, there’s an odd level of comfort in the certainty of what’s gonna happen that day. I mean, these patients are super sick, but you kind of know what to expect.
So, after 13 years, what’s your final moment? I don’t know if it’s some big, dramatic thing, but there had to be a point where you say, hey, I’m not doing this anymore. I’m going and doing something else. What did that point look like?
[00:18:47] Kat Burdett: Well, I mean, I started to get the sense that this wasn’t for me after only probably like six years into the profession. What kind of took the kind of pain away, I guess you could say, is the fact that I then turned from being a permanent member of staff to doing agency work, which meant I could just come and go as I pleased. I could take a contract wherever I want and stay for as long as I wanted and have a rolling contract. That took the pressure off a bit.
Self-Love: Living Out of Alignment
I literally spent many, many years, post those six years, trying to work out what the heck it is that I wanted to do. Again, you get guilted and shamed into the fact that, oh, but I’ve done this degree, I’ve put all this hard work in, and I’m helping people. You are fighting with yourself on it because you’re like, well, I’m doing a job that’s worthwhile. Why can’t I be happy with this? Why can’t I just accept this? Then it got to the point where, like I said, I got so burnt out.
I like to say that I was living out of alignment with my truest self. It wasn’t what I’m really here to do, which I obviously now know. Because of that, when you’re doing something that takes you out of alignment, it completely burns you out. It deducts your energy. Anything that’s good for you, that’s right for you personally, will give you energy. It was just taking and taking and taking. So, I got to the point where I was just so miserable.
I think it was actually one of my best friends who said, but you don’t have to do this, do you? You don’t have to conform to society. What’s stopping you? You know? That was a really key moment for me. I went, yeah, you are right. Why am I doing this? Then I also had to wait until I found coaching as well. That trickled in very, very slowly. And that’s a whole other story. But yeah, I think it was a combination of the fact I got to the point where I was like, I can’t carry on like this. I’m so unhappy.
Self-Love: Set Free
I think this is like the crucial transformation point for a lot of people when they actually start asking for help because they reach their breaking point. The thought of staying where they are is scarier than the thought of going into the unknown and doing something completely different that they have no idea about. This is where I meet a lot of my clients. This is when you want to actually do the coaching. So yeah, that’s where I got to.
Then I got to the point, actually, of desperation. I started to think, what can I do? I was like, I literally need magic and miracles to get out of this situation. I found this manifestation course. Something that a lot of people don’t know is manifestation actually teaches you about self-love. It’s the work that I’d never done before.
I started to go through this course and then I built a lot of love for myself. It made me realize that I wanted to help other people figure out this key piece of the puzzle. Because when I did the self-love work and I unpacked all my conditioning and my belief system and my values and my beliefs about the world and realized, oh my God, this is just a story I’m telling myself; it set me free. Then I was like, you know, I can do anything. I can be anyone I want to be. That opened my mind up more.
I ended up, from that, loving the personal development work. I got a coach, and I was like, I don’t know what’s wrong, but I know I’m stuck somehow. I want you to help me get out of it; and I want to have more confidence.
Self-Love: Starting to Coach
He was incredible. We didn’t even do the whole course. We did like six weeks of coaching. Then after that I was like, this is what I want to do. I want to be a coach. He’s one of the best in my belief anyway, in my personal opinion.
Then I just offered the girls that I’d met doing the manifestation course, I just said, look, I don’t know what I’m doing, but would you like me to coach you? I would love to give it a go. That’s how it started for me. It turns out I have a very natural ability with it.
[00:22:53] Detective Ev: That’s so cool. I like the courage that it takes to do these things. Because whether or not it’s an identical path to a lot of like what our practitioners do, where this perfectly relates is all of our practitioners, I mean, literally every single one, was in this separate career that maybe they enjoyed or some of them didn’t enjoy it at all. Then they had to make this transition at a certain point to go do the things they want to do. That is very scary for a lot of people, and it does take some courage to go away from that.
And I love what your friend said about like, who says you have to do this? Like, why do you have to follow these societal norms? It’s weird. I don’t know if I got this from somewhere, if I’ve just always been like that. I feel like I’ve been that way to the extreme.
Self-Love: Learning the New While Still Doing the Old
It’s been to my detriment at some point because I’ll just go do whatever I want, kind of. That’s great in a certain way, but you have to learn to manage that as well so that you could still fit in with society, make money, and be productive in that way.
But I think it’s so cool when there’s these people that have these breakthrough moments where it’s like, I can just go do a job that I like or I can create something for myself that’s like my perfect schedule and I can help other people and serve others. I think that’s just very powerful.
So, how long did this transition actually take? Just so I have the timeline from like the day of, hey, I’m not working this job anymore, to being able to do your own thing. Were you starting to do your own stuff while still working at the job?
[00:24:11] Kat Burdett: Yeah, I started to explore it whilst I was still working in the job. That would’ve been back when I actually left and went to Costa Rica, which is a whole new story. That was May 2021. That’s when things really started to change. Yeah, I was still obviously learning a lot about myself as well at that point. That’s really, I suppose, when it began.
And I first started coaching, I think it was like February, March time of 2021. So, it hasn’t really been a whole lot of time. But as I say, it was just something that came very, very naturally to me, I think, because I’ve worked with patients for so long now as well. It’s just that instant rapport, and understanding, and intuitive understanding of people. Yeah, that was the beginning.
Self-Love: Kat’s Ideal Client
[00:25:01] Detective Ev: So, over these last couple years, I mean, you are right, in the grand scheme, I guess two years isn’t that long. But in a business side, you can learn a lot in two years, and you develop skills, and figure out what you want to do.
Nowadays, at the time of recording this, who is the client that you like to serve? What problems do you like to solve for people? What I’m trying to say is, for those listening, if they’re like, okay, well I like her so far, she seems really cool. Can she help me? Who is it that you serve? Like what problems do you help them with?
[00:25:27] Kat Burdett: Mainly it’s people who, well, maybe they don’t even realize this, but people who don’t feel good within themselves. People who maybe are people pleasers, they feel under confident, shy. They don’t love themselves. Maybe they’re going down the path of self-sabotage with addictive behavior like drinking, drugs, sex, whatever it is. People who just genuinely know that they’re worth more and they know they have more inside of them, more love to give, more to offer the world. But for whatever reason, they just can’t move past that point.
Really the main thing that I help people with is how to look after themselves with self-care, how to love themselves, and doing all the mindset work that goes with that as well, rewriting the old stories and the limiting beliefs that they may have.
Self-Love: What Does Self-Love Look Like?
I used to wake up and I just felt this sadness in my heart and this pain, it was like a little niggle of pain in my heart. I just didn’t know what it was. Later I discovered it’s because I was living out of alignment with my truest self, with my purpose, with who I’m meant to be. I wasn’t loving or respecting myself.
So yeah, those are I guess my peeps.
[00:26:50] Detective Ev: Sure. Well, and I know when I was reading your stuff, self-love is a huge core concept. We already kind of alluded to this because one of the things you mentioned, you’re like, people who have self-love look after themselves. Now you just kind of listed that in the rest of the sentence, but I thought that was pretty important.
Self-love, again, something that gets thrown around a lot, but what does that mean to you? What does that look like? Because I don’t think most people are engaging with self-love, maybe we always have room for improvement there. But how do you even define that? What does that look like?
[00:27:15] Kat Burdett: Great question there, Ev. It’s being able to accept yourself on every level possible, to love all of yourself. That includes the good, the bad, the pretty, the ugly parts, absolutely everything. It’s the ability to be able to trust yourself, to know your own self-worth, and to be your biggest cheerleader. Also, to show your mind, body, and soul, the respect and love that it needs.
Self-Love: The Antithesis of Self-Love
[00:27:44] Detective Ev: Cool. This is kind of a fun topic because the self-love thing, the reason I asked for your definition is cause I like that. I think that makes sense.
One of the things that I see get thrown around a lot, and this is more in the people that maybe they’re like early twenties, I feel like, throwing this around. Maybe that’s just cause what I see on Instagram. I’m not sure. But sometimes the self-love, I wonder where the line gets drawn or if this is a misrepresentation of self-love. That’s why I’m curious what you think. Because there are people that I’m seeing promoting the self-love thing that are clearly very unhealthy, very unwell in what they’re doing habit wise. But the self-love to them means that they will continue those unhealthy habits that are keeping someone 300- or 400-pounds overweight.
I want to also put a disclaimer on this so I don’t tick anyone off. I am not going against the whole body positivity thing where like someone is clearly not overweight but they just don’t look like a Victoria’s Secret model, or someone is a totally healthy guy, but they don’t look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. No, you can be healthy and not have model-level bodies. That’s not what I’m saying.
I’m referring to the guys or girls out there that sometimes you see people who are clearly morbidly obese. That’s not even a question, they would meet that. There’s this self-love movement, well, they put it as self-love, I don’t know if this really is, where, oh, okay, I need to accept myself as I am. But also, I’m going to keep engaging in these habits that keep me unhealthy. I feel like that’s the antithesis of self-love.
Self-Love: Where Does the Line Get Drawn?
Now, that doesn’t mean you should be judging yourself every single day and saying, oh my gosh, I’m such a piece of crap. That’s not what I’m saying at all.
I’ll speak for myself at least. I had severe cystic acne at one point. That’s one of the reasons I got into FDN. I learned to realize that acne does not define who Evan Transue is. I’m still a good friend, a good family member, a motivated person who wants the best for others. But I also realized that, yes, severe cystic acne was a warning sign from my body, nor was it the most attractive thing. I’m just being honest. Not many people wanted to date when I had severe cystic acne. I don’t think that makes them bad people.
Where does this line get drawn between actual self-love that you’re talking about and this self-love that’s being promoted online, which I’m sure you’ve seen this? Where I don’t think that’s actually self-love at all if you’re still sick and you don’t feel well.
[00:29:59] Kat Burdett: I mean, yeah, it’s about being healthy. At the end of the day, you’ve gotta be honest with yourself. This is where a lot of people struggle because it’s almost like you don’t want to admit that you have a problem. Because if you are hurting your body, then you’re not loving your body, are you?
If you are hurting your body and you’re putting a strain on your body, you are raising your blood pressure because you are overweight or maybe you are smoking every day, you are not really loving yourself. I think it’s just about being able to have the awareness that you are not healthy and it’s time to do something about it.
Self-Love: Where Did Those Thoughts Come From?
I think it’s a difficult one and I hear what you’re saying there. The line, I guess, can be blurred. But of course, you gotta love yourself through that process as well. You gotta be honest and think that the reason that you got yourself to this point is because there was no love for yourself.
What really makes the transformation is finding out where those thoughts actually came from. Because I think until you actually change your beliefs and your values and things like that and your limiting beliefs, what’s holding you back from feeling good, you are never, ever gonna move forward. Also, if you did lose the weight, it’s probably gonna come back on because you’re not getting to the root, core issue. If you truly loved yourself then you wouldn’t be treating your body that way. Does that make sense?
[00:31:26] Detective Ev: It does. And I have a follow up with it. I’ll use myself as the example cause I’m not at all casting judgment towards other people. I just actually want the best for all of us, so that’s why I’m bringing it up.
So again, I’ll use myself. All right. Let’s say I’m back in the day when, again, severe cystic acne, it’s not attractive, it’s not pretty. There are certain objective things, right? This isn’t just subjective, like objectively, people were not interested in going on a date with someone who looked that way, and I don’t really blame them. I’m talking about myself now.
Self-Love: Utilizing Mindset Work
It’s a little different, listen, if you’re already dating the person and someone develops severe cystic acne, yes, you love the person and you work through that. But guys, there’s initial attraction, there’s things that you need to provide at the table initially if you’re trying to woo over a potential partner.
With that said, I think where this fake self-love is coming in, where it’s like they continue the bad habits, but they love themselves, is because we don’t want to feel like crap about ourselves all day. I know I don’t want that either. So, let’s say I’m working with you. How do we even start to handle this?
How could you help me work through, okay, I have the severe acne. We know I have to make different health choices. I need to get myself better. But how can I live a more comfortable life so that I don’t go into the mirror every single day hating myself or feeling low? Because I think that’s the best of both worlds. I think that’s what people are actually looking for. On one end they have this, on another end they have that. We need to merge them. So, what would you do for someone like me?
[00:32:48] Kat Burdett: I think what I do with you and what I do with anyone in that situation is to help them positively rewire their brain. Because you are also in a position where you are not loving yourself and you’re being rejected constantly. We would do that by going back and doing a lot of inner child work. We’d work out sort of where those feelings of self-loathing would come from in the first place. There would be a lot of mindset work involved.
Self-Love: Naturally Reprogramming Yourself
But it’s also about learning how to create good habits as well. Something that I like to do with a lot of my clients is positive rewiring by means of affirmations and gratitude. Affirmations can sometimes get a bad rep. Like, oh, you know, they don’t really work, but people do often unrealistic affirmations. I think that self-love affirmations are really, really incredible and really powerful. They do work and it’s been scientifically proven.
Actually, what has more impetus here is if you stood in front of the mirror and you looked yourself dead in the eyes and said, Evan, I love you. Then you started saying, I am doing the best I can. That’s like an example of an affirmation. I love myself regardless of my acne. You are saying things like that.
I’d probably create a list or help my client come up with a list themselves of what they want to say to themselves. We’d take like, maybe a negative and we’d turn it into a positive. Then what you need to do with affirmations is, and this is the neuroscience bit, is you want to repeat them. Because if you say that once, it’s probably gonna make you go, yeah, maybe. Or maybe I don’t believe it. Even if you’re saying something to yourself that you don’t believe, that’s okay, it doesn’t matter cause this still works.
What happens is it takes between 30 to 90 days to rewire your way of thinking. It’s all about repetition. When you repeat, you are building the Neurosynaptic pathways. It’s like a rubber band, like you fire more neurons and the band gets thicker. It means that naturally, you’re basically reprogramming yourself. It means that your default is gonna go to there instead of going to the negative.
Self-Love: Former Client Story
So, I think one huge thing I would do is affirmations.
[00:35:06] Detective Ev: Awesome. I like that cause it shows that, we can still be accepting of ourselves in the moment, which I eventually learned and I think that’s important. I was not less of a person because of this.
But there can still be, again, going to the dating thing, there can still be objective truths and things that attract people and don’t attract people and I can work through that. In fact, one of the only ways to really effectively work through it is to accept yourself as you are in that time. I think that makes a lot of sense.
With the clients that you work with nowadays, do you find that a lot of them are dealing with some type of chronic health symptoms? I imagine that’s part of your work.
[00:35:41] Kat Burdett: Well, the clients I’ve had so far, I haven’t come across that.
I’m just thinking back, there was actually one person who I coached right at the beginning for free. I think she wasn’t ready really for the coaching, and maybe I was in a bit above my head. I remember she struggled with anxiety and depression. At the time of coaching, as she later revealed to me, I didn’t know she was actually suicidal.
Who knows if I helped her there from preventing her to actually take her life. I don’t know. That would be amazing if that was the case. But yeah, that was like probably the worst sort of mental health issue that I was dealing with. Although, I didn’t really know I was dealing with it. So, probably not the best example.
Self-Love: The Normalcy of Down Days
But mainly it’s just this lack of confidence really within oneself. You know, it’s difficult, isn’t it? Because I think we blur the lines with mental health quite a lot.
You know, you can have days where you feel down, you can have days where you feel depressed, or you can be suicidal. I think when you’re not feeling good within yourself, that is in itself meaning that you are dysregulated mentally. This is where it’s difficult, you know, the therapist coach situation here. Somebody who’s not at the point of suicide, yeah, I can definitely help because they’re not that bad.
But I just wanted to say that as well, it’s important to recognize that everybody goes through a mental health issue or a mental health disorder at some point in their life. Like it is a normality and it’s okay. So, for anyone listening, I want you to know that you are normal. It does not make you abnormal. Everybody goes through this at some stage of their life.
[00:37:37] Detective Ev: Sure. Wow, that’s powerful. I was asking because to connect this all together as we get to our last 10 minutes here, I was seeing if you noticed any common themes in people who dealt with the chronic health issues, cause that’s part of our audience. But where I’m almost seeing them like, duh, this is actually where this applies even more. If you are helping a lot of people really work through the confidence side, then I already know what we need to talk about for the last 10 minutes.
Self-Love: Believe in Yourself
Our practitioners as wonderful as they are, they are super smart. They’ll take all the courses, they go through FDN, they have a system that they know works and yet some of them soar to the top in business and stuff. Six figures, killing it. Love what they do. Then others will be with us for two, three years hanging out in the groups, and they barely get one or two clients. But they have the same systems and same certifications. I know it’s not because that the other half is like, bad people who are doing something wrong.
I really do think it’s this lack of belief in themselves and what they offer despite them having a system that they know works because it worked for them. I feel like you probably have something to offer those people, in a sense, in terms of helping them actually like get started with their business and realizing they are worth doing this work.
[00:38:48] Kat Burdett: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it really all comes down to self-belief. Especially as an entrepreneur myself and starting my own business, if you don’t believe in yourself then you can’t expect other people to either.
In terms of growing your self-belief, it’s about pushing through your zone of discomfort, I guess, and not giving up on yourself. That can be like really, really difficult to do. For me, for example, I used to be so shy and so anxious. In social situations, I would literally want to just run away and cry. I was so worried about what I would say that would be the wrong thing. I just didn’t trust myself at all, that my opinion was valid. I always thought I was in the wrong.
Self-Love: Support & Guidance
The only way I got through that is by putting myself in my zone of discomfort. I forced myself to be in those situations and I kept showing up and kept showing up until it became easier. Then eventually my self-belief grew. So, I think a big part of it is facing those hurdles dead on.
Also just, again, affirmations are really powerful. I mean, I do find them powerful; just telling yourself that I am capable, I am worthy, I am powerful, I am doing the best I can. It sounds like nothing. But if you say that every day to yourself, then it is really, really powerful.
Another aspect to that is understanding that I do believe that there is, I don’t like to call it God or whatever, but I think there’s some form of like universal intelligence out there. Because of things that I’ve been through and having a spiritual awakening, I used to be an atheist. I had a spiritual awakening, and I was like, oh, well I was definitely wrong about that. It helped me to realize that I’m not alone. Actually, you do have a lot more support out there than you realize.
So, I think having faith in something and knowing that you are divinely guided and supported, I think that also really, really helped me. There were lots of signs along the way that would come up that would make me go, oh, okay. So yeah, I’m doing the right thing, I’m being listened to, I’m being supported. That’s just another angle I wanted to bring in there. Take it or leave it.
[00:41:10] Detective Ev: Well, I believe in the guidance. I call it something different and don’t we all? But there is a guidance there in my opinion.
Self-Love: Learning to Trust Guidance
I think what happens is it’s scary to follow that cause it doesn’t seem logical at first, especially with our group of people. We have a lot of science-based, logical type people. That’s why they got into this work. My gosh, I’m preaching to the choir right now. That is me; I am that person.
But as I learned to trust these little nudges that I would get, I realized it never once has steered me wrong. It always put me in the right place. I’m like, wow, okay; I need to listen to this. I need to keep doing what this is saying because it keeps taking me to better and better things, and it helps me help more and more people. So, I think if nothing else, just learning to trust that the rest seems to work out itself. It’s very odd. Very cool as well, how that seems to work.
I know we have to be still respectful of client’s privacy. So, to the degree that you’re able, I’m wondering is there any particular client testimonial or story or just thing that happened with a client that you’re really proud of and that really sticks out? I always like for people to be able to highlight some of the cool work that they’ve done with people.
[00:42:13] Kat Burdett: Yeah. I mean, one of my favorite client stories is probably one of my friends actually was going through a really difficult time with her partner. She’d been physically and verbally abused. More verbally, but there was some physical abuse as well. She was caught in this toxic pattern, in this toxic cycle.
Self-Love: A Client Success Story
I obviously knew she’s an amazing person, loved by many, beautiful soul, beautiful heart. She can do so much better. Also, she doesn’t deserve, of course, to be treated that way.
It was only through my coaching that it gave her the confidence to leave him. It took a long time actually. It was maybe six to eight months after we finished working together. Because obviously when you do this work, you are changing your internal state, and you’re changing your mind literally and your mindset, so it always stays with you. This is why this work is so powerful, it keeps going forever. You’ll never be the same again.
Basically, it also sometimes needs time to sink in and for that person to feel safe within their body in order to take different action. Anyway, she got to the point where she left him and now, she’s absolutely thriving. Her business is doing incredibly well and she’s just so much happier. She’s glowing inside out and she’s actually saying no to the things that are bad for her.
I’m just so proud of her and so grateful that I could help her. It made me realize just how powerful this whole process is giving somebody that amount of self-belief and self-love.
[00:43:54] Detective Ev: That’s awesome Kat. That’s not even the route that I thought we were gonna go, so I appreciate it even more.
Well, because that stuff matters, man. When you’re with someone that is bringing you down, like the partner thing is either the biggest win or the biggest loss. They are either going to strip you of what you are or they are going to support you in doing your thing and being the best that you can.
Self-Love: What About Those Draining Relationships?
And it amplifies either of those to like the 10th power. It’s crazy. I can’t even imagine like how much more rich this woman’s life is by being able to be freed of that. It’s cool. I mean, you even said how much richer it got, basically. You described the things that have happened. But there’s just a freedom there that comes from that.
I’ve been on both ends. You know, I’ve been the person that didn’t realize that they were not with someone who was ideal for them. Unfortunately, especially in high school, I was the person bringing the other individual down. So, I’ve done both things.
When you’re with the right person, I’m with a wonderful individual now, it’s cool. It’s like, oh wow, this is actually fun. This isn’t stressful. You know, I think so many people are stressed out of their relationships. You’re like, nah, it doesn’t really have to be that way. I mean, you’re gonna have hiccups just like anyone else. But no, like 90% of the time can be awesome and you’re just helping each other grow in every single sense. So that’s amazing.
[00:45:01] Kat Burdett: Yeah, thank you. I just sort of say, maybe think the kind of really key thing, and this may be hard for some people to hear. If you are in a relationship that’s not serving you, that’s making you feel less of a person or devaluing you in any way or even taking your energy, it is not right for you. But you also have to recognize, it’s your choice to remain there.
Where to Find Kat Burdett
Only through loving yourself, starting to love yourself, will you have the confidence to leave that person and to get out because you know that you deserve more. I just wanted to put that message out there because I felt like maybe someone needs to hear that.
[00:45:35] Detective Ev: Thank you. And Kat, where can people find you and your business? You can shout out social media, anything. Of course, we’ll have it in the show notes, but it’s always good for people to get to hear it.
[00:45:44] Kat Burdett: Absolutely. If you want to have a laugh, my Instagram is full of ridiculous reels that talk about self-love and self-care and mindset work. That’s @thewellbeingwanderer. Then I have a website the-wellbeingwanderer.com. I put my full story on there, lots of free resources as well, and all the ways in which we can work together.
Conclusion
[00:46:07] Detective Ev: Awesome! Thank you so much for coming on today and giving this unique perspective. I think this is especially for a lot of the people who suffer with the chronic illness stuff, this stuff matters. And if this just even opens their eyes to maybe this being something they consider in their healing journey, I think that’s totally worth it.
Thank you so much for coming on today.
[00:46:27] Kat Burdett: Absolutely. You’re welcome. Thank you so much for having me.
As a mindfulness-based registered dietitian, I’ve worked with countless individuals struggling with disordered eating, body image issues, and a complicated relationship with food. While there’s no single solution that works for everyone, I’ve found that cultivating mindfulness and self-compassion can be powerful tools for healing and supporting your relationship with food.
Mindful Eating and Self-Compassion: A Guide to Healing Your Relationship with Food and Your Body
Mindful eating is the practice of paying attention to your food and your body in a non-judgmental way. It involves being fully present during meals, savoring each bite, and listening to your body’s signals of hunger and fullness. This approach can help you break free from old patterns of emotional or mindless eating and create a more positive relationship with food.
Self-compassion, on the other hand, is the act of treating yourself with kindness and understanding, particularly during difficult times. For those struggling with food and body image issues, it can be all too easy to fall into self-criticism and negative self-talk. However, practicing self-compassion can help you develop a more positive self-image and build resilience against future challenges.
In this guide, I’ll explore the ways in which mindful eating and self-compassion can work together to help you heal your relationship with food and your body.
The Benefits of Mindful Eating
Mindful eating can have a wide range of benefits for both physical and mental health. Here are just a few of the ways in which it can help:
Improved digestion: When you eat mindfully, you’re more likely to chew your food thoroughly and eat at a slower pace. This can improve digestion and reduce symptoms such as bloating and indigestion.
Better nutrition: By paying attention to your food and your body’s signals, you’re more likely to make healthier choices and eat in a way that supports your physical and emotional well-being.
Reduced stress: Mindful eating can help you feel more relaxed and centered during meals, which can reduce stress and anxiety.
Increased satisfaction: When you savor each bite and fully experience the flavors and textures of your food, you’re more likely to feel satisfied and content after meals.
Enhanced body awareness: By tuning in to your body’s signals of hunger and fullness, you can develop a deeper understanding of your body’s needs and learn to trust your intuition when it comes to eating.
The Importance of Self-Compassion
Self-compassion is an essential component of healing your relationship with food and your body.
The concept of self-compassion was first introduced and established by Dr. Kristin Neff, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. In her research, Dr. Neff found that self-compassion is a powerful antidote to self-criticism and negative self-talk, and can be an effective tool for reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. She defined self-compassion as the act of treating oneself with kindness, understanding, and non-judgment during times of difficulty, and outlined three core components of self-compassion: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. Dr. Neff’s work has been influential in the field of mindfulness and psychology and has inspired countless individuals to develop a more compassionate relationship with themselves.
Here are just a few of the ways in which it can help:
Reduced shame and guilt: By treating yourself with kindness and understanding, you can reduce feelings of shame and guilt that often accompany disordered eating.
Improved self-image: Practicing self-compassion can help you develop a more positive self-image and increase your self-esteem.
Greater resilience: When you’re kind to yourself during difficult times, you build resilience and are better able to cope with future challenges.
Enhanced self-awareness: By noticing your thoughts and feelings without judgment, you can develop a greater sense of self-awareness and learn to recognize and address negative patterns.
When speaking about self-compassion as it relates to our relationship with food, I think of one of my MNM students, Kelsey.
Kelsey used self-compassion as a tool inside the Mindful Nutrition Method to support her transformation and relationship with food. She shared:
“I just feel so much better. I really feel like I am at this point in my life, the healthiest that I’ve ever been. And I used to define health by the number on the scale or how I looked, my weight, and that is not how I define it anymore at all.
It’s — do I have the mental clarity? Do I have the energy to show up in the best way that I can every single day? Can I fulfill the goals that I want to have every single day? Can I work towards creating a better world for myself and my friends and my family and for everybody?
And I feel like I am so much more in tune with what I need, what I need to nourish myself both externally, how does my body look and feel, but also like internally of giving myself the time to really recharge and show up in a way in the world that I’ve always wanted to show up, but I didn’t realize that I could achieve that by just looking inside of myself and being in tune with myself.
So much has changed as far as how I view my health, how I want to take care of myself. It’s much more holistic. It was so much more on external factors and now looking at myself as a whole human being, my health as both physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, all of it. And that’s something I’ve never done before with myself or my health.”
Self-compassion goes a long way when meeting yourself where you’re at with your food experience and creating a new experience around food!
Tips for Practicing Mindful Eating and Self-Compassion
Here are some tips for incorporating mindful eating and self-compassion into your daily life:
Practice mindful breathing: Before meals, take a few deep breaths to center yourself and bring your attention to the present moment.
Eat without distractions: Avoid multitasking during meals and focus solely on your food and your body.
Use all your senses: Pay attention to the colors, smells, textures, and flavors of your food, and savor each bite. Try The Rasin Activity guided meditation.
Notice your thoughts and feelings: When negative thoughts or feelings arise during meals, notice them without judgment and try to let them pass without getting caught up in them.
Practice self-compassion: When you’re struggling with food or body image issues, treat yourself with kindness and understanding. Remember that everyone has struggles, and you’re not alone.
Build a support network: Seek out friends, family members, or professionals who can provide you with emotional support and guidance as you navigate your journey toward healing.
Seek professional help if necessary: If you’re struggling with disordered eating or body image issues, consider seeking the help of a mental health professional or a registered dietitian who specializes in mindful eating and self-compassion.
Final Thoughts
Mindful eating and self-compassion can be powerful tools for healing your relationship with food and your body. By practicing mindfulness and self-compassion, you can reduce stress, improve your digestion and nutrition, and develop a deeper understanding of your body’s needs.
Remember that healing is a journey, and it’s important to be patient and compassionate with yourself along the way. With practice and support, you can develop a healthier and more positive relationship with food and your body.
Find Freedom & Balanced Nourishment.
Embrace a Balanced & Peaceful Relationship with Food.
If you’re looking to develop a healthier relationship with food and transform your eating habits, consider joining our online group coaching program, the Mindful Nutrition Method. Our program is designed to help you cultivate a mindful approach to eating and develop a healthier relationship with food and your body.
Get the 3-part system that will help you discover your balance, enjoy food fully, and nourish your relationship with food to feel confident, balanced, and at peace. You’ll learn the skills and strategies you need to make lasting changes to your health and well-being. Don’t wait to start your journey towards a healthier, happier you.
Are butter and other saturated fats bad for you or not?
My video Friday Favorites: Is Butter Really Back? What the Science Says explores the uses and misuses of research on butter consumption and health. Time magazine famously exhorted people to “Eat Butter” and no doubt sold a lot of magazines, but perhaps at the cost of selling the public short. The publication followed up with an article that doubled down, saying that “the case for eating butter just got stronger.” It was based on the study “Is Butter Back? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Butter Consumption and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes, and Total Mortality” and claimed: “Pooling these studies, each daily serving of butter (14g/d) was associated with a 1% higher risk of death.” Hold on. One percent? That’s the study that’s supposed to make the case to eat butter stronger? Further, the study suggests that swapping just a spoonful or so of oil in place of butter every day might drop the risk of diabetes by 8 percent. “Thus, even with the absence of major health associations in the present investigation, healthier (and less healthy) alternatives may be available.” A 1 percent increase in death is pretty tiny, though. Why didn’t the researchers find a larger effect? Well, butter is just a tiny part of people’s overall diets. It’s illustrative to review the candy literature.
The National Confectioner’s Association is fond of contracting with scientists-for-hire like those at Exponent Inc., a company infamous for shilling for Big Tobacco and chemical companies. As you can see below and at 1:22 in my video, it encourages people to eat candy every day—but “in moderation,” like 15 to 25 jelly beans a day. Parents who restrict foods “in an effort to moderate a child’s intake of calories” are just going to make their kids fat, argue such scientists-for-hire.
See, parents use “coercive practices…to limit children’s access to palatable, energy-dense, or low-nutrient foods, which may include when, how often, or how much can be consumed.” Isn’t it outrageous that parents have the gall to tell their kids when, how often, or how much candy can be consumed? Don’t they know that butter(scotch) is back? “Evidence suggests that it [candy] is not associated with adverse health effects.” Don’t believe me? Ten thousand kids surveyed in one study were asked if they had eaten candy within the last 24 hours, and, after researchers compared those who said yes to those who said no, they concluded: “Current levels of candy consumption were not associated with adverse health parameters in children or adolescents.” And, this was a study in which the authors declared no conflicts of interest—even though it was a study about candy funded by the candy industry. Seems like interests were a bit conflicted.
Do you see how it would be hard to tease out the specific health effects of candy with such a blunt instrument? We don’t need a study, though, because we already know what candy is: It’s candy. It’s mostly pure sugar. We already eat too much sugar and certainly don’t need more. You don’t need to pay off researchers to come up with a study like this about candy or devise one about butter. We already know what butter is: It’s butter. It’s mostly pure saturated fat. We already eat too much saturated fat and certainly don’t need more. Anyway, it gets even wilder. Claimed the scientists-for-hire, “Candy consumers were…less likely to be overweight and obese than non-candy consumers.” Really? Maybe the candy company was right. Pass the Peeps!
“Is candy eating a way to control body weight?” What’s an alternative explanation of why obese children eat less candy? Reverse causation. Perhaps it’s not that cutting down on candy led to obesity, but rather obesity led to cutting down on candy. In other words, the “reported candy consumption…reflects consequences of obesity, not causes,” just like people with heart disease may cut down on butter, clouding the association. And, remember, it was reported candy consumption, which brings up the specter of reporting bias. “In other words, overweight children or adolescents may underreport their intake of confectionery [candy] to a greater extent than do those of normal weight.”
Otherwise, “what would the implications of the finding” be? Do we want to randomize kids to eat more candy to see if it makes them lose weight? “It is doubtful that any ethical committee would be happy about this kind of a proposal,” but you don’t know until you put it to the test. Feed folks extra candy or the same number of extra calories in the form of peanuts, and surprise, surprise: Those who ate all of that extra candy gained more weight.
There was an interventional trial that showed that candy can improve ADHD symptoms, though. What’s the story with that? If you’re the Mars candy bar company and want to fund a study showing that candy bars help kids focus, what would you do? The “parents were sent a formal letter instructing them not to feed their child after 10 p.m. and to send them to school without breakfast,” then the children were given a candy bar or an aspartame beverage, basically nothing. And, what do you know? Feeding kids something rather than nothing “enhanced [their] ability to stay on task.” That reminds me of a Frosted Mini-Wheats ad that you can see at 5:08 in my video that boasted the cereal was “clinically shown to improve kids’ attentiveness by nearly 20 percent” with the really fine print explaining that this was compared to kids who ate no breakfast at all.
Butter has been put to the test, too. As you can see at 5:29 in my video, give people a single meal with butter, and you see a boost of inflammatory gene expression within just hours of consumption, significantly more than you’d see after they ate the same amount of fat in olive oil or walnuts. You can randomize people to foods made with all sorts of different fats, and butter has been shown to be the worst in terms of LDL cholesterol. Those were short-term studies, though. It’s not as if you can randomize people to eat or avoid butter for years—unless they’re patients in a mental hospital, and that was the case for one study where researchers showed that you can raise or lower their cholesterol and cut coronary events by about 40 percent just by switching diets. The study participants also cut down on meat and eggs, however, so it wasn’t only butter.
You can’t get a whole country to cut down on butter, or can you? A 75 percent drop in butter consumption in Finland helped create an 80 percent drop in heart disease mortality, which was driven largely by the countrywide drop in cholesterol levels, which was largely driven by the countrywide dietary changes to lower saturated fat intake, such as moving away from butter.
The bottom line is that researchers have put it to the test in randomized, controlled trials involving more than 50,000 people and found that the more you decrease saturated fat content, the more your cholesterol drops, and the greater the protection. “Lifestyle advice to all those at risk of cardiovascular disease…should continue to include permanent reduction of dietary saturated fat…” The American Heart Association got so fed up with industry attempts to confuse people that it released a Presidential Advisory in 2017 to make it as clear as possible. “The main sources of saturated fat to be decreased” include butter.
