Balancing Brain Chemistry for Optimal Health

Summit Introduction and Interview Overview 0:00

Welcome to the reverse brain disorder summit. I'm your host, Doctor David Jokers. And today I'm interviewing doctor Roger Murphy on balancing brain chemistry for optimal health. We know that no one has a prescription anti-depressant deficiency yet. Antidepressants are so commonly prescribed. One of the most common prescriptions out there. People are struggling with things like ADHD, brain fog, anxiety, depression, and mental illness. But they're really not getting accurate. Root cause care. And so ortho molecular medicine, that is a system of medicine that uses vitamins, minerals, amino acids and essential fatty acids, the building blocks of brain chemicals to address the underlying causes of mood disorders and mental clarity issues.

And in this interview, Doctor Murphy is going to share a brain function questionnaire to help you uncover and shore up any deficiencies contributing to mood and mental clarity issues. Mental clarity challenges that you may be dealing with. This is going to really dramatically improve your brain. You're going to really understand what's happening at a root cause level. And if you don't know doctor Roger Murphy, he is an internationally recognized fibromyalgia expert. His Murphy method, a combination of functional and ortho molecular medicine, has helped thousands of patients get healthy and feel good again.

He's the author of three bestselling books for patients and doctors, including Treating and Beating Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Treating and Beating Anxiety and Depression with Ortho Molecular Medicine and Heart Disease. What your doctor won't tell you. He is an expert. You guys are going to love this interview, and you can find Doctor Murphy at your fibro doctor.com and super healthy human.com. So without further ado, let's go into this interview. Well Doctor Murphy, always great to have conversations with you.

You're really a wealth of knowledge and love. Just how you are able to relate issues with brain chemistry to the public. And I know you've helped so many people with these issues. So let's start with just kind of the the issue that we're dealing with. I mean, we have an epidemic of mood disorders going on in our society. And I know you're seeing this in your practice. What do you think that you know, some of the root cause factors are here. Well, the obvious root cause of stress, right? I mean, I just can't remember I can't remember a time in my life and I felt more stress.

And, you know, I look at my teenage kids and see kind of what they've been through the last two years. It's no wonder we have an epidemic of of teenagers who are really, you know, going through anxiety and depression issues, something that, you know, when I was a teenager, you know, I was I was just happy, you know, happy to get the keys to the car, go out and have a good time and those kind of things. But now it just seems like there's just so much stress. And that stress creates all sorts of imbalances in the brain chemistry that then manifest itself as, as mood disorders or mental clarity issues.

Stress, Mood Disorders, and Ortho Molecular Medicine 3:00

Yeah, absolutely. And I know you have been an expert in ortho molecular medicine for, gosh, what, 2 or 3 decades now? And using that form of medicine to really help people. So let's break that down and, and explain what ortho molecular medicine is for those who don't know. So ortho molecular medicine preceded functional medicine preceded integrative medicine. So I've been in practice 32 years. And I've seen these names change as we go through these different paradigm shifts. But ortho molecular medicine is a medicine that's built around using the right doses.

Oftentimes high doses of vitamins, minerals, amino acids and essential fatty acids. The building blocks that that make us, us. And in 19, in the late 1960s, Linus Pauling, two time Nobel Prize winner, won in chemistry, probably the most brilliant chemist to come out of America in the last 100 years. People know him from vitamin C, but he was much more, you know, much more, adept in chemistry than just that biochemistry. But he came up with this term ortho, meaning right molecule, ortho molecular medicine, where it's based on the idea that if we have something going wrong in the body or having a warning sign, what we call a symptom is because of a deficiency, either you got something too little, a deficient vitamin, mineral, amino acid, whatever it is, or you got too much of something like some type of toxin.

Now, now we in functional medicine, the way you and I practice. But that's common. But back then to see a psychiatrist using over-the-counter supplements and amino acids was revolutionary. I mean, it was something that that, had never really been done. And, and they were having such incredible success using this paradigm. Yeah, absolutely. And and yeah, I've heard several people that were, you know, like Linus Pauling obviously he was what, nominated for a Nobel Prize I believe. Right. And he was kind of one that I want to.

Yeah. You want to he won't let me. What is the peace for for for peace. And then the other one was about chemistry. Mainly the vitamin C has worked with vitamin C and some other things. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Now let's branched out that now into neurotransmitters. And we talked about anxiety depression or anxiety. Now. So we know we've got these kind of neurochemicals. How do they affect our mental clarity and mood. So these neurotransmitters are brain messengers. And the ones that we're really kind of focus on today are messengers that are being released from the hypothalamus gland.

This is a group of nerve cells, cluster of nerve cells, an organ in the brain. And it's releasing these messages throughout the day. So there's neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine norepinephrine, gamma amino butyric acid. These are messengers that are released to then allow the brain cells to communicate with one another, and then to initiate reactions in the body. People have heard of, of serotonin, the happy hormone. Right. So if you've heard of, you know, you've heard of Prozac and Lexapro and all these antidepressants that are out there now, and there'll be a new one out tomorrow, I'm sure, but but serotonin is one of many of these neurotransmitters that help to regulate our pain.

You know, our our our pain threshold, how much pain we we experience, regulate our sleep, regulate or mental clarity our moods, regulate our bowel movements, regulate oftentimes our metabolism. How how well, how poorly our metabolism works. So they're indispensable. And yet they are very vulnerable to becoming deficient through different things that we can encounter counter with every day. Yeah. For sure. And, you know, there's a lot of different medications that target these different neurotransmitters, like, for example, somebody who's depressed, you know, a lot of psychologists and psychiatric, I should say, psychiatrists are prescribing things like, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

So things like that, are antidepressants. You know, obviously a lot of people are out there. They think that these sort of neurotransmitter targeted medications are really the only, you know, clinically proven option when it comes to having these mood disorders and treating them. There's quite a bit of debate about if they even work. Yeah. And there's a quite a bit of a debate if the neurotransmitter, theory with depression even holds up at this point, having, you know, Candace Pert, who also was a Nobel Prize winner, she, she came up with this whole thing that neurotransmitters and molecules of emotion.

And she's come out recently and said she's really not sure that this theory works now, not to blow everybody away. So let's stick with the fact that if you're low in these neurotransmitters, you're probably going to have some problems with anxiety, depression, mental clarity issues, and some other things. But the antidepressant revolution, which started in the 1960s and is now, you know, gone over the last eight years or so, has morphed into, more a newer medications like more Prozac was the first selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.

Celexa Lexapro. A lot of patients that I work with, fibromyalgia are on Cymbalta. That's a big one for them. But these medications, it's it's important to point out that they have potential side effects. Ironically, these antidepressants can cause anxiety and depression. They can cause diffuse achy pain. They deplete your natural sleep hormone melatonin. They can cause weight gain. They can cause, suicidal tendencies. Also a teenager in in in an adult. And it's, you know, important to point out that no one has an anti depressant deficiency in these medications.

Or as you describe, designed to help you hang on to serotonin.

Neurotransmitters and Antidepressant Limitations 9:00

So again, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. They're designed to help you hang on to what serotonin you have in your brain. But if you've depleted that serotonin or you just don't have enough estrogen genetically the way God made you, you can't produce enough if you're using a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and there's nothing to reuptake, it's not going to do anything. It's like using a gasoline additive in an empty gasoline tank. It just it it's not going to work. We also know, David, that in the meta analysis where you look at sometimes hundreds of different studies, in this case probably dozens of different studies on, antidepressants.

We see that antidepressants are no better than a sugar pill, 50% of the time. So 70% of these studies show that, that these medications are no better than a sugar pill 50% of the time now, less likely to discourage or belittle anybody that's on these medications. If you feel like they're helpful, that's fine. But they're not without some baggage and they're not without some controversy. Yeah. And you know, when whenever we're thinking about what, you know, mood disorders from a functional perspective, I always think brain inflammation, we know that with these mood disorders there's an underlying level of inflammation.

And there may be issues with, you know, people either not producing enough serotonin or breaking it down too quickly. These could be issues that the person may be dealing with. But the brain inflammation is there. And, you know, it's like this underlying fire affecting the brain. And we've got to address that root cause in while we may, you know, in certain cases address, particular neurotransmitters. And if we're only focusing on the neurotransmitter, we may get some symptomatic relief, but we're not actually getting to the root cause.

And in the case of a lot of these medications, like if we're breaking down the enzymes that metabolize serotonin, if we are inhibiting those enzymes, the body starts the our physiology starts to adjust around it and it will increase the amount of enzymes. And so then we, you know, we need higher and higher doses of the drug. And then we have terrible symptoms if we ever like miss a day on the, on the, on the drug or, you know, if we're trying to come off of the drug too quickly, I mean, it could be catastrophic.

And so because the body, the whole physiology has adapted and adjusted to it. So this is problematic. Some of these things can be helpful short term. But you know, we really want to be thinking about getting to the root cause factors. Now I know that you really like to use mono amino acid therapy as you're working with people. So can you explain that in more detail? Yeah, absolutely. So I want to just before I do is say I totally agree with you about this inflammation, the brain inflammation, brain on fire.

This is something this is really kind of a radical thinking, you know, to think that your inflammation is causing your depression. But, you know, if, if we if we, admit it, inflammation and stress are probably the two drivers of every unwanted health condition out there. So it's it's really shouldn't be a revelation that inflammation is. But it's in rain. Inflammation is playing a role in depression. So I think from what I've found over the years of working with a lot of patients with mood disorders, it's a combination of nutritional deficiencies, certainly poor diet stress, but also inflammation.

But where do these neurotransmitters come from? You know, so they don't come from Prozac. You know, again, those medications are only designed to help you hang on to what serotonin. You have these neurotransmitters come from proteins. So when we eat a protein in that protein we have amino acids. So there's a certain form amino acid. There's there's 20 of them non that are essential and 11 that are non-essential. The nine essential amino acids you your body cannot make those. You have to get them in your diet.

And unfortunately there's people in our population that cannot take the food that they eat and, and convert it into, into these neurotransmitters in particularly there's a, there's a big, subset of fibromyalgia folks who just don't have an enzyme that you mentioned earlier and that and that kind interim pathway which takes tryptophan, one of these essential amino acids, and then converts it into barbiturates to prevent it. They don't have that enzyme. They can't do it. It's blocked. So they're already at risk.

But where these, neurotransmitters come from is foods that we eat. So serotonin, the brain chemical serotonin is very calming. It's an antidepressant. Helps for mental clarity, helps regulate your bowel movements. You have more serotonin receptors in your chest or tract and and do in your brain. That's why when you get when you get nervous, you get butterflies in your stomach. But serotonin comes from the amino acid tryptophan which combines with fat, which I'm sorry, combines with B vitamins, B2, B3, vitamin C and the mineral magnesium.

And then that converts into five hydroxy tryptophan. And then turns into serotonin. Serotonin is one of two calming or inhibitory neurotransmitters. The other one is gamma amino butyric acid, which is to drive, partly from our glutamine. It's, and then there are the catecholamines. These are the stimulating neurotransmitters like opioids, which come from l l know, alum, another amino essential amino acid, norepinephrine, which comes from our, you know, line and, epinephrine, which comes from having these stimulating neurotransmitters.

And you mentioned dopamine as well, because dopamine would be in the last one out. Dopamine. Absolutely. So now, you know, l phenylalanine and opioids actually come from the, the mirror image of l0 l and it comes from DL fino lateral important that yeah. Correct. That. And opioids we think about like in our endogenously produced opioids we're thinking of endorphins. Kind of like when you go out for a run and at first your joints are kind of a little bit sore. And then you get going and then all of a sudden the pain goes away and it's like how you just kind of get this runner's high.

If you've ever experienced that. That's kind of that effect of the endorphins. So that's what you're referring to there. Yeah. And that's why exercise is one of the best antidepressant therapies you can. You can initiate it really. It really works quite well. But anytime we're under stress, our body or our body's releasing these chemicals, releasing these neurotransmitters to deal with that stress. When we're under stress, our body's releasing a small amount of opioids to deal with that stress. And if we never turn that stress off, eventually we can deplete that.

You know, that that neurotransmitter. Same thing with serotonin, where we stay under stress, we can, you know, deplete that, that neurotransmitter. And then we start to have issues with anxiety and depression and feeling stressed out, or am having issues with loose bowel movements from irritable bowel or, mental clarity, where our brain just, you know, can't think of the word we want. But but stress really is a driver for so many of these disconnects with the brain communicating with the rest of the body.

Yeah. And so how do you determine what amino acid somebody may be deficient in? So I've got a prof here, because it's better for me to kind of read through and I'm going to be real quick with it. But this is a this is a book that's out of print right now. This is the first book I wrote, about anxiety and depression. I've updated it in my fibro book, but there's a questionnaire on my website, and I'm just going to read this real quick. But if you have, a deficiency of opioids, then in this little survey here, you would check three or more of these little questions.

So your life seems incomplete. Or you feel shy with all your closest friends. You feel insecure. You often feel unequal to others. When things go right, you feel undeserving. You feel like something's missing in your life and there's a whole, whole a list.

Amino Acid Therapy and Brain Function Questionnaire 17:00

But if that resonates with you, you probably are deficient in these opioid neurotransmitters. Then the the g group for Gaba gamma me a butyric acid, which is very common. This is what you would use for anxiety. And this one is you feel anxious for no reason. You sometimes feel free floating anxiety. You feel edgy, feel a knot in your stomach. Falling asleep is hard. Staying asleep is hard. You often use alcohol offset or other substances to calm you down. If that resonates with you or if you're shaking your head, then you're probably low and gamma amino butyric acid.

The great thing about these amino acids that are available over the counter who get them anyway? Yeah. And then the D group, the dopamine is you lack pleasure in life. These are the folks that just everything, you know, nothing tastes getting more. Life's just not. There's not many fun. There's the that life is life is less colorful. You feel less attached spiritually. You just really don't care, just blah. And that's a sign of low dopamine. And then the other one is the norepinephrine, the in-group.

And that's this is the one that gives you energy, drive, ambition. So you suffer from a lack of energy. Oftentimes it's difficult to get going. Start projects. No. Don't finish them. Feel paranoid, feel depressed quite a bit of time. So that's the end group. And then the last one is the S group. It's hard to go to sleep, hard to stay asleep. Pain has become more magnified. You start. This would be associated with serotonin. Yes. You're right. So you were mentioning pain? Yeah. Pain is a big one.

Yeah. It lowers your pain threshold. Is that serotonin level goes down? You're more likely to have flare ups when you get irritated. You know, stimulation can make you become more stressed out. Loud noises, bright lights, these kind of things. But that's a little survey. Now, you can also test. There's tests to do that I used two years ago. I used to do a lot of neuro transmitter testing. Now though, this little questionnaire works quite well on my practice that I can tell just from that questionnaire what that individual is low in.

And then based on that can recommend the amino acids that they need to be taking along with a good multivitamin because you need those cofactors. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Now there's also some different things too that people can do, like just some natural lifestyle, things that can help improve. Really all the neurotransmitters I know, I know for me, for example, getting regular sun exposure, oh my goodness, I always feel significantly better just getting out in the sun. Like today. I worked out in the sunshine, got I probably got 45 minutes of high quality sun.

And you know, as we're doing this, it's it's you know, it's late in the year. It's November as we're talking here. Fortunately here in Georgia, you know, we'll have warm days pretty much year round. From time to time it'll get cold, but from time to time we'll have warm enough weather and, you know, I get out as much as I can when. When it's nice. I try to schedule at least 30 minutes out there. Shirt off. If it's. If it's warm enough so I can get as much sun on my body as possible, and that's like, there's no, no supplement to me that helps me as much as just getting that really good quality sun.

So there's some things people can do. Obviously sunshine is a big one. What are other things people can do naturally? Yeah, sunshine, vitamin D3. We know if your vitamin D3 level is low and really low and for for probably you as well as a functional medicine practitioners anything below 50. So they'll tell you if it's above 30 it's okay. But if it's below 50 I mean I can't tell you how many patients I had over the years, in particular my fibro patients who once we get that vitamin D level up that they notice that their pain dramatically goes down and their moves through quite a bit.

Grounding, I think, is a big one, who are so detached from the light, you know, from everything around us. And so just taking your shoes off and going out in the grass and getting ground. And now it sounds silly, but there's numerous studies that show just that just doing that can make a trauma like improvement in your moods. Yeah, that's actually what I was doing. I was actually working out on my front lawn, bare feet on the grass. I was exercise, sun exposure and, grounding at the same time. Yeah. You're doing it all. Yeah.

So that sun isn't super important. And that's why so many other patients I work with mood disorders. One of the first things I get them to do is to get them to get one of the sad lights. Yeah. So many of them have seasonal affective disorder. That's from, you know, your moods or compromised as it gets dark earlier in, you know, during daylight savings time in the fall and winter. You know, I think that exercise, again, is crucial. I think that's super important. Staying hydrated, cleaning your diet up.

Sugar is probably the number one trigger for low moods and anxiety. You know, as far as things that we're taking into our bodies, it just really wreaks havoc on the nutrients that you need to be able to make these neurotransmitter. When you're eating that sugar, you're depleting your B vitamins and, causing inflammation that can affect the brain. So I think just cleaning up your diet is really important for these folks. Yeah. Super critical. And I'll add in, laughter. So, you know, they say laughter is our greatest medicine.

When you're laughing, you are giving a boost to all those neurotransmitters and particular you're releasing a lot of those opioids, natural endorphins to help reduce pain, to give you more pleasure, pleasurable feelings in your in your brain. Your body. And it's like a, you know, natural reset on some of these neurotransmitter issues and then good relationships. Right? So, you know, we release a lot of oxytocin when we have, when we feel connected with others, whether that's actually, you know, some people do really well with just actually cuddling. Right?

They're very physical touch love type I am my wife is so, you know, just hands on cuddling. I know my daughter. It's like she can be misbehaving and I'll just pick her up and hug her. Right? Just kind of hold her now she's four, right? So I pick her up and hold her, and it's, like, just totally melts her. Right? So all the stress, you know, things like that that's going on in her brain. Totally. Meltzer. And then she's just, you know, well-behaved girl, little girl again. So just feeling connected, you know, physical touch, feeling connected, super beneficial.

These are things that you could be doing that don't cost anything. That you could just be making sure you're getting enough of that getting enough laughter vitamin L, right. Into your your day to day life. Absolutely. And I think, you know, that's kind of why we've seen the state that we're in is because we were disconnected for so long. You know, two years were right there, limited who you could see, what you could do. I mean, it was it was, you know, it's very stressful and especially for, I think, for teenagers, probably more than any of our children and adolescents, a teenage probably than anybody else, because you're just at that age, you're just a social achiever.

I mean, that's, you know, you get a lot of your satisfaction interacting with your with your, you know, with your guys or your girls, whatever that is. I think it's very important to, to really realize that we control how we react to things. Now, you can either acknowledge that or not, but it's true. I mean, so one of the things, you know, I remember, Wayne Dyer, one of my mentors, shared this years ago before he passed. And he said, what do you get when you squeeze an orange? Every time you get orange juice, every time you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice.

Look, what do we get when someone squeezes you? You know what? What do we get? Do we get anger? Do we get irritability? Do we get something saying something that you wish you didn't send you regret. And and I think it's important to realize that we're, human, beings instead of human doings. I think we were all kind of focused on doo doo doo doo doo doo, which really doesn't allow much time for just just being just, you know, having time to think. I really encourage all my patients to do an hour power every day.

Something I know you do. And if you can't do an hour power or the if everybody, most everybody can find an hour of the day, it's maybe it's a half an hour or quarter an hour. But that's time where you're meditating your brain and you're journaling, you're doing affirmations, and you're kind of thinking about what you're going to do that day. You're kind of looking into the future and, but I think the biggest part of that is just nurturing yourself with, with, material with us, Joyce Myers or Wayne Dyer or Zig Ziglar or just saturating yourself with positive thinking and acknowledging that when you get under stress, the first thing, the first, step in the right direction is realizing that feeling.

And it takes practice, right? I mean, most people are just reactive, so it's not an easy thing to do.

Lifestyle, Diet, and Brain Support Strategies 26:00

But once you start using this hour power, half an hour power, whatever it is, and get in touch with yourself, this God within. Then when you get exposed to this stress and you start to feel that now, you know, oh, okay, I know what that is. And you can take a second. And instead of lashing out, you can add another, quote from Wayne Dyer. You can choose peace over, you know, confrontation. It's sometimes it's better just to be to be peaceful than to be. Right. Yeah. True. I mean, in our society, I think a lot of people are looking for reasons to be offended.

They're looking for reasons to feel like a victim. And, you know, that's actually, it really it can create a vicious cycle. It just creates more inflammation, know more brain inflammation in your system. And so instead, you want to be obviously looking for reasons to choose joy, choose happiness, choose peace, choose reconciliation. So totally in agreement with you on that one. Now let's talk about some foods and herbs that can support, rule really reducing inflammation in the brain and supporting these different neurotransmitter pathways.

So I think really, you know, to me, one of the best diets out there is the paleo diet. I just think that's a really healthy diet. The keto diet is certainly a wonderful that to, I'll have found for most of my patients, it's a little harder to stay on. I just find eventually that that diet becomes a little too stagnant for them. But but I, you know, the common denominator for both of those is eliminating the simple carbs, you know, and the grains, which we know. Unfortunately, the, I love pasta. But we know that those grains can create inflammation.

They're just I mean, the science is there. Now, whether you have a problem with gluten, you know, you may not have celiac, but we know that that that gluten in particular can really cause damage to the cells that line the intestinal tract, leading to leaky gut and generating allergic reactions that can create inflammation anywhere in the body. I've had patients over the years, David, that they had all sorts of illnesses, that I was able to, to really clean up. And then the only thing to be hanging around would be their brain fog.

So sort of like a case in point, fibromyalgia patient that had a lot of pain, insomnia, low energy by doing, you know, testing, figuring out what was going on, able to get those issues solved. But they still were depressed, you know, or they still had anxiety issues. And then we would do a food allergy test, clean up their diet. And lo and behold, within 2 or 3 weeks, their moods dramatically improve their anxiety goes away. So food allergies or something, definitely. That can be a trigger for all sorts of unwanted health conditions, including brain fog, anxiety and depression.

Yeah, those are big ones I mentioned. Sugar. You know, I mentioned that earlier. You know, the other one I see that really can cause folks a lot of problems is artificial sweeteners, in particular NutraSweet. If you look at, you know, that how that breaks down. What is it? Formaldehyde and some kind of an, and kill or something? I mean, it's not something you want to be putting in your body. And unfortunately, a lot of people get addicted to diet sodas because of that aspartic acid in there, which is, you know, stimulating, right?

Stimulates the brain, but also can create a lot of neurological problems that then can manifest themselves as mood disorders are, mental clarity issues. Yeah, for sure. MSG is another one. Mono sodium glutamate, which, you know, has a whole list of names. Now, they don't typically right. Monosodium glutamate, but it increases it cause some more free glutamate in the brain, which can cause too much excitation. And when these neurotransmitters are overexcited they actually die. And they create and they spill out, calcium and other contents that actually leak into other neurons and create kind of an excited toxicity process.

And so that's why, you know, there's something called, I think it's like Chinese restaurant syndrome or something where they, you see, is all this MSG, they probably still do in the US in these, you know, very inexpensive kind of all. You can eat Chinese beef, buffets. And people would have like, tremendous headaches coming out of there because they're getting all this neurotic cytotoxicity. So you gotta look out for things like realized yeast. I mean, there's a whole if you look up different names for monosodium glutamate, there's like a whole list.

I know Doctor Russell Blaylock has a whole book about that. So that's another big one. Now, some foods I think of when I think about brain, I think something like wild caught salmon because you got tons of omega three fats. Yeah. Great for the brain right. You got asked xanthan, which is, you know, what gives it its pink color? And that's this incredible antioxidant that, you know, salmon swim upstream against the rapids and they can they can jump up to ten feet out of the water. I mean, there's incredible mitochondrial energy production going on there.

And it's credited to be the omega three fatty acids. And then that allow it to do that. So I think of those and I think of extra virgin high polyphenol, fresh pressed extra virgin olive oil which has these powerful polyphenols. Also canthal and hydroxy Tiraspol that hydroxy tyrosine actually crosses the blood brain barrier. And it's like a natural, you know, very, very powerful anti-inflammatory in the brain. So those are some good things that most people respond really well adding into their diet and, see really good improvements here.

So in my adolescence and I don't really take care of a lot of new disorders, I used to take care of a lot of adolescents. When my book came out, my anxiety and depression book came out years ago. And those in particular, those those age groups, you see that they're so deficient in omega threes and oftentimes just getting them on omega threes in particular, really raising up the DHEA level can make a big difference. You know bringing that up. Most people are skewed. They get have much more omega six.

And they do omega threes. And ideally you'd have that balanced. But this this imbalance of omega six to omega threes is creates a lot of inflammation and generates a lot of a racket onic acid, which can create inflammation in the brain but also can affect moods. So one of the things I think is very important if you're not a fish later and I'm not, I wish I was, but I know how healthy it is. My kids love it, my wife loves it. But just fish oil, you know, just taking a high quality good fish oil supplement.

A couple of thousand milligrams on a daily basis, I think can can be really, really helpful and steer clear of seed oils. So as you said, the, extra, you know, the extra virgin olive oil, cold pressed virgin olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, but steering clear of all these grain oils, and seed oils can really help to rebalance this omega three omega six ratio. Yeah, that's super important. Now, I know you're using a lot of kind of single amino acids, kind of targeted amino acids based on the questionnaire.

Like for example using Gaba for, you know, somebody that scores poorly in the Gaba questionnaire, using five HTP or a tryptophan when somebody is, doing poorly on serotonin and phenylalanine or like a dolphin or alanine, for somebody that's scoring poorly with norepinephrine. Right. And are those the main the main amino acids that you're using are using any herbs like things like Theanine and stuff like that with it. So really kind of steer clear of herbs. Not that there's not a place for those I think.

I think there is. It's just that over the years, what I've found is a lot of times, the herbs can create some side effects that the amino acids don't. And that can be an allergic reaction. You know, Saint John's reward has got a lot of science behind it as an as a monoamine antidepressant. It works very, very well, but it also can cause, problems with, with, intense some, you know, you get you get too much sun when you, when you're on that you think that that term for that. And so that can create some problems and it can create some issues with headaches like a photo sensitivity.

Thank you. There it is. I can think of so that's one that can work really well. But I usually start with the amino acids, one that I like a lot. And really, when you like the brain function question, you're a lot of times people will fill that out and go, oh, Doctor Murphy, I've got I checked all those, you know, where do I start? Or I take all of them? No. The first thing you want to do is calm everything down. So the first thing you want to do is get your serotonin level up. And then the second thing is probably get your Gaba level up.

Gaba would be for those folks of you that are having issues with anxiety. So if you're already taking benzodiazepine medications or you have in the past because you have anxiety issues or you wish you could take them because you're so anxious, Gaba works very, very well. It's it doesn't normally have any kind of side effects to it. And it works for them about 15 minutes after you take it. In fact, when I have a medical practice years ago, I had an integrative medical practice,

SAMe, Homocysteine, and Closing Resources 35:00

and we would have folks that would come in and have the white coat syndrome, you know, where you sit down and the doctor walks in and the nurse and they're going to take your blood pressure and it spikes up. We would see that periodically. And and when we saw that, we would just give them, 500mg of Gaba and then wait another, you know, 15 minutes. And sure enough, they'd be calmed down and we could take their blood pressure. But yes, you can use these amino acids and they work rather quickly. And I think they most of the time work as well, if not better than prescription antidepressants, one that I haven't mentioned I want to bring up, for run our time is Sammy.

So s adenosine methionine is an over eight. You can buy that over the counter to supplement. And a lot of times what I find is my patients have an elevated inflammatory marker called homocysteine. Sometimes there's a genetic glitch that's brought on, causing that with methylation. But every time I see that, I know that that individual is not producing Sammy acid anything which is crucial for our mental clarity, for our moods. It helps to make melatonin helps. It helps to make serotonin and norepinephrine.

And when you're low in that, you really can can have, problems with low pain threshold, low moods, numerous things start to show up. Problems with your liver detoxing. You know, Sammy really helps with detoxing the liver. So that's another one that I've probably in the last few years, used more than than I used to is the Sammy. Yeah, yeah. Hummus. Homocysteine is a metabolic, basically a metabolized product. Yeah, it's a waste product. The body converts into either glutathione, iron, or Sammy. And, you know, if it's elevated, it increases your risk of stroke, of, neurodegenerative conditions.

Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer as well. Yeah. So it's really important that, you figure out that's actually a really, really important lab that we recommend everybody get on a regular basis. Do people get it right? Few people. So it's like every every person I work with, I want to see what that is because it tells me so many things about that individual and a female. It should never be above eight. And for a male I think it's not is usually not a number. But yeah, it'll go up and when you test for it it'll go up to 14.

But if you're right, you know, if you're above an eight as a female or above a nine as a man, you've got some issues. Yeah for sure. Yeah. Definitely want to bring that down. So that's great. Doctor. Roger, this has been a fantastic interview. So any last words of encouragement and where can people find out more about about you. And you know, about this, brain questionnaire that you've got. Well, so. Thanks, David. It's always fun. You're such a, you know, just a delightful host and and so, so knowledgeable.

It's always fun hanging out with you. You know, I think if you're battling with some low moods or some stress or feeling anxious, I think that you owe it to yourself to try a more natural approach. These, these, amino acids and things that we've mentioned can be taken with antidepressants. I've been using them for 30 years. And, and the risk of any kind of potential side effects is very, very minuscule, even combining them with other medications, obviously, you know, you probably want to work with the practitioner, but, you know, things like, the Gaba and five HTP, these things, you can get over the counter the same thing with Sammy.

But if you're interested in taking that brain function questionnaire, take you just a few minutes to do so, you can do that at Super Healthy humans.com or your fibro doctor.com and you'll see a patient please patient resources you click on that and you see health conditions and you'll see a brain function questionnaire. That's where it'll be awesome. We'll guys check out doctor Roger Murphy's website again your fibro doctor.com or superhuman. What is it. Super human. Super healthy. Human healthy human super healthy human.com.

Thanks again. Yeah. There you go. Thanks again for your time, Doctor Murphy. Always great, conversing with you and, guys. We'll see you on a future presentation. Future interview. Everybody be blessed.