Toxic Sugar: Using GABA to Break the Addiction & Ease Anxiety

Introduction to Trudy Scott and her work 0:00

Well, joining me now is food mood expert Trudy Scott. She's a certified nutritionist who educates anxious individuals about nutritional solutions for anxiety. She's known for her expertise in the use of targeted individual amino acids, nutritional solutions for the social anxiety condition called pirate Luria, and the harmful effects of benzodiazepines. Trudy is the author of The Anti-anxiety Food Solution How the Foods You Eat can help you calm your anxious mind, improve your mood, and end cravings.

She's the host of the Anxiety Summit, an online educational platform for both consumers and health professionals, and dubbed a bouquet of Hope. Trudy also educates health, health professionals via the Anxiety Nutrition Institute, sharing research and practical How-To steps. She's passionate about sharing this information because she was able to eliminate her anxiety and panic attacks using nutritional approach. Trudy, welcome. Thanks very much, Jason. It's a pleasure to be here. So maybe you can just talk to me first about anxiety, what your perspective is on it because, you know, there's sort of I guess one thought is, is that we all have anxiety at times, right?

So how do we really understand anxiety as somebody that that first an individual who kind of is really suffering from anxiety and maybe some of the the myriad of forms of what that looks like in somebody because oftentimes it may be so internal that somebody may not really even know that somebody has kind of chronic anxiety. And that's a really good point that you raise a lot of the time we covering it up. We pretending everything's okay. And underneath we might be feeling really, really anxious.

So there. And you're right. We all have anxiety. Anxiety can actually drive us to some extent. The problem is, when the anxiety is affecting our daily life, we can't focus. We are self-medicating with sugar and junk food in order to feel good, in order to give us focus. We have, waking in the middle of the night where we can't stop worrying. We have, physical symptoms of anxiety and panic attacks, like a racing heart and a clammy skin and feeling physically tense and and having full blown panic attacks where you have a ventilating and you feel like you're going to die, and you wonder where on earth this is coming from.

And, and I speak from experience because I got into this work because in my late 30s, I started to get increasingly anxious for what seemed like no reason at all. I had no outside trauma at the time. I had nothing that I was particularly worried or anxious about. But all of this started to show up. I actually developed social anxiety as well, which was crazy because I had always, you know, I consider myself a really social butterfly kind of person. And I was also crazy for me because I grew up, exploring.

I was a world traveler. I climbed, I met my husband on a cliff face, and we climbed big walls, and we did as climbing. And all of these, wonderful things in the outdoors. And you wouldn't have considered me a timid, anxious person. But for me, it was biochemistry. It was purely biochemistry. I actually grew up in South Africa, and, we ate real whole food. We they, we, didn't I didn't use medications or I wasn't drawn to medications because of my mom and her, you know, education for me. And so when this happened, I didn't I didn't even think, okay, I need to seek out a medication for this.

Understanding anxiety and its root causes 3:34

I just thought, I've got to figure out what the root cause was. And this was actually before I became a nutritionist. It's the reason I became a nutritionist. I had this anxiety. I had these panic attacks. The first panic attack I had, I thought, what on earth is this? I didn't even know what it is. And I looked it up, started to see these connections, realized there was something going on, something that I was doing putting in my body, something that was causing these problems and realized that was a combination of hormonal imbalances, sugar intake, gluten issues, adrenal issues, toxins that I'd been exposed to when I was growing up.

I was exposed to lead and mercury. And so all of these factors combined to cause this perfect storm that was causing my anxiety. And I went back to school to become a nutritionist and, wrote my book and educate people about these biochemical aspects. Now, there's many other aspects you've got to think about trauma. We've got to think about toxins as well. They play a role because they are going to affect your neurotransmitters and thereby causing anxiety. You know, gluten causes leaky gut. And we're going to talk about, you know, how sugar can cause a lot of these harmful effects as well, but then you're not absorbing the nutrients that you need to be absorbing so many factors.

And what we need to do is drill down and figure out what your root causes are, and then address them by addressing some of those root causes. But at the right off the bat, what I do with my clients is I use amino acids, targeted individual amino acids, which we're going to talk about today to alleviate some of those symptoms right away in that overwhelm, stop those cravings, that comfort eating and give you some relief. So you can actually now go dig deeper and figure out, is it a gluten, is it a sheet?

Is it your microbiome? Is it leaky gut? Is it a combination of all of these things? Is a toxic environmental exposures that are causing it. So and then we want to we want to feel good because a lot of people that I work with, they push through, they're covered up, they deal with it until things get too bad. And that's certainly what happened with me. I was working in corporate America at the time. I was, hugely stressed, and I waited until it got desperate. And then I had to do something. And we want to really start to notice how we feeling and all these sort of things creeping up and do something about it as soon as we can.

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, that's kind of the human condition, right? It's like we we deal with it until we say, okay, I guess we I surrender. Like, I got to do something about this. You know, it's interesting in in Arvada, they, kind of talk about anxiety from the point of excess. And they're sort of language which often correlates or comes with bowel disease, like lower GI stuff. So it could be bloating, gas, indigestion, IBD, IBS, Sibo, you know, these type of things in the sort of lower GI in the, in the colon area.

I'm curious, did you have any of that, those symptomology with your anxiety, when you're going through it? Absolutely. And I'm very familiar with elevate. I actually worked with a medic practitioner before I left South Africa and moved to the US and was fascinated by it. And at the time, I grew up with digestive issues my whole life. You know, I had severe constipation as a kid. I remember my doctor, my mom taking me to the doctor to say, what can you do? And, you know, figured out ways to address that.

And then later on, once I became a nutritionist, I had, I had, breath testing done and figured out that small intestine and bacterial overgrowth, was an issue as well. And that was I had to have methane, which obviously contributes to, constipation. So. Yes. Absolutely. And that's interesting. So, so entwined and all of this and then the gluten issues that bloating and constipation. So it was a whole it was a whole picture. Well, and in, you know, Western functional integrative medicine in health we tend it we, we, we often look at things as, as linear like this and then that and then this and that.

And what I kind of really took away from our Veda and in a big way was it's like when with in their language, the way you think about things, it's like a global systemic effect. In other words, this imbalance that we that we can create or we have creates these differing symptoms that don't seem related. And it's not necessarily that anxiety causes the GI issues or the GI issues caused the anxiety per se, but they kind of go hand in hand off. And and so that's kind of the reason I mentioned it, which, which makes sense, I guess works in perfectly to what we're going to talk about today on the nutritional side of things.

I'm curious, you know, why is it that if somebody has anxiety, even if it's just a small bout, like, let's say they don't have chronic anxiety just on like day to day average person even why we kind of lean into these things like processed junk foods, sugars and cookies and ice creams and these type of things. Right. And we just lean into these sort of unhealthy foods, you know, artificial sweeteners. One alcohol would be another, right? So why is it that we kind of are looking for those things?

Because clearly it's trying to solve the problem, right? Like humans even subconsciously, like we're really, really smart. Our bodies are really, really smart. And so there's some need getting met even though it's not the best solution, perhaps. And could cause problems later. But what is that sort of fundamental need? What are we? What are we looking to trying to solve in that moment. So it's a it's a way to self-medicate. So we using it to with whether it's refined sugar, whether it's just junk food in general, whether it's, you know, a bag of potato chips, whatever it is, we we all have our own drug of choice that we really, really like.

If I was to say what my drug of choice was that I would self-medicate with, it was chocolate. You know, that was that was what really worked for me. And time to time that that shows up again, you know, it shows up often when you and a lot of stress or when something's going on. When I was, you know, reading, someone when I was grieving, someone that that showed up as well. So we have our drug of choice. Sometimes there's multiple of those, but we self-medicate in order to address certain neurotransmitter deficiencies.

So we may use it, with low Gaba, which we're going to talk about today. When you're Gaba levels, it's a calming neurotransmitter. It's also a it is an amino acid that we use to address that. Neurotransmitter deficiency. But we use sugar to reduce stress. So if we, feeling stressed and anxious, we may use it. And it actually gives you that brief relief. You may use it for low serotonin, kind of, levels, which will make you feel good. You may use it, to address low endorphins and that in that instance, you may sort of resonate with the term comfort eating or reward eating or deserve it.

And if you've got low dopamine, you may use it to give you energy and focus. And so there's different there's four different neurotransmitters that I look at when I'm working with folks. And we, we assess which area that we need to work on. And they may use associated amino acid to help address that. Now, it's often the case that people have deficiencies in all different areas. But the thing is, with these refined sugars and processed foods is we know that they are harmful, but you just we just can't stop.

So it's addicting. Research shows that sugar is as addicting as drugs. And, it we'll often hear about the dopamine connection. We hear that it triggers this release of dopamine makes you feel good, and then it reinforces that behavior. And then you just kind of continue to eat. But there's, as well as dopamine, as I mentioned, there's like these leads to return and these lower endorphins that all can trigger this, this craving. And it can be at different times of the day and it can look slightly different for each person.

Why anxiety drives sugar and junk food cravings 11:29

But there is an amino acid associated with each of these deficiencies. And they can help you break that addiction. And, the, the you know, as I said, you're aware that it's harmful, that you can't stop. And, I'd like to just share some of the reasons why, you know, some of the, you know, reasons why it's harmful. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, so just to kind of recap so when we yeah, we go into that, whatever that, that, you know, medication of choices there, or getting a little boost of dopamine, perhaps a little boost of serotonin, perhaps a little boost of Gaba, perhaps a little boost of endorphins, perhaps.

Right. And, and of course, a taste good. Right. So you're getting sort of the sweet, this cocktail of sort of chemical, modification that happens in the short term. Right. But it doesn't really address the underlying, you could say imbalance or or depleted levels of serotonin, Gaba, dopamine, endorphins, etc., which we can get in other ways, right, that are more healthy, and that, that don't reinforce the cycles because this is something I've noticed in people. Certain people are, their nervous system, their body, their behaviors, their their mindset, their mental sort of, framework is really they really get into patterns.

And and so it's they keep blocking something in over and over. It can be really hard to break that. And I don't know if I'm gonna call that addiction per se. Because that might be something we categorize to something different. But you know, if you just kind of keep doing the same thing over and over again, there's like a pattern recognition that happens in, in the body neurologically through the system. And so it keeps getting reinforced. Right. And that can be a really, really challenging thing to break.

So please tell me why it's talking to the body. So we we a lot of a lot of us know this. But as I said we just can't break that that addiction I'm going to call it addiction. I agree there's many ways that we can look at it because it is reinforced. So yes, I totally agree with all of that. But the first area is the effects on the microbiome. And we get a decrease in the good bacteria. One for example, is lactobacillus. And we know that certain bacteria are needed to make. And you're transmitters, they they're termed psycho biotics for a reason because they, they involved in the production of Gaba in the production of serotonin.

So that is a huge impact. And I'm sure you've got many other speakers talking about the microbiome in this event. So I'm not going to go into more of that other than, say, that's going to then contribute to leaky gut. It's going to contribute to inflammation. It's going to have downstream metabolic effects. That's going to contribute to insulin resistance. Polycystic ovarian syndrome, which has the, blood sugar issues. And then also anxiety and mood issues contributes to blood sugar swings. So we you know, we have a high sugar or high carbohydrate breakfast.

And then we get the spike in blood sugar and then we get a crash. So then we're going to feel more anxious when we have that crash. We're going to have focus issues. We feel it irritability. And then we go for sugar again. So it becomes a vicious cycle. It depletes key, nutrients that are needed to make and brain chemicals like zinc and magnesium and the B vitamins. And then a lot of the B vitamins are made in the gut as well. We know it damages the liver. And we can end up with, fatty liver, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, NAFLD, which then are going to have downstream effects because we're not going to be able to detox some of the environmental toxins that we exposed to.

And then, of course, going down to obesity and heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease. And you mentioned this earlier. We're talking about white sugar, processed foods which contain high fructose corn sirup, brown sugar, orange juice sodas. And what we get in the junk food is also the colors and the additives and the preservatives. Gluten plays a role in this. Sometimes it's all carbs. That a problem for some people? Certainly if someone's got small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. You mentioned artificial sweeteners.

They disrupt the microbiome as well. And unfortunately, when we look at a lot of the research where they're talking about the impacts of sugar, they're often lumping it together with the high fat diet. So I really think we need to be separating that because the, the if it's healthy fats, that's a you know, that's not as a you know, it's not an issue like it is with processed and harmful fats. And we want more and more. And I mentioned the word addictive. And I know that a lot of people might hear that and feel like it's judgy and it's not. There's no judgment.

It's not sudden. It's not it's not a failing. We all feel shame. We might feel guilt. We try and hide the candies. We try not to have them in the house. We make them in the trash. And I don't know that I'm not an addiction expert, but I think I know that one of the first steps is of knitting it. Right. So this is it. This can be a powerful thing, right? It's just like assuming I'm like, man, I'm really I'm addicted. This and this acknowledging, oh, when I'm in this state, when I feel this way, boy, that the urge is just the pattern is so strong.

This is addictive tendency. And so that kind of takes the power away in my opinion, when you just kind of name it and just look at it for what it is, again, without the judgment, even judgment of yourself, say, wow, I'm really, really addicted to this stuff. This is interesting. The chocolate. I'm this really addicted to chocolate, right? And look, we can read health studies about how chocolate's beneficial and there's all these things in it, but it's like it's really not about that per se in the.

And I would dare say that even things that are healthy like exercise, if somebody is addicted to exercise and that's something to look at, it's like, what's driving the addiction. Not necessarily even the behavior is good or bad, but what is underlying that behavior and that addictive tendency because that there's something there to look at and to, to, to remedy. Yep. And there is such a thing as too much exercise. I've had had discussions with some people who are using it to address these neurotransmitter deficiency, so that we need to have a balance and address the some of the underlying, brain chemical imbalances that are driving these addictions.

And we talking about sugar today, but you mentioned alcohol that plays into it. A drugs that, you know, that all is driven by these new nicotine. Right. Very common that contain caffeine. Absolutely. Caffeine. Yep. Yeah. These are the common ones that, kind of get forgotten about because they're sort of socially acceptable now, right? Even alcohol. Right. We celebrate with that and all these things. So, you mentioned gab earlier, so maybe we can get into that a little bit. So how is it that we can use Gaba?

How can we influence it with nutritional means? Supplemental means to help break the sort of sugar addiction in that cycle that we can get in. So yes, Gabby, as I said earlier, it's an amino acid stands for gamma amino. But uric acid and we use it to raise levels of the neurotransmitter, which is also called Gaba. And what it does is it eases the anxiety physical tension. And I'll you a list of all the symptoms a little bit later. As we go into a little bit more how to assess if someone has let go.

But high level eases that physical tension where you're feeling it in your body and your gut and your belly. It helps with focus, helps sleep, and then, of course, it stops the stress eating. The one particular kind of of self-medicating that we do. But the interesting thing is that it even helps with some of the gut health issues that we've talked about. So, it's it helps leaky gut, this, one particular study that looked at alcohol consumption and how Gaba used as a supplement, it was an animal study, but it can start to heal leaky gut.

It also helps us sleep better. And that means we may not need to eat sugar in the day to keep going if we well rested. I mentioned the blood sugar swings. There's a there's, research showing it helps with, neurological support, cognition, liver benefits. And, so it's, it's and and then it starts to help with, obviously any of the symptoms that we've had with any of this, any of the deficiencies that we've had because of leaky gut. So we've got these nutritional deficiencies. And Gabe is going to be the stopgap to give you this relief while you're addressing all of those deficiencies.

How sugar harms the body and brain 19:48

And again, we I just want to say we don't want to be confused. We don't want to confuse Gaba with gabapentin. That's a prescription medication with side effects. You laugh. But a lot of doctors will use Gaba and gabapentin interchangeably. And it's one of the biggest questions that I get is gabapentin the same as Gaba? And they've gone to their doctor and said that, you know, they're using gap and the doctor will say yes, gabapentin. No, it's Gaba, an amino acid, not gabapentin. And I actually did an article on this.

Jason and I looked at some of the research papers, and they're actually in the papers on gabapentin. They're using Gaba. So it's it's everywhere. And I, I did want to just say this that they're not the same thing. Gabapentin is a prescription medication. There are side effects with it. And they all withdrawal symptoms needs to be at tapered very, very slowly and is a you know what we call discontinuation syndrome, where you have symptoms as you are withdrawing and it has been shown to contribute to dementia.

So it's not the same. And Gaba as the amino acid is, is very different and pretty effective very quickly. So yeah, I'm ready to talk about yeah how we use Gaba. Yeah I mean it to me it sounds like it's the neurotransmitter that is associated with well-being. Like it's just it's like the wellbeing neurotransmitter. It's like when we get that, it's like everything's good. Everything's okay then good. Everything's okay. Dopamine might be. Everything's good. This is like everything's okay. Like it's like I feel like it's the.

The Buddhist, neurotransmitter. It's. It's like it's all good. It's fine. You know? And it's it's. I love that you say that. I actually, I run a program teaching people how to use these amino acids. And I head and I teach, moms how to use it, and then they often use it with their kids. And, I had a mom in the group this week just. She's got a young adult daughter, and she said, my daughter, she's got P-series and PMS, there's polycystic ovarian syndrome, PMS and all these, like, symptoms. And, I used what I learned from you, and I had started using Gaba, and she just described herself as feeling giggly and joyful, and she hasn't felt that feeling in such a long time.

So what she said the just fits perfectly. It gives you that you. I don't often hear the term joyful, but you hear that giggly feeling because she wasn't under that constant stress and that constant feeling of tension and anxiety. You will feel giggly if you felt like that for 14 years. So they are. They are pretty amazing how people get these kind of, amazing, comments that I hear. And it's lovely. Anyway, so I'm sorry to interrupt. Yeah, maybe you can tell me some of the other symptoms of low Gaba.

Like how do you spot low Gaba in somebody. What are some of the signs. Yeah. So I have a symptoms questionnaire that I have, my clients and those in the program, go through and rate their symptoms on a scale of 1 to 10, with ten being most severe. We'll do I'll have them do a trial of Gaba and I'll talk about that in a second. And they want to write their symptoms before and then after and rating. I'll have them rate on a daily basis initially and then write, you know, each week and adjusting up and down to find the ideal dose because it's there's no one size fits all, obviously, with any of this.

But some of the symptoms on the, low Gerber's, quiz or symptoms questionnaire is feeling anxious, worried, fearful, often for no reason. As I said with me, there was no reason that I could that I could account for. There may be a reason as well. And then having these, low neurotransmitter levels will make things worse, unable to relax or loosen up. So feeling really tense, sort of sitting like this, lying in bed all tense. That's a big clue. So this physical tension and stuff or tense muscles feeling easily overwhelmed, feeling stressed and burned out, feelings of panic and possibly a full blown panic attack, intrusive and and unwanted thoughts.

Often that is associated with low serotonin. But, there's a paper that was published a few years ago, and I get this feedback from my clients all the time. So I'm adjusting my my symptoms questionnaire all the time based on what kind of research and what kind of feedback that I get. Fear of heights. There was a nice research paper on, people crossing a suspension bridge using Gaba, beforehand. And they found that that alleviated that fear of heights. Problems with sleep said could be falling asleep, staying asleep, lying in bed very stiff, intense, spinning and focus issues.

So I mentioned that was low Gaba. You may have focus issues and the spinning is like, I don't I really don't really know. Way to go. I don't know what to do next. Anger, rage and agitation. And that's also typically low serotonin. But I have a lot of feedback that it helps with the anger and, and rage issues. And then any kind of pain or spasm. So if you've got, belly pain, someone with IBS or Sibo, if they're getting visceral pain in the night, Gaba use topically can help Gaba used sublingual can help throat spasm.

So if you're getting spasms in your throat, back pain, rectal pain, bladder pain, Gaba can help. And then of course, the sugar and the carb cravings. So that's the stress eating, using sugar to self-medicate and then also self-medication with alcohol. I mean, briefly touched on alcohol, but I find that with low Gaba, using alcohol for self-medication is very common because it allows you to fit in socially, and it allows you to relax. A lot of people are feeling tense and they'll use alcohol to to relax.

And then there's also a Gaba imbalances in a number of conditions. And there's research supporting all of these certainly leaky gut and dysbiosis. I mentioned that, bladder urgency, lime induced anxiety. I've had a number of clients with Lyme disease with the associated, psychological symptoms and Gaba and other neurotransmitters helped. I mentioned PCOS, Tourette's, autism spectrum disorder, sound and tactile hypersensitivity, M.S. high blood pressure. Gab is amazing for helping to lower high blood pressure, as is taurine.

I mentioned irritable bowel but also colitis and Crohn's disease, burning mouth syndrome, Alzheimer's muscle activation, diabetes, and made PMS and Pmdd. So it's it's truly it's an amazing amino acid. And I'll have people read their symptoms and then look for these. And if they've got any of these conditions start to notice, my, my burning mouth has gone away. Much less sensitive to sound and and keep track on and see what kind of imbalances, and conditions they're starting to see improvements and.

Yeah. And it's I think it's great that you do the questionnaire to me. Like when it comes to neurotransmitters, this is the best way to just get a sense for serotonin, Gaba, you know, acetylcholine like all these things because you know, look in in integrative functional medicine, you know, a lot of people are just fall in love with testing. Right. And we've got some amazing functional tests out there. But, you know, urinary neurotransmitters, although we can test for them, it doesn't really give us an indication of what's going on in the body.

Right? So no matter what the tests show on a urinary neurotransmitter test, we cannot correlate that with, with with going on with what's going on in the body.

Using GABA to calm anxiety and cravings 27:28

Right. So the to me the questionnaire is like it's it's so much more accurate. And especially if you know what you're looking for like the pattern just jumps out at you. Absolutely. And I'm so glad you mentioned urinary neurotransmitter testing because I do not use it. I don't recommend it. And it's used unfortunately used to match. I totally agree. Testing is amazing. That is one test I don't use. I actually had someone, in one of my programs. She had had a, near neurotransmitter test done in urine, and it showed that she did not need Gaba.

She had been using Gaba at the time, and the practitioner that she was working with said, stop using Gaba. And I said, well, how is Gaba helping? How did you score on the questionnaire? She said it was helping. So she went back on it. And, you know, that's what I see all the time. We see this this discrepancy. And the question is, well, Jason, it says it gives you that, you can see, okay, this is what I've got going on. This is what I need to be addressing. Wow. Look, I'm seeing my my physical tension went from pain.

I notice things down to a five and I'm sleeping much better. It's not 100%, but now I need to increase the dose and find the right dose for me. And I'm not suddenly. Wow. I'm not even thinking about craving that. But the important thing is that I want to mention here that how you use Gaba is key, because a lot of people are just swallowing Gaba capsules, and that does not work with needs to be sublingual, it needs to be a powder. I have clients open the capsule. Liposomal works. While I'm at it.

I have them hold it on the tongue for 1 to 2 minutes, and you should see an effect within some people get an effect within 30s. They feeling that sort of physical? They'll say, I feel like I had a glass of wine and I'll say, yes, you want that feeling without the wine, so you'll feel that effect quickly. Sometimes it can take five minutes, ten minutes, depending on the person. But it's not a supplement where you take for a month and say, I'm not really sure if it's waking you. If you get the right dose and you do have lower Gaba, you're going to know right away.

There's also a cream that you can use topically, for physical tension, and also for the gut pain. And then creams are also helpful for kids who may be on the spectrum or maybe for, people with Alzheimer's, and they can't do some of these oral or sublingual forms. And then using how much you use is very key as well. So I'll have people start really low and increase slowly track and course. Correct. So based on the on the symptom resolution, we're seeing increase increase again increase again okay.

I didn't get any benefits. They go back to the previous dose. Some people once a day is enough. Some people need to use it spread out to add the day 4 or 5 times a day. And then some people do better on one form versus the other. And for some it's a preference. Some people don't like the taste of a sublingual, some people find opening the capsule, you know, difficult or not, you know, not very useful. And some people use a combination. They might use the sublingual during the day when they're out and about, and then use the powder.

Well, opening a capsule at night when it's easy to do. And then one of the thing I did want to mention about supplementing with, with Gaba is to match can cause adverse effects. You can feel a flash, you can feel a racing heart, you can have heart palpitations, you can feel uncomfortable. And unfortunately, that's what a lot of people. That's why a lot of people give up gave it. They they'll take too much or they'll swallow the capsule and not get any results. So obligate an adverse or not get any results at all.

And it's unfortunate because then they discover what I'm doing, or they hear from someone else that Gaba can actually work. And then they get on Gaba and they use it the right way. And they start to see these amazing benefits. So it's very individualized. It it's can be simple for some people. Some people just find a Gaba product. They take it and they have amazing results. Other people need to be a little bit nuanced and figure out and how it's going to work best for them. Yeah. So I mean, the reason we don't take oral, right?

In other words, we don't just swallow capsules because that can get broken down in the stomach acid and not really make it to where we want it to go. Right? Like it needs to go through the mucosa. Yes. And we've got Gaba receptors throughout the body. So a big myth that I have to dispel a lot is that probably the other biggest question I get is I can go and possibly work if it doesn't get through the blood brain barrier. And there's been a lot of research showing that it it's too big to get through the blood brain barrier.

Therefore, it's not going to help ease anxiety. There is some subsequent research to that initial research showing that there are other ways that it could get through the blood brain barrier, but the bigger thing is, does it need to get into the brain to have an effect? We have these Gaba, receptors all over the body. We've got them in, you know, in the endocrine system. We got them in our muscles. And so absorbing it through the Mercosur, we get this, that quick effect. So we're getting those results very quickly.

And then it's it's having a downstream effect. And then the other way that it there seems to be some research supporting it's the vagus nerve. So from the microbiome and messaging via the vagus nerve to the brain which is where we get these benefits. Okay. So you know, you mentioned kids. It's funny, I have a five year old that's, very active and noticed, as he was growing up, that he likes to he likes sugar. And I know this is pretty common for kids, but that was like a thing, like, you know, we give him good stuff, but it's still.

It was like that sweetness that he was looking for, which can be a soothing mechanism for kids. It's funny because, you know, for kids, we often say, okay, well, sugar is going to make them hyperactive. Actually, for some very active, hyperactive kids, sugar will calm them down. Right. So because of this effect. Right. And so we noticed that it's like he's going to this and he actually feels more regulated when he has, you know, some fruit or whatever. And so what we did was kind of lean into the Gaba and say, okay, well, let's get some sublingual and let's give him some Gaba, and l-theanine.

And so we gave that to him, which helped to kind of regulate his, his emotional state a little bit more. This brought me to the kind of the question that I wanted to ask, which is kids, it sounds like it's fine for kids. Is it fine for elderly? Is it fine for pregnant women? Is there anybody that Gaba should not be? Somebody should not try Gaba. Well, first I want to say wonderful. I just love that you you using this for your son. And that is it's helping him and you. So. Right. It can have different we can they can be different reasons why we self-medicate.

And yeah, the fact that that's working is amazing. So yes, for kids, it's amazing. I've had, with kids with anxiety issues you mentioned, you know, you're feeding them. Well, we always want to look at other things. What else is going on in the diet? Are they getting any caffeine? Are they what's the rest of their diet like? Are they getting quality animal protein first thing in the morning. Which I is one of those kids. Right. That's another parallel. Yeah. So there's all of these we need to look at.

So I don't I don't see a lot of people here. Oh okay. But that's the only thing that's going to work. We've got to look at everything else. But Gabe is going to give you that relief. And yeah said for kids it's fabulous. I will have them start much lower than adults with, people with Alzheimer's is a condition called and a sundowning where a lot of people with Alzheimer's get agitated and more anxious and actually aggressive in the evening. I've seen Gabor help in that case. Often the cream is very helpful, but also a lower dose, so you need a lower dose for all of the people.

When it comes to pregnancy and nursing, unfortunately, it's a no, and it's simply because there's just no research on it and we just don't know what it's going to do. So I wouldn't, I don't recommend it in pregnancy or nursing. So that's great to know that question. What about other nutrients, cofactors perhaps of whether it's B6 or zinc or anything else? Is there anything else that we might want to consider, supplementing with Gaba to help kind of that, that process. Yep. So I mentioned magnesium and zinc.

Those are important B6 as well. And you mentioned paranoia, which is the social anxiety condition which depletes zinc and vitamin B6. So having enough of those are important for the low Gaba. And then also for if they're social anxiety, it can. We just mentioned that real quick the earlier because we'd kind of thrown around. And most people probably don't know what this is, but this is kind of a genetic and constitutional thing. This is some people deplete B6 and zinc very rapidly. Right. And so they actually need to supplement with B6 or zinc or that at least they don't need to.

It's beneficial for, for a lot of these people because of whatever stresses in their life could be mental stress, could be physical stress, whatever any of the stressor is going to deplete B6 and zinc much quicker in certain people. Right. And I've had, worked with parents who had kids that they just couldn't figure out what was going on. It was anxiety. It was anger, frustration. It was lack of sleep. It was just like all this stuff. And, you know, the first thing it sounds like, oh, it's trauma, right?

And there's something going on there. There's something in the household, there's something underlying this. And, eventually it's like, okay, well, let's let's rule this out. And we just did a test for power, a very cheap and easy test, actually. Blood test. And or maybe it's a urine test. I could actually, I can't remember. Yeah. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and did the simple test and recognize.

Low GABA symptoms, testing, and dosing 36:48

Oh. Okay. And this is they have a genetic sort of setup. You could say it's not a condition. It's just the way that they're wired. And let's try supplementing some B6 and some zinc. And my. Got it. That didn't work. You know, it was like so simple at that point. It is it is amazing. And you know, it's a it's an important one to talk about. I have it as I totally relate. It was one of my factors. And you you mentioned it's genetic. There is actually, interestingly enough, Doctor Klinghoffer, it feels that there's also an environmental aspect.

So it's for some people. Yeah, yeah, some kind of environmental toxin. Lead, mercury, whatever. Emfs. Electric magnetic fields can also make it worse. I'm not. I'm not sure. I mean, I, I mean, I like clean heart. I, I'm going to say I think you work for some of the most complex cases. And he does. He just got he carries a lot of weight with me because of that. Like when people get stuck, they go to him. Right. And that's not easy to work with him and all that. But yeah, but yeah, yeah it's good.

Good to mention that that you know he thinks that. But I think it's worth considering for sure. Yeah definitely. And and the but talking about whether it's, you know, something inherited it definitely runs in families that I've seen. And it's made worse by stress so that the any kind of stress going on in your, in your body, it whether you've got gluten issues, that's a stress whether you've got in toxins that you've been exposed to that's the stress or just outside stressors everyday stressors.

You lose zinc vitamin B6 and you need to supplement with them. And definitely if you have them. You mentioned the, urine test. I have found a lot of false negatives on the urine test, so I use the symptom questionnaire, I use it I've sort of used a Joan Matthews Larson's, symptom questionnaire and have expanded on that over the years as I've worked with, with folks. So if someone scores highly on that questionnaire, then they may want to do the testing. But I've had people do the test and come back negative, not do anything, and then discover the questionnaire.

So I think we need to go on symptoms right now. I've done enough urine tests and come back and compare them with the questionnaire that I, I feel comfortable saying for most people we don't need to do the urine test, but some people want that as confirmation. Certainly if there's a family and maybe the wife's on board and the husband is and then, you know, or vice versa, or whatever, it can't be helpful. But yes. So the symptoms are this, for a lot of people, it's social anxiety. And you push through and you deal with it and you put on a brave face and it's, so social anxiety, a lot of muscle issues and joint issues, sleep problems.

And a lot of people will, as I say, push through and just deal with it. And I've actually seen connections with introversion as well. And a lot of introverts have paranoia. A lot of introverts get really mad with me when they say, leave me alone. I'm fine being an introvert. But my my question is, if you are an introvert and you are putting on this brave face and you are feeling so incredibly anxious when you do go out and you do extrovert because that's what introverts often do, because we've got to do that at some point, right? Yeah, yeah.

And it's 50% of the population that, sort of we think are introverts. And I would say that 50% of the population probably has paranoia or some kind of need for zinc and B6. We mentioned zinc can B6 is also a fatty acid, factor to it. And a lot of people with paranoia do not need a mega three supplementation. They can extract the omega threes from their food, but they need, GLA. So evening primrose oil is very helpful. And I've done fatty acid testing and seen a correlation there. Well, here's what's cool, right?

I mean, I love some of the integrative functional tests we have out there. And yet they're not perfect. None of them, no matter how good they are. So you get into a sticky situation sometimes when you get these false negatives. Right. It's like, okay, well, I don't have that. Well, maybe right, maybe not. Right. So I'm glad you brought that up. But what's cool is that you can supplement with Gaba, you can supplement with B6, you could supplement with zinc, you could supplement with GLA. These are pretty cheap.

It's pretty easy to kind of give yourself a test. There's not a lot of downsides that you're going to get other than maybe the cost. And then of course, taking the pills and maybe the sublingual or whatever. But it's a really easy way to just see is this going to help? Right. And with something, you know, this is the problem with many supplements is we're taking them and trusting that it's doing something right. Okay, I'm taking this thing and it's supporting my body somehow. But with this you should be noticing something, right?

Assuming that you're taking the proper approach, you have the proper form in. You're you're you have the proper dose. That's the good thing is that the test is in is in taking the supplements and seeing if it works. Right. And it's reinforcing and it's giving you hope right away with anything. 100% with them can't be understated. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And with the amino acids, as I said, it can be 30s to a few minutes with the power L'Oreal supplements. I've seen shifts and people, within a week, a week to two weeks with, with doing that.

And now suddenly they want to go out. They don't you know, they didn't before. They didn't even want to have family come around for a family dinner. It was just, you know, too much for them. So yeah, it's you're right. It's it's it's it's amazing. It really. Well, you know, I think it's worth stating you said it, but I just want to reinforce this, that, that I think both Trudy and I are not advocating for. These are solutions to all of your problems. If you have anxiety. Right. Or any other issues.

But these can be not only just a Band-Aid or a, crutch. Right? They can kind of be that, that thing that gets you over, but they can be supportive as you as you address some of the deeper things that might be going on as well. Right? So it's like, yes, these can be sort of solutions in their own right. If, if your main issue is neurotransmitter imbalances, unable to produce these things, this could be like the thing that you need. And that's the that's the final straw and you're good to go. Or this can be super supportive in balancing your neurotransmitters, getting you a place of stability.

Right. So that you can function and address some of these other things that might be there might be toxins, might be, you know, metals might be emfs might be trauma. And stress in other ways. So there's lots that could be going on simultaneously. Right. And I'm sure you run into this all the time and it's like, okay, this is good. We want to address this. And we got to keep our sort of detective hat on a little bit and see if there's other things going on. Yeah, 100%. And I just want to reiterate something you said that, Jason, is that I have a few people kickback and say you just using a bandaid with Gaba and I, I disagree with that because low Gaba is a root cause in itself.

But you are addressing that first. So you've got that relief. You don't have that overwhelm. You can now give up the sugar and the gluten and everything, and you can feel better not having the panic attacks, not feeling uncomfortable. And now you go and dig and dig deeper to find what other root causes which may have contributed to the low Gaba in the first place, like gluten issues, the microbiome. Lead, mercury, you name it. They all said all. It is all part of the picture. Yeah. I mean, it's it's like a lever, like it's I kind of look at hormones the same way.

Right. If you take, you know, a hormone approach, you can take, you know, exogenous hormones that can actually. Because hormones do stuff. Gaba does stuff, right? Like, this can be a really functional way to get the body back on track, to get your behavior, to get your mental framework. Like this is a real lever that we're pulling. It's not just, some nutrient that just kind of a Band-Aid. Right. So I'm glad you said that because it's it's really important to recognize this can be a step one in a major shift for you.

And look, the reality is, as a practitioner, as a nutritionist, as anybody working with clients knows that if you can get somebody to take a positive step and they notice something that directional shift can be the difference between the success and not right. Like we just need we need to get some wins. And so as somebody who suffered from chronic ailments, you too, it's like, if I could just get a win, you know, then I'd be happy. You know, it's like, that's really all we're looking for is that forward momentum, that progress.

And sometimes it can be as little as this and it's like, oh my God, something's working. Something's shifting. Right. And it may not even be shifting all the time, but I noticing something that's a that's a huge deal maker. For, for a lot of people suffering. It is. And a lot of people will come and work with me and say, I'm working on my gut, and then I'll address the neurotransmitters. I always start with the neurotransmitters. And these amino acids because you're getting that quick solution. And yes, you've got to address those other factors.

But, it's just, you know, and that's why I've really gravitated towards this. And this is why I would love all practitioners to be using the amino acids like this, because you're getting that result. And now your, your client or your patient is more engaged and more motivated to do other things because they are getting that, that result.

Who can use GABA and where to learn more 45:38

So I'm really glad that you said that. Very well summarized literally. This has been fantastic. I love the work, the work that you're doing. And please tell people where they can find more of your work and maybe even how to work with you. So I my book, The Anti-anxiety Food Solution, talks about the gut and diet. And I've got a chapter in there on the amino acids. Send out a newsletter each week, and I have a blog post where I share case studies, so there's a lot of resources there. I have a six week, online program group program where I teach people how to safely and effectively use cabbage.

It's called the Gerber Quickstart program. I've also got one for serotonin, and then I've got a practitioner training, which is going to be relaunched with some updates because I want more and more practitioners to use this. I've also got a, I've got a link to the low gave us symptoms questionnaire. Can I show you that for sure. Yeah absolutely. See if they've got them. So if they go to Anxiety Nutrition institute.com/low Gaba quiz. As I'll say it again anxiety Nutrition institute.com low Gaba quiz.

And then you can see do you resonate with these low Gaba symptoms. And then figure out is this, you know, driving your, your kind of anxiety symptoms. Is it driving your sugar cravings? And, hopefully, start to consider, Gaba and some of the other things that we've talked about today and. Well, I love it. And it's again, it's super low risk. Like this is one of those things that is almost worth to try just because, like, just to see how it affects you. Right. And it's super practical. So the more I, get into my practitioner work, the more practical I get with all these things.

And this is one of those things where it's just super, super practical. So, again, Trudy, thank you so much for for coming on today. Thanks so much for having me. I look forward to sharing this whole event with my community as well. Thanks, Jason.