Using Amino Acids and Low Dose Lithium for Anxiety

Trudy Scott, CN

Thanks Dr. Jockers. It was my own personal experience. I was in my late thirties and started to get increasingly anxious. I had panic attacks, I developed social anxiety and this was all pretty crazy because I had always considered myself a very social person world traveler. I spent, you know, years backpacking through Europe and rock climbing and doing all adventurous things and suddenly I had this terrible anxiety and fears of the, you know, just fear of everything and there was nothing that was actually causing it. And I worked with a wonderful natural path and a nurse practitioner and discovered this powerful connection between what we eat, certainly food and then specific nutrients and how that can cause anxiety and found solutions, not all the solutions that took me a number of years to find all my solutions, but I was so impressed by what I learned.

 I went back to school to study to become a nutritionist, I was actually working in corporate America as a computer programmer at the time, so I went back to school, became a nutritionist, started to help people and then I just thought I want folks to have the answers that I didn’t have when I was looking. And I read prolifically when I was going through my anxiety issues and I thought well the book is a great place for people to get started to give them hope and to give them some practical solutions, so thanks for your feedback, I’m glad it’s been useful for you. And it’s amazing how people can pick it up and get information. And then sometimes it’s not as straightforward as I’ve laid out in the book. And then you’ve got to dig a little bit deeper. But the answers and there’s hope, which is amazing.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah, for sure. And you’re constantly researching and you put out great content on your blog as well, everywomanover29.com. So you guys can check out her blog as well. Really, really great. Great information there and you have found that there’s two main neurotransmitter types. Whenever you’re looking at somebody with anxiety, it’s kind of one of your first places that you look at these two main neurotransmitter types, what are those?

Trudy Scott, CN

So they are to that definitely stand out when it comes to anxiety. And we’re gonna talk in detail about both of those. But low Gaba is one of them and that is the physical kind of anxiety where you feel it in your shoulders and your neck, you may feel it in your gut and we’ll go through all the symptoms of what low gable looks like and how we deal with it. The other one is low serotonin and low serotonin differs from the low Gaba type of anxiety because it’s in your head. Ruminating thoughts? Re-processing, rethinking, imagining the worst, having fears, that kind of thing. So one is physical, the other is more mental and worrying and for folks who don’t know what neurotransmitters are. They are chemical messengers and then we have, we can use specific amino acids depending on your neurotransmitter deficiency, which then helps to top up your level. So for example, if you’ve got low gaba, the physical kind of anxiety and use an amino acid called Gaba. And if you’ve got low serotonin, you’d use an amino acid called tryptophan or five HTP. And this helps these are precursors to help you make your own neurotransmitters. There’s other precursors which are nutrients that are sort of raw materials that we need. Zinc is a very important one, vitamin B six, magnesium evening primrose oil. All of those help to make our but when we use the individual amino acids that you’ll get results very quickly. So we start with looking at the symptoms questionnaire, we figure out is it low Gaba, is it those serotonin? And then we address each one of those and as I said, it’s, it’s typically straightforward. We look at the symptoms, we trial the Gabba or the trip to fan and we get results. Sometimes the results are not as clear as we would expect. 

And in that case low lithium is one instance that we may look at and we’ll talk about that a little bit later. But most of the time we look at the symptoms, we do a trial of the amino acid and we should expect results within under five minutes. Now, a question that people will say to me, I’ve got a look at the symptoms. I’ve got low gable and I got low serotonin, where do I start? So we’ll look at, well, I’ll ask the client that I’m working with which area is most problematic for you. Have you got these ruminating, excessive thinking where you can’t switch your mind off at night? And that may be more important than if you’ve got physical anxiety. Whereas for someone else you may have really stiff and tense muscles, you may be self medicating with wine and then we want to focus on the low Gabo. But then we’ll go back and we’ll address the other area as well. And you asked about my journey and I’m personally, I call myself a gamer girl. 

Gaba saved my life when I was having severe anxiety and panic attacks. It is my symptoms very quickly. I also use a tryptophan, which we’ll talk about in a second. And that helped me personally with the worrying. I was just, you know, I grew up being a worrier worrying was sort of in our family and we always think, well it’s in your family. You know, it’s normal. But there’s a biochemical aspect to a lot of this and you can change things. The other thing that was a big thing with me was perfectionism. I remember in my corporate job. Being told in one of my reviews, you’re too perfect. You want everything to be perfect. You know, you won’t get anything slide and that’s what I was and you know, nothing wrong with doing things perfectly. But if it’s holding you back, that can be a problem. And then we’re going to talk about lithium or rotate when we talk about the low lithium and I’ll share the success that I’ve seen with lithium or rotate as well.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah, it’s really interesting. I want to talk more about that. So let’s start with the gaba imbalance. You talked about being a physical anxiety type where you feel a lot of tightness in your shoulders, tightness in your body. Can you go into more detail what are some of the other symptoms that people experience when they have a gaba imbalance?

Trudy Scott, CN

Yes. So other than the tightness it can be in any place and I’ll give you some examples. Let me give you a few other examples. So you can feel it in your legs, you can feel it in your belly. You can also actually have spasm. So, visceral pain in the belly. If someone’s got RBS and they got that bloating and it’s pushing on the belly that can be related to low gaba. And I’ve seen Gaba help a lot with that? So any kind of pain where you’ve got pressure or you’ve got muscles that are involved in the other area, certainly as far as physical laryngeal spasm. So if you getting spasms when you’re trying to swallow you’re trying to eat if you’ve got a lump in the throat which is a global this, I actually had that at one stage where you feel like you’ve got this golf ball in your throat and you feel like you can’t actually swallow because you think with I swallow, I’m gonna choke. 

I actually remember going and looking in the mirror and thinking, have I got something in my throat because I just felt this terrible lump in my throat. So anything kind of physical burning of the mouth can be related to low gaba, rectal spasms can be related to low gaba, I’ve experienced that as well. I’ve experienced everything that the community comes to low gaba and I’ve learned as I’ve gone through and then shared what I’ve learned and looked at some of the research, so as well as the physical tension and and these other sort of spasm type situations, I mentioned this self medicating with alcohol. So with all of the neurotransmitters Dr. Jockers, cause there’s a cravings aspect or addiction aspect. So with the low gaba, it’s needing something in order to relax. 

So it could be stress eating for carbs or it could be using alcohol or wine at the end of the day. You get to the end of the day stressful, you fetch the kids, there’s things happening in the house, someone hasn’t got homework, someone’s left something behind, you just can’t find something, you just totally stressed, I’ve got to just have a glass of wine, have a glass of wine and you just think now I can relax if that’s the case, then I start and you’ve got these other symptoms. Then we start thinking about low gaba. And when someone uses Gaba they will say, I just feel like I had a glass of wine. That’s the effects that we’re looking for with the gable. So the problem with the alcohol is we often, you know, we use it when we go and socialize. Then we start to have too much and alcohol in itself is depleting the B vitamins. It depletes B one, it depletes some of the other B vitamins. And then that’s going to cause some downstream effects because of some deficiencies. Some of the other symptoms you’ll see with low Gaba is insomnia. And we’ll see that also. So with low serotonin, but the kind of insomnia that we’ll see with low Gaba is lying there feeling stiff. You may be lying in bed and thinking, oh, why is my neck so tight? Why am I just relaxed? Why am I so tight here? So that can definitely happen with low Gaba? And then an interesting one is intrusive thoughts which we typically associate with low serotonin. But there was a study published in 2017 where they actually tied low Gaba to these unwanted thoughts, unpleasant memories, images or worries. 

Now it wasn’t a study looking at the use of Gaba to help. But they did look at gaba levels in the brain and they found that they were low so sometimes you know with the research we have to extrapolate and then see what you know clinically what we see. And then two other ones that I wanted to mention is sort of a poor focus thing. If you’re very very anxious and you’re very tense it can affect your ability to focus. And there was one study where they looked at actually using Gaba and that they were actually using them you know, acid Gaba and they found that those that are used Gaba were better able to prioritize their planned actions. And we sort of could say well is this like A D. D., A. D. H. D. kind of situation the Gaba calms you down, then you can focus and then you can get things done.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah. Really interesting. And I know that Gaba of course is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, it’s calming you know we call it like the breaks in the brain and you’ve got glutamate which is an excitatory neurotransmitter kind of like the gas in the brain and the same precursor amino acid like glue tannic acid is used to to make glutamate and also Gaba but some people don’t convert as well and there’s of course some certain nutrients I believe B six magnesium zinc might play a role in that as well the conversion of glutamate into Gaba. And some people just aren’t converting well And other people have antibodies as well to believe it is glutamate d car box lace that enzyme. And so are you seeing those things?

Trudy Scott, CN

Well, I’ll always start with Gaba. And then the other area that we’re looking at is low blood sugar and in that case I’ll give glutamine and as you say, the glutamine can convert to Gaba so it can be calming as well. But for some people I find the glutamine is too stimulating as you say, and then we will address other factors that may be causing there low blood sugar, like looking at adrenals for example. But I find so the big thing with Gaby is you want to start really low dose and I’ll get a lot of feedback saying I tried Gabe and it was too stimulating. What made me more anxious. And a lot of people will start with 500 mg or even 750 mg. And I have clients start with 125 mg. And I’m actually working with someone at the moment who’s just opening a capsule and going like that and putting little Dave on her tongue and that’s enough for her. So we are very individualized. We have different needs. 125 mg is a typical good starting dose. Sublingual is the best way to do it. 

I don’t often see people do really well with it swallowed. So using that small dose and then looking at those symptoms that I just mentioned rating them on a scale of 1 to 10. For example, I’ve got this belly pain and I’ve got I’m feeling stiff and tense. It’s a 10 and I crave something in order to, you know, stress, eat take some Gaba to rate them, you know, 10 out of 10 or nine out of 10. Take some Gaba a 125 mg. Sublingual and see how the, how the symptoms change and within five minutes you should say, okay, that belly pains eased a little bit. I’m not feeling so stiff in my neck and I’m not even thinking about that. Whatever it was the, you know, the cookie or whatever it is that I was going to use to relax. So you will get results very quickly. If you don’t, then you would do another Gaba. And I mention a product. Is that all right?

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Go ahead, Go right ahead.

Trudy Scott, CN

So, I like an over the counter products or Source Naturals gave a comet. It’s doubling well, it’s 100 and 25 mg. It’s got a tiny bit of piracy in just 25 mg which counters the effects of the Gaba. So it’s not too relaxing in the day and some people even find it helps with sleep and the reason I like it because it’s handy and you can carry it around with you and it’s sublingual. So you’re getting those results very quickly. Now it does, 

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

It bypasses the digestive system and it gets right in through the saliva and into the bloodstream. 

Trudy Scott, CN

Absolutely. That’s why we get those results quickly. And I’ve seen people say they’ve tried gave it hasn’t worked and if they’re swallowing it, maybe that’s the reason they then go and use it. Sublingual e that can make a difference. And I do want to just mention urinary neurotransmitter testing because that has done a lot. It’s sort of a lot of practitioners start to do that. Then they realize it’s not really working. It’s not a valid test. I actually did a recent blog post about a situation where someone actually commented on one of my blog saying, I looked at your symptoms questionnaire, I figured out I had Low Gaba. I bought the Gaba my test, came back from a practitioner and said my gaba was high and we don’t know what to do. So I said, well, if you’ve got the symptoms of low Gaba, what about doing a trial and seeing if that could make a difference. I shared it on Facebook and I had a whole host of people saying the same thing that happened to them. They were one of them was actually told by her practitioner to stop the game, but that she was taking, that was working and was helping her. And when she read about my feedback, she got back on the game. And it helped. So it showed that she had high gaba on the urinary neurotransmitter test and in actual fact she had low gable and gable was helping her. So that’s just one example. I just don’t use that. It’s so much easier just to use the symptoms questionnaire. See your results, do a trial and see if it works.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah there you go. And you don’t need to do lab testing with that.

Trudy Scott, CN

And it’s expensive and I’m not against lab testing by any means. I think it’s great to have you know look at blood work. I like to look at adrenal testing. We look at stool food sensitivities but this is one that I just think we need to not be using.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah for sure. And now you talked about Gaba neurotransmitter imbalance. The other big one was the serotonin neurotransmitter imbalance. So what are some of the other symptoms that you’ll see associated with that?

Trudy Scott, CN

So in addition to the ruminating thoughts and the worry. We’ll see panic attacks phobias. So fear of driving over bridges, fear of flying, fear of spiders. Fears of other things. Just fears of just feeling fearful even if there’s not something specific that you’re fearful about obsessive thoughts or behavior. So we can see full blown O. C. D. With low serotonin or we can just see someone having these obsessive thoughts. Thinking about something that they need to do or that they’ve said I mentioned perfectionism over controlling, very controlling of someone else or even yourself. That’s low serotonin irritability, a big thing that we see as winter blues or seasonal effective disorder, which is the low mood in the wintertime. And there’s actually, I think, two studies that show that anxiety is worse in the winter and that correlates with the low serotonin aspect, serotonin takes a dip in the wintertime. So when we are using serotonin support, which we’ll talk about in a second sometimes when we need to increase that in the winter time to help. 

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Because sun exposure increases serotonin levels.

Trudy Scott, CN

Yes. And also there’s a vitamin D connection. So vitamin D. Is needed for serotonin production and that often we’ll see go down in the winter time. So yeah, it’s very interesting and the light, full spectrum light is amazing in the winter time. In addition to some of the amino acids, which helps to raise serotonin levels. So yeah, the light is a big thing and I just say to my clients, you know, if you’re living in a winter, replace, you can get out in the winter, you can take up Nordic skiing or you can go snowshoeing or you can, you just dress appropriately and you get out there and that reflection of sun off the snow is very helpful for that in that kind of situation. Okay then, if you’re going to ask a question there and then I’ll give you a few more symptoms.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah, no, I was just going to send me and you know, the sun. Just even getting out. Even if it is in the middle of the winter, just help set your circadian rhythm is going to give you more energy throughout the day. Help you sleep better at night. So yeah, it’s invaluable.

Trudy Scott, CN

Yeah, it is. And the other aspect with close to returning is the sleep one. So we see it with low gaba, but we also see it with low serotonin and serotonin takes a dip at the end of the day, which is why we use tryptophan towards the end of the day, but it can go too low. And as you know, Dr. Jockers, serotonin is needed to make melatonin. And if you don’t have enough serotonin, you’re not gonna have enough melatonin. So yes, the light that is so important. Early morning light to reset your circadian rhythm. So it’s all very connected. A few other symptoms we’ll see is this low self esteem and lack of confidence, sensitivity to hot weather, anger or rage issues. Now we don’t see all of these symptoms with everyone. But you may have someone who’s got these fears and anxiety and they’ve just got this explosive anger and we’ve got to kind of tease it out because that anger and rage can be low blood sugar. But that’s why we do the trial of the amino acids and then we see is the support that we’re trying to give for low serotonin helping with those anger or rage issues. And then we’ll also see fibromyalgia. So pain, TMJ, other pain issues can be related to low serotonin and then I mentioned the sleep and it can be difficult to getting to sleep or waking in the night and then the addictive aspect or the cravings aspect for the low serotonin is afternoon and evening cravings and that can be for carbohydrates. 

Typically carbs, sugary things. A bowl of ice cream or you know, a bowl of cereal with milk as a classic one, chocolate. And people saying, you know, I don’t really want and I want to save space for dessert. So if someone’s really liking desserts after dinner and they’ve got the other low serotonin symptoms, then we start to think about low serotonin. And then the other one that I did want to mention is hormonal issues. So both serotonin and gaba are closely tied to our hormones gather to progesterone, serotonin to estrogen. So we’ll see PMS or menopausal mood swings when serotonin is low as well.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Oh yeah, that’s really interesting. And so and a lot of women, especially as they get into perimenopause and into menopause they start to notice a lot more anxiety. Trouble sleeping, things like that, that they may not have had when they were younger as their hormones start dropping.

Trudy Scott, CN

That’s exactly what happened to me late thirties. I mean I didn’t even know what perimenopause was at the time, someone’s mentioned, one of the doctors I saw said you might want to think about perimenopause and I said I’m in my late thirties, I don’t have to think about menopause until I’m 50. That’s what I thought, that’s how clueless I was. And yeah, we need to be aware that things can change and what was what I didn’t mention, it was a big factor in me. You know, I had this perfect storm, it wasn’t just low Gaba, low serotonin. I also had gluten issues. I had very heavy, you know, high heavy metals. I had a mouthful of amalgams. I had changed to a vegetarian diet, but the other big thing, that was a big driving factor for me, which I see with so many of my clients were stressed. So I was working in this corporate job, I was hugely stressed out. I was working very long hours and when you affect your cortisol levels that has a downstream effect on your hormones. So we’ve got to be thinking about, you know, what are some of the upstream things that were causing this. The amino acids are amazing for getting relief, but we don’t just don’t just stop there, we look upstream and we see what else can we do? We give the amino acids immediately, so we’re getting relief. So we get feeling hope, but then we’ve got to go upstream and look at all the upstream factors as well.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah, absolutely, no doubt about it. And so you mentioned with serotonin types, you like to use trip to fan, I know there’s another compound called five HTP that also will help boost serotonin. How do you know what to use when like which, which of those is your favorite and how do you know when to use tryptophan versus five HTP.

Trudy Scott, CN

So I typically start with tryptophan and the reason I do that is there’s two papers and I’ve had quite a lot of clinical feedback where five HTP can make you a little bit more agitated if you’ve got high cortisol and one paper showed that it actually raised cortisol levels, it’s not across the board. You know, there are some people that I’ve had that have high cortisol and they do fine with five HDP, but until we know what the cortisol levels are like, I just like to go on the side of caution and start with tryptophan that being said, some people do well with one and some do well with the other and it’s a matter of trial and error. I will say that my, most of the time I’m using tryptophan and I get pretty good results. Now there is a situation where you might, as I said earlier, you’re using tryptophan or five HTP afternoon and evening as the serotonin goes down. But there are cases where I might have someone be using tryptophan in the evening to help with their sleep and the evening symptoms and then a little bit of five HTP in the day. 

So you can mix and match and it’s really a matter of doing trials and figuring it out and again all those symptoms I just mentioned, we just rate them on a scale of 1 to 10. We do a trial and we should see results quickly with tryptophan and five HTP. I like to use the capsule opened to do the trial. There’s also a chewable tryptophan that are sometimes used for doing a trial. And you should get results very quickly as well. And a lot of people say You know, how could this work so quickly? Am I imagining it the placebo effect? But you really do get results quickly. If you have the low neurotransmitter imbalance and if you have the right product and if you have the right dose now may not be you may not get those, you know, it may not go from a 10 to a two the first time you do it you may need to increase your dose but you should be feeling something and it does work that quickly. Now there is a precaution with both tryptophan and five HTP possibility of serotonin syndrome. 

So definitely with someone’s on an SSRI which is an antidepressant. Serotonin Selective Reuptake Inhibitors like PROzac or Zoloft, I will work in conjunction with their doctor and make sure their doctors on board to monitor for serotonin syndrome and then have them do the amino acid at least six hours away for from the antidepressant. So if they’re doing the antidepressant at night, get the doctor’s permission to switch to the morning so they can do the trip to fan mid afternoon and in the evening and that is fine. If someone’s on multiple antidepressants and antipsychotics which is not unusual. I will not I don’t recommend using tryptophan or five HTP. They need to work with the doctor to get down to one and then we can do that and then just be aware that there’s a lot of other medications that can cause serotonin… can have the potential to cause serotonin syndrome. There’s some anti-inflammatory medications, there’s some nasal congestion. So anytime someone’s on medications I’ll always just go and see if there’s any possible serotonin syndrome possibility and then just make sure the doctors on board to be monitoring.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

And so what was the dose again of the tryptophan or five HTP?

Trudy Scott, CN

Yes. Thanks for asking. 500 mg is a typical starting dose for tryptophan for adults. The chewable that I mentioned is 100 mg and that’s a nice dose to do a trial and it’s a nice starting dose for kids. And unfortunately it’s a little bit sweet. So it’s not something that I would like someone to be using long term just you end up eating it like candy because it does taste pretty good. But then it’s going to defeat the object if you’ve got a carb addiction with low serotonin but it does work very, very quickly. And then the five HTP 50 mg is a typical starting dose. And then for kids 25 mg and there is some time release five HTP. I haven’t seen that to be any better than you using just a regular five HTP And there are a few sublingual five HTP which can be helpful. 

But then once you’ve done that initial trial swallowing trip to France, swallowing the five HTP seems to be okay. There are some instances, as you mentioned earlier where there’s digestive problems and then using it. Sublingual e is just holding it in the mouth is helpful, fortunately the trip to the powder does not taste pleasant. Not like Gaba, which just has sort of an innocuous kind of slightly sweet taste. And then if someone is having a problem with the taste, I might have them mixed it with a little bit of mashed up banana or a little bit of a non settle which has a slightly sweet taste that can make a difference. If they’re having problems with the taste and that’s the way that they’re getting the most benefits.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

And so 500 mg tryptophan once a day, basically. 

Trudy Scott, CN

Twice a day starting. So the starting is mid afternoon and then in the evening, so that’s a typical starting and then someone, if they’re waking in the night, they may use another dose of trip to fan. But ideally we want to get the afternoon and the evening dose up. So they’re not waking in the night. But initially it may be three times and then if they’re needing the five HTP during the day as well, they’re needing some serotonin support. Some people do find tryptophan in the day, others they need a little bit less or they find it makes them a little bit sleepy so it is mixing and matching. I’ve had a few people say I’m tired of being an experiment here. Just tell me what I should do. I just wish there was a protocol that everyone can do. 

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

But everybody is unique.

Trudy Scott, CN

Yeah, I mean typically 500 mg, mid afternoon evening is a good starting dose. And for a lot of people that’s great. But then others need to mix and match. 

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

And then if they do the five HTP, it’s a lower dose 50 mg and that’s because five HTP is basically tryptophan converts to five HTP which then converts to serotonin and so it’s further along down the pathway. So you don’t need as much.

Trudy Scott, CN

Absolutely, yeah. 

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

That makes sense. Now you had mentioned lithium as well, low dose lithium. And so lithium of course is a very strong medication, lithium carbonate. Now you mentioned lithium or irritate and using very low dose of that. So let’s talk about your experience with that.

Trudy Scott, CN

Yes. So as I said, typically we’re going to have, you know, we’ll see someone with low serotonin or low Gaba and rate their symptoms. Do a trial of Gaba or tryptophan five HTP and we’ll see results. Now there are instances where we see the low symptoms and we think yes, tryptophan is definitely gonna help five HTP is going to help this low serotonin or Gaba is going to help the logo symptoms but we’re not getting the expected symptoms. So part of my intake process is I’ve got a low lithium questionnaire that I’ve actually compiled from a number of studies and articles and things that I’ve read and presentations that I’ve heard. I want to give a shout out to Dr. James Greenblatt. He’s got a little book on lithium and I’ve heard him present a number of times. And I was using lithium before before his book came out and it’s but it was so wonderful to see a psychiatrist. Integrative psychiatrist embracing lithium, low lithium. So we’ll talk about how that differs from the prescription, which you just mentioned. 

But the big clue is we’ve got mood swings or we’ve got this roller coaster of emotions. So what we’ve got is someone’s feeling good then they feel bad, then they feel good, then they feel bad then they feel good. So what we’ve got is a moving goalpost. So the amino acids can’t work when we’ve got this up and down and up and down. So I’ll have someone do this, symptoms questionnaire and I’ll read through what some of the symptoms are in a second and then we’ll use low dose lithium and it differs from the prescription lithium, which is lithium carbonate, which is used in much higher doses. What we’re using is lithium or irritate. And what that does is it evens things out now. It’s a little bit tricky and there’s always a little, you know, we’ve always got a sort of fine tune things. The mood swings could be caused by other things that might not be low lithium. It could be Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. 

For example, if you’ve got underactive thyroid symptoms where you still feel flat and low and tired and then suddenly you get a little surge, then you’re feeling a little bit more energetic and you may be feeling a little bit anxious. So that’s one cause another one is gluten. If you’ve been exposed to gluten, you can feel flat and then you can feel okay again, if you’ve got hormone imbalances. So we’ve got to tease out which it is. But let me just read a few of the symptoms here that I’ve identified in the research as being tied to low lithium and you’ll hear some of them show up in other areas. So it’s not just tied to this. So we’ve got the mood swings, we’ve got the addictions. There’s a number of studies showing that lithium helps with alcohol addiction, which is very, very exciting. So any kind of addiction or craving, we’ve got the low mood, low self esteem, boredom, easily distracted. So, those are things we would see with low cata cola means as well, but we have aggressiveness and disruptive behavior and rebelliousness. So in teens we want to be thinking about it if we see if we see that we’ve got the restless internal anxiety which is similar to the low serotonin and then we also have the red external anxiety and I’m using terms that is in the research and I would sort of equate that to the low Gaba, kind of physical anxiety and lithium is, is helpful for making Gaba. So we can see why we might have that. The other thing we have is suicidal thoughts. Disorganized procrastinate, no initiative, Jack of all trades master of none. So someone sort of scattered all over the place, impulsive or lacking tact poor inside risky behavior, cognitive issues. A number of studies on dementia and proposing that low lithium could be tied to Alzheimer’s, So that’s really, really interesting and as I said, lithium reduces the excitatory dopamine and glutamate, which you talked about earlier and it increases, gather neurotransmission. 

So we’re getting those benefits as well. Now I just want to just clarify for folks, the biggest question I get, is it safe? And everyone’s heard of prescription lithium and that’s lithium carbonate, which is prescribed for bipolar disorder. And I’ve had a number of people when I do Facebook post saying, how can you be advocating for this terrible drug? It causes kidney problems, it affects the thyroid. It’s very, very different. So it is actually very hard. So it’s at least 500 mg. Yes and possibly higher. So we’re using 5mg of elemental lithium as a starting dose with when we’re using low dose lithium and it’s actually 10% of the dose that you would find in a prescription lithium carbonate, which is a different form. So the lithium irritates more easily absorbed and using very low dose. And it’s very different now to say that there is no side effects. 

There’s not enough research on lithium or it eight, I can tell you it’s been used. Hans Nipper was the first person who started talking about lithium or rotate, I don’t know, 50, 60 years ago, maybe even longer. I can’t actually remember. I apologize. I don’t have an answer for that, but it’s used extensively in the nutritional integrative health world. Typically we do five mg once a day, going up to 10 mg, divided doses morning and evening and then going up to 10 mg twice a day. So that’s, that’s what we typically would see and I would do this after. We’ve trialed the immuno acid. So I’ll look at the low serotonin, low Gaba, we didn’t talk about low endorphins. The low catacola means we mentioned low blood sugar. But I do those trials. And we always, you know, we’ve got the question and I say we want to come back and address this if we need to, but it’s pretty impressive. I have, I personally, I mentioned earlier had have had success with lithium or rotate. I actually found it very beneficial when I went through menopause. I have seen no research on lithium rotate and menopause. But I’ve seen it help with a number of clients in menopause, terrible, terrible insomnia that the gap and the tryptophan wouldn’t even make a dent and I was using it at the time. And some pretty bad lows, which I have not had not experienced ever. And the lithium ore irritate together with the gap and the tryptophan was incredibly helpful for a few years. And I sort of figured out that it was the hormonal ups and downs. You know, you’re going through menopause and you’ve got these ups and downs where your body doesn’t really know what’s going on. 

I had another, someone in my community, I’ll just share her results. She had been using trip to fan for a while and not seen what she wanted to see. She wasn’t, she didn’t have a resolution of all her symptoms. And I happen to do a blog post and I talked about really going really high on the trip to plan. We just talked about using tryptophan twice a day. You can use that dose, you can do three or four capsules each twice a day, not starting that high but slowly but surely increased. So this woman’s shared this upping my trip to fan dose and also including and upping the dose of lithium irritate has been absolutely profound for me off my antidepressant, which I was on and off for a number of years and I’ve been depression free and anxiety free for over a year. So fantastic. So yeah, it’s pretty amazing.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Really good stuff and lithium is a mineral that’s found in food. So I mean it’s in a lot of mineral rich waters, Spring waters, a lot of spring waters have some lithium in them. It’s in a lot of green vegetables, cabbage tends to be a better source of potatoes. So it’s something that, you know, it’s in our diet, something that we’re getting, but Some people just need a little bit more, a little bit more of a bump there and you were saying, I had read somewhere that it helps with for some people, they they don’t get their B-12 into the cell effectively. And I had read that lithium helps improve the, basically delivering B-12 out of the serum and into the cell. So I have to verify that for sure. But I think it works with methylation a little bit. And I know you had mentioned also that it helps to reduce some of the dopamine and and glutamate some of those excitatory neurotransmitters and is more of like a Gaba agonist helps activate or improve our ability to utilize Gaba. Is that correct?

Trudy Scott, CN

That’s correct, yes. And the B 12 1 is interesting. I’ve had a number of people comment and say they’ve been told that I haven’t found research and maybe someone who’s found it clinically. So yes, that’s a great question. I’m going to look into it as well. So I want to learn more about it as well. So, thanks for mentioning that. And then I wanted to mention your when you’re talking about the source. So water is a source and there’s areas, for example, in Texas that have low levels of lithium and they find there’s published papers talking about high violence, increased crime, increased suicidality. And even increased homicide fidelity. So violence and wanting to kill people in areas that have low levels of lithium. So it varies different states different. And there’s actually some maps that show the lithium levels throughout the world. So I’ve been very intrigued to see if there’s some correlation with countries that they have higher levels of maybe dementia, Alzheimer’s and mood disorders and violence If there is this connection between what’s, you know, in the environment, it’s very, very interesting. 

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Very interesting. It’s almost like acts in a very similar matter to magnesium. You know, we hear a lot more about magnesium, a lot more research about magnesium, but you know, that has a very calming effect. It’s found in a lot of different foods, waters, different things like that plays a really critical role. And perhaps lithium is very similar. So interesting. And so I know that there’s some other biochemical pathways as well that you wanted to look at, particularly something called pyro luria, which, you know in functional nutrition, we do talk about pyroluria. Can you go into more detail about that?

Trudy Scott, CN

Yes, so I would say that 80% of the women that come and work with me either have pyroluria or have symptoms of pyroluria. And I keep in mind that I attract women to work with me and they all have anxiety. So it’s a very small, you know, it’s just my observation. So most women that I work with with anxiety have pyroluria and it’s always been considered a genetic issue where you’ve got this high end need for certain nutrients, certainly zinc, vitamin B six and evening primrose oil and stressful situations lead you to dump these nutrients. So you have then you have higher need the classic symptom with pyroluria is social anxiety. So you’ll often extrovert, you’ll force yourself to go out, you force yourself to show up, you prefer the company of one or two people rather than big crowds. You have early morning nausea. You have problems with connective tissue often. So you may have back pain, you have a stitch in your side. These are all the symptoms that I’m listing on the pyroluria questionnaire, which I actually happen to have myself. It was one of the factors for me. So that stress that I had in my work made things a lot worse and the social anxiety that I had that I was able to deal with when I was younger. So a classic thing with pyroluria, you often you push through and you deal with it, you just adapt and that’s what carol oryx do and I sort of adapted my whole life. But when you get to your thirties or forties or fifties and now your hormones are going crazy. You’re under a lot of stress. You may have, you know, heavy metal toxicity, you may have gluten issues, Your diet may not be ideal. You’ve got all of these things that just is the last thing and you just you know, you can’t handle it. And I’ve had people say, and this certainly happened with me, I felt uncomfortable even with a lot of family around, you know, it was just, it was a stress just that. So that’s that’s awful and there’s a vagus nerve connection if you actually got vagus nerve issues which affect your digestion and your, it affects everything that can make para Loria worse. And a lot of one of the solutions to improve vagus nerve function is to socialize. 

And I’ve heard some practitioners say just get out there and make yourself do it. But if you’re doing it and you’re forcing yourself that’s the stress. So it’s going to make things worse. So I just like to address the root cause which is these low neurotransmitters. So zinc is really key vitamin B six and then evening primrose oil is an omega six that helps zinc absorption. So once people get on that evening primrose oil that really helps the zinc absorption. And typically people with pyroluria do not need omega threes, you know in the mental health world, the mental health nutrition world, you often hear saying people saying everyone needs omega threes and I’ve seen fatty acid testing and para laureate testing or certainly people with these symptoms and they do not need omega 3s pyroluria seem to be able to extract it from the food they eat. 

If you’re eating grass fed red meat, if you’re eating walnuts, you’re eating leafy greens, you can extract it, fish. Obviously you can extract it from the food that you’re eating and the too much fish oil is not a good thing, it’s gonna make the sell more porous and permeable and then you can have an issue with toxins and nutrient absorption everything. So fish oil is amazing, can often help with a lot of mental health issues. But if you don’t need it or maybe you just need a tiny amount, it’s good to know. Yeah. And then those same nutrients are needed to make our neurotransmitters. As I mentioned at the beginning, they needed to make gable and serotonin. They’re helpful for hormone balancing. I’ll have clients get on the amino acids, we’ll get on the nutrients for pyroluria and within 2 to 3 cycles we’ll see there hormones start to balance. And then if there’s still something left that we need to address, then, you know, maybe it’s worth seeing someone practitioner to use bioidentical hormones that they need that. But often just addressing these underlying factors can make a difference.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

You said 80% of the women that you’re seeing that have anxiety. Obviously women with anxiety from your experience, that’s what you’re seeing your subset that you’re seeing have this paralytic condition. So they need more zinc. They need more really are academic acid or you know, omega six in a sense, which they can get from these grass fed meats and they need more B six. And you get the six from meat from vegetables as well. And also you get B six from a healthy gut right from healthy gut bacteria, breaking down fiber. And a lot of people have dysbiosis in their gut, there’s a lot of issues with gut issues, you know, with gut infections, leaky gut syndrome and how that impacts anxiety as well.

Trudy Scott, CN

Absolutely. And so we’ve got to always look at the gut, there’s some wonderful read out of Ireland where they talk about this term called psycho-biotics which are probiotics that impact mood. So lactobacillus diagnosis, for example, is has been shown to lower cortisol levels which can increase anxiety and also promote gaba production. So we’re making neurotransmitters, as you mentioned, we’re making some of these B vitamins in our guts. So we’ve got to have a healthy gut. So as I mentioned earlier, we’re using immuno assets to get that immediate relief to get give people hope. But then we’re looking at all of these underlying factors: have they got pyroluria, have they got gut issues, have they got dysbiosis, are they not absorbing the nutrients from the food that they’re eating? And then the birth control pill, which is very, very commonly used, deplete sink and depletes vitamin B six. 

So that’s going to have, you know, have these issues where it’s depleting your levels of zinc and B six, zinc is a very common deficiency, as you know, Dr. Jockers, I would say it is as deficient, common as magnesium and possibly even iron deficiency and kids and it’s so commonly depleted and some of the reasons why I see such common zinc deficiency that I’m seeing getting worse and worse is actually a paleo diet. So a lot of people are eating nut flours. They are baking with nut flours using nut butters. They’re using nut milk and nuts have got a high in copper and zinc and copper balance each other out. So if you are using… exactly. 

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Are basically a plant defense system that will bind to major minerals like zinc and iron can be another one. Right?

Trudy Scott, CN

So yeah, absolutely. oxalates as well. If you’re eating a lot of healthy vegetables, spinach, dark chocolate, berries, lots of nuts. You and you’ve got an oxalate issue that’s binding to zinc, It’s binding to calcium. Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of things we need to look at.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah, so you’re right about that. Some of the best zinc rich foods you talked about grass fed meats, organ meats, wild caught fish is a really good source. Seafood in general, pumpkin seeds would be probably best vegetarian source would be sprouted pumpkin seeds when they sprout them, takes off some of that fake acid, some of the different enzyme inhibitors. Since you get more of that zinc more bio available and you also have to have good stomach acid production. A lot of women don’t because they’ve got this bio sis and got infections and so stomach acid is key for zinc absorption. 

Trudy Scott, CN

I’m glad you mentioned stomach acid because as well as being key for zinc absorption, it’s needed. So if you’re eating this beautiful grass red red meat, you can digest it and break down the protein into amino acids, which then is needed to make neurotransmitters and do everything else that amino acids are needed to do. So Yeah, you absolutely need to address everything.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah. Great. Well this has been a fantastic interview, Trudy, you’re just a wealth of knowledge and your clinical experience bringing that to the table here and giving people places to start, you know, when it comes to anxiety and dealing with that just invaluable. And so where can people find out more about you know, you got your website, every woman over 29, they can sign up for your newsletter there obviously and get your book, anything else that you’re working on right now.

Trudy Scott, CN

So as well as the book, the anti anxiety food solution which a lot of people pick up and follow and implement the advice there do really well with it. I do have group programs, online group community programs where you’re part of the community, learning how to use Gaba. And then I have another one that’s called the Gaba Quick Start Program. And then I have another one where you learn how to use all the amino acids for serotonin support, endorphins, dopamine and also low blood sugar. And then I also teach practitioners. So I’ve got the anxiety nutrition institute where I teach practitioners how to use the amino acids with their clients as well.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Wonderful. Well thanks again, Trudy for your time guys, reach out to her, check out her website so you can get more information there and check out her programs. Thanks again, Trudy.

Trudy Scott, CN

Thanks, Dr. Jockers. 

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

You got it.