Summer The Mediterranean Way For Healthy Skin – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 552
The summer months can be exciting for those who had a harsh winter season. Be careful with the sun exposure and learn more to help maintain healthy skin.
Tag: Krill Oil
Top Five Supplements To Promote Overall Health – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 542
We all want to optimize our overall health, let’s do that by learning about the five most recommended supplements to take on a daily basis.
Can Nutrition Help With ADHD? – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 532
ADHD
Subscribe Today!
Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode.
Can Nutrition Help With ADHD? – InViteⓇ Health Podcast, Episode 532
Hosted by Amanda Williams, MPH
*Intro music*
InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed healthcare professionals are excited to offer you the most important health and wellness information you need to make informed choices about your health. You can learn more about the products discussed in each of these episodes and all that InViteⓇ Health has to offer at www.invitehealth.com/podcast. First time customers can use promo code PODCAST at checkout for an additional 15% off your first purchase. Let’s get started!
*Intro music*
Amanda Williams, MPH:
[00:00:40] There are many common disorders that you’ve probably heard of, and I certainly get an awful lot of questions in regards to. One of those in particular that it seems that people reach out oftentimes for a holistic approach to and that is attention deficit, so ADD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I want to talk a little bit about how it is that one comes to find out that they have this condition and what you can be doing nutritionally speaking, which can certainly make a big impact. So I’m Amanda Williams, MD, MPH, Scientific Director at InViteⓇ Health and when it comes to ADHD, we know that this is a very common problem. It is estimated that roughly about 9% of children between the ages of four and 17 years old in the United States have the diagnosis of ADHD, which is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. When it comes to adults, that number drops down a little bit, but it’s still quite high. The overall prevalence rate of ADHD in US adults is about 4 to 5%. So that tells you that many people are dealing with this condition.† [00:02:03]
[00:02:04] So there’s a lot of misinformation when it comes to ADHD. It’s always remained in that scope of kind of being controversial, and you get a lot of debate back and forth within the health care community as to, you know, how the treatment should be approached. Is it more of a behavioral? Is it a lifestyle modification? So I want to talk a little bit about what we know on the nutritional side when it comes to integrative approaches to really help to maintain focus and attention and optimize the cognitive abilities of someone who has ADHD or ADD. Now, technically speaking, the main difference in terms of ADD and ADHD is ADD is attention deficit disorder, so it’s the inability to remain focused and pay attention, whereas the hyperactivity component to it… This is when someone’s real fidgety, has a hard time sitting still, you know, maybe is constantly getting up and moving about when they really shouldn’t be. So there is the difference. When we add in the hyperactivity component, we’re getting more of that physiological aspect that people can witness, that you can actually see. If someone is having a hard time with attention, you may not be able to recognize this. And oftentimes this can happen in younger children, in school settings where they’re having a very difficult time organizing their daily, you know, homework and just doing basic activities that their classmates may be having no problem whatsoever with. So there there is some differences when it comes to the attention part. And then when we combine the attention with the hyperactivity part.† [00:03:58]
BLUE LIGHT LASTING DAMAGE IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 307. Listen Now>>
[00:04:00] The traditional, conventional approach to ADHD has always been to utilize stimulants, things like Ritalin and Adderall, Vyvanse. The reason why is because the thought is if you can overstimulate a particular region, this will actually depress that activity. So it’s like when they say too much of a good thing is not a good thing. And this is basically what the conventional treatment is. Now, there are many people in the medical field that look at it as more of a behavioral modification, so perhaps doing different behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, for example. In the nutritional world, we look at it in terms of what are things that are actually triggering the body to exacerbate the symptoms that come out with ADD and ADHD. So we know that the Standard American Diet is certainly not helpful to this, when you look at all of the foods that are loaded down with bad carbohydrates high in sugar, the sugary beverages, the bad fats, zero antioxidants, zero good nutrients coming in from your diet will make a big difference when it comes to the way that your brain is functioning every single day.† [00:05:22]
[00:05:23] So this is why when it comes to nutritional interventions, you have to look at the basics. You have to look at how is it that the brain is functioning every day? And we know that there is this wonderful interaction between essential fats and fatty acids. So you have your omega-3 fatty acids, you have your phospholipids, such as phosphatidylserine, phosphatidylcholine. So oftentimes, if I’m working with someone who has ADHD or ADD, these are kind of the two first places that I start with is looking at reestablishing good fats to the brain. And phosphatidylserine is certainly very beneficial because many times when people have ADD, this goes along with driving up additional stress because they recognize that perhaps the behavior that they’re doing is not what they should be doing, but they have a difficult time controlling this. So this drives up a lot of internal stressors for that person. And we know that phosphatidylserine, this phospholipid that’s so important when it comes to our brain health, is also very beneficial when it comes to stress management. So this is why we stay in that, that setting of looking at the healthy good fats.† [00:06:40]
[00:06:41] We also can find that instead of using a conventional stimulant, a Ritalin or an Adderall, that we can look at the things that the brain actually needs to create its energy, things like acetyl-L-carnitine, oftentimes goes by the name of Alcar. But we know that acetyl-L-carnitine has been shown in randomized, double blind trials to have very beneficial effect on hyperactivity in individuals who have ADHD. We can look at the role of B-vitamins, Vitamin B6 in particular, and they found that when they gave children who had ADHD combination of omega-3 fish oils, taking Vitamin B6, magnesium, this led to significant improvements in their hyperactivity, and they had better retention while in school.† [00:07:31]
[00:07:32] Now there’s also really fascinating studies implicating zinc’s role in ADHD, and they have found that when people have a zinc insufficiency, so low levels of zinc, that this can actually exacerbate the issues with focus and attention and hyperactivity. So they have utilized zinc in children who have ADHD, and they found that they had significantly improved in terms of all these different behavioral ratings or markings that they were assessing. So at the end of the day, we know that there are many different things that we can be doing when it comes to addressing ADHD. And we know that there are an awful lot of things that many Americans are just not getting adequate intake of. Zinc happens to be one of those things. We know that the average American is not getting adequate zinc. And if zinc has been directly correlated with issues with attention and hyperactivity and you have low zinc, this could be one of those problems. So you can see how there’s an easy fix to this. In a sense, if we change up our diet, we start to incorporate in high antioxidant foods coming from fruits and vegetables, we throw away those bad carbs, the sugary beverages get those out of your routine and really focus in on the nutrition and then replenish those omega-3 fatty acids that perhaps you haven’t been exposed to in high enough amounts throughout your life, incorporate in your magnesium, your zinc, your Vitamin B6… I usually advise that people use the Methyl-B formulation because I think that having the methylfolate along with that methylcobalamin and the B6 really helps to enhance overall cognitive performance. So that’s why I have as part of like a protocol for ADD, it would be fish oil or krill oil, just so long as we’re getting our omega-3 in, additional phosphatidylserine and then looking at Methyl-B, adding in magnesium and adding in zinc.† [00:09:43]
GETTING TO KNOW ZINC – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 516. Listen Now>>
[00:09:43] Now we have a really lovely formulation, which is called Cerebral Care, and I find that the Cerebral Care is a very nice way for people who have concerns with maybe you can’t swallow capsules or soft gels, using the Cerebral Care formulation, one scoop of that a day is packed with wonderful nutrients. The phosphatidylserine, it has the acetyl-L-carnitine in that it has inositiol, which helps with cell-to-cell communication within the brain. So we know there’s many reasons as to why diet can drive someone towards that path of a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD. There are certainly environmental factors. There’s genetics, you know, there can be a close head injury. There’s many different correlations as to why someone ends up with this type of a problem. But we also recognize that there are many things that we can do proactively to reverse that and be able to continue on in a very focused and calmed matter.† [00:10:47]
[00:10:48] So that is all that I have for you for today. I want to thank you so much for tuning in to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast. Remember, you can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting invitehealth.com/podcast. Do make sure that you subscribe and you leave us a review. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and we will see you next time for another episode of the InViteⓇ Health Podcast.† [00:10:48]
Getting to Know Omega-3s – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 526
Your body needs omega-3s to function properly, but most Americans are lacking these important fatty acids. Here’s why that’s a problem for immunity, brain health and more.
Stress Versus Burnout, Part 2 – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 503
Burnout syndrome is extremely common, but the good news is that there are nutrients that can help your body adapt to the stress. Learn about how things like omega-3 fatty acids and CoQ10 can be beneficial.
Chronic Inflammation, Part 2 – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 499
inflammation
Subscribe Today!
Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode.
Chronic Inflammation, Part 2 – InViteⓇ Health Podcast, Episode 498
Hosted by Amanda Williams, MPH
*Intro music*
InVite Health Podcast Intro: Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed healthcare professionals are excited to offer you the most important health and wellness information you need to make informed choices about your health. You can learn more about the products discussed in each of these episodes and all that InViteⓇ Health has to offer at www.invitehealth.com/podcast. First time customers can use promo code PODCAST at checkout for an additional 15% off your first purchase. Let’s get started!
*Intro music*
Amanda Williams, MPH:
[00:00:40] Inflammaging part two. So I want to today define what nutrients are incredibly beneficial when it comes to targeting chronic inflammation. So we know that inflammaging, it’s going to be accelerated aging because of chronic inflammation. Not a good thing. So I’m going to talk about the nutrients and why it matters to make sure that we’re addressing that inflammation in the body. So I’m Amanda Williams, MD, MPH, and let’s get right to it.† [00:01:13]
[00:01:13] Let’s talk once again about chronic inflammation and why it is that when we think about the long-lasting impact of inflammation and how we can tie it to cardiovascular disease, to cancer, to diabetes, to chronic kidney disease, to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, which we certainly see is on the rise here in this country in particular because of our diet of that high processed foods, looking at autoimmune conditions, neurodegenerative disorders, we see this. We know that there is evidence that the risk of developing chronic inflammation is known to obviously persist throughout our lives, but it goes up exponentially as we become adults because of underlying health conditions.† [00:02:08]
[00:02:08] Now what came first, the health condition or the inflammation? That’s always the big question. Well, we know that it’s the inflammation. It is through, say, glycation, for example, we have excess glucose. That glucose, which is now doing damage… The immune system is going to try to respond or react to that, so it drives up the inflammation. So a normal inflammatory response… Except in acute inflammation, we definitely want that. But it’s that chronic inflammation that we know is certainly the big issue. So seeing and understanding the implications of chronic inflammation is certainly majorly problematic.† [00:02:52]
[00:02:53] So let’s think about the outside factors that helped drive that. We can look at physical inactivity, we can look at obesity, we can look at gut dysbiosis, which is obviously going to affect our immune function, which then triggers that inflammatory response. The diet, the Standard American Diet, this is the primary causative reason for chronic inflammation. We can look at stress. If someone is continuously stressed, whether that be emotional or physical stress, this is going to drive inflammation. We can look at inadequate sleep, how that can drive inflammation. We can look at environmental exposures to different chemicals, how that can drive inflammation. And all of these are linked to metabolic syndrome, type two diabetes, cancer, depression, autoimmune conditions, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, which is age-related muscle mass loss. Immunosenescence, I talked about that in the Immune System podcast, so you can always check that out. I have a four-part series on immune health.† [00:04:01]
IMMUNE SYSTEM, PART 2: THE AGING IMMUNE SYSTEM – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 492. Listen Now>>
[00:04:02] So today, let’s talk about what we can do in the setting of chronic inflammation when it comes to nutrients. Now here’s the interesting fun fact. Oftentimes people think I have inflammation, I need an anti-inflammatory. If you are going out and taking a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory for your chronic inflammation, you are not doing your body any justice. Your ibuprofen is not going to help with that chronic inflammation that’s doing that systemic damage. What we need to do is we need to basically key in on the health of the cells and what those cells need. So we can look at very basic things, magnesium, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, omega-3 fatty acids. These are all key to making sure that, at that cellular level, that the cell can function in a much more efficient way.† [00:04:56]
[00:04:56] We know that magnesium has been associated with lower levels of inflammation. They’ve been able to assess that higher serum magnesium directly correlated to lower C-reactive protein levels, lower tumor necrosis factor alpha levels. And we know that many people have magnesium insufficiency or deficiencies.† [00:05:19]
[00:05:20] We can look at Vitamin D, our hormone vitamin, and see how this plays a role in terms of an anti-inflammatory effect in the body. It does this through the inhibition of NF-kappa beta, which is a master driver or regulator for inflammation in the, in the body. They’ve been able to see how low Vitamin D level was associated with higher levels of C-reactive protein, higher levels of NF-kappa beta.† [00:05:53]
[00:05:53] We can look at the impact of Vitamin E when it comes to inflammation. Most people think of Vitamin E just in terms of its antioxidant properties, but we actually know that Vitamin E has this anti-inflammatory action to it through the inhibition of COX-2. So when we think about the different pathways to which chronic inflammation has driven up, COX-1, COX-2, the lox pathway, the arachidonic component to this, we can see how when people have adequate Vitamin E exposure, that their levels of C-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor alpha are lower. So through supplementation of Vitamin E, you’re actually helping to support the cellular ability to fend off inflammation.† [00:06:43]
[00:06:47] So all of these basic things, magnesium, Vitamin D, Vitamin E… Omega-3 fatty acids are kind of that go-to when it comes to targeting inflammation. We know that the omega-3 fatty acids with their special unique properties with the resolvins and the protectins can help to target inflammation and help the body when it comes to a better response.† [00:07:17]
[00:07:19] And of course, we can look at many of the other plant-based nutrients that have been shown to be incredibly beneficial when it comes to targeting chronic inflammation, things such as resveratrol, curcumin, those powerful polyphenols that come from green tea, the EGCG. We can see the downregulation of an inflammatory response and the positive impact the body has in the exposure to EGCG coming from green tea. We know that the trans-resveratrol helps to target those inflammatory pathways through cyclooxygenase, tumor necrosis factor alpha, NF-kappa beta. Hence, why resveratrol was always touted as the anti-aging supplement. Well, think about anti-aging, what’s one of the main drivers for aging is inflammation. So technically, we can call resveratrol the inflammaging-targeted nutrient. It’s targeting that inflammation to support healthier aging.† [00:08:30]
[00:08:33] So we have all of these different ways to which we can just take these nutrients in via supplementation, so making sure we’re taking our magnesium, our Vitamin D, our Vitamin E, our omega-3 fatty acids coming from fish oil or krill oil. Adding in nutrients such as resveratrol, the Resveratrol HxⓇ is an excellent choice, powerful amount of that trans-resveratrol. We can look at adding in the Bio-Curcumin 5-Loxin. The combination of those powerful curcuminoid oils along with boswellia extract to target once again those inflammatory pathways. There are many things that can help to potentiate a better immune system response and hence lower inflammation in the body.† [00:09:30]
[00:09:33] Our diet and our exercise certainly make a huge difference as well. So adhering to an anti-inflammatory diet as opposed to a pro-inflammatory diet, which is the Standard American Diet with the high processed foods and the sugar, the bad carbs and the bad fats. Adherence to that Mediterranean Diet is going to help the body with a more normalized inflammatory response. So we’re not walking around like this slow-burning forest fire. So I can go on and on and on with all of the different nutrients that we know target inflammation in the body. You know, cumin extracts or the Black Seed with Rosemary & Cordyceps. Very good choice. We have the InflamMune, which is the green-lipped muscle along with the perilla extract. We have many different formulations that are very specified to targeting inflammation to optimize our health. But even if we just look at the basics and we say, “Let me make sure I’m taking my magnesium, my Vitamin D, my Vitamin E, my omega-3 fatty acids. Let me just start there.” That in and of itself can do so much to combat that chronic inflammation that we know drives so much of the detrimental effects from all of these different health conditions that people generally succumb to when you think about cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular mortality. We want to maintain the health of all systems, and the way to achieve that is through the regulation of inflammation. So we don’t want inflammaging. We want to age gracefully and our key to success in doing this is through targeting inflammation.† [00:11:22]
[00:11:23] So that is all that I have for you for today. I want to thank you so much for tuning in to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast. Remember, you can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting invitehealth.com/podcast. Now, do make sure that you subscribe and you leave us a review. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @invitehealth and we will see you next time for another episode of the InViteⓇ Health Podcast.† [00:11:23]