Episode 121
· 17:47
Welcome back to another episode of the Real Health Podcast. This is brain month. We are diving into really part two. First week we talked about autism and the links and causes and correlations behind why autism and why the rates are so high. Today, we're gonna kind of get a little more myopic and focus in on a spectrum disorder, commonly called attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Dr. Barrett:So ADD, ADHD. And when we talk about ADD, ADHD, this protocol can be used for really anyone on the spectrum or anyone that's having any neurological symptom whatsoever. So we're gonna go through 10 options to address when looking at ADHD. I'm gonna give you all kind of a holistic perspective on ADHD solutions. Right?
Dr. Barrett:So if we go back to previous episode, autism causes today, solutions ADHD. This month in the office is brain health month. The last Tuesday of the month at 6:30pm we have our brain health workshop where we'll talk about neurodegenerative conditions all the way from Alzheimer's dementia, and even more in-depth protocols that are customized to you in terms of dosing and solutions and strategies for even autistic spectrum disorder.
Dr. Barrett:So make sure you sign up on our Linktree. So go to Instagram and sign up for our brain masterclass. Without further ado, let's get into it. Let's go through it. What are the 10 areas to address for ADHD?
Dr. Barrett:This is gonna be a systemic holistic perspective. Let's get it. Number one, we wanna start with the gut. Always start with the gut. Why?
Dr. Barrett:Because the gut brain axis is so important. What are the things that we're looking at for the gut? Okay, well, we're looking at healing the gut lining. This is something we are always gonna go back to, but using bone broth, aloe vera, collagen, this vital to heal the gut lining, okay? So we have to make sure that if we are trying to heal a brain, we are trying, we're gonna start the gut.
Dr. Barrett:The gut lining, the brain lining are so important. We also want to remove food reactions. And here I'm gonna give you the big three, gluten, dairy, and artificial sweeteners and colors. So artificial ingredients, dairy, and gluten. Those are the big three in my opinion.
Dr. Barrett:Now hydrogenated oils can be the fourth, soy can be the fifth, and we could even throw sugar in there as the sixth, but we'll talk about that in a second. But the big three, gluten, dairy, and artificial sweeteners and colors are massive in removing as these can create hyperinflammatory states of the brain. So number one, heal the gut, remove food reactions, and heal the gut lining. Number two, we wanna optimize their nutrition. What we see is in ADD, ADHD cases is that they're missing critical fats and fat soluble vitamins.
Dr. Barrett:Yeah, most of the brain is fat, so we need fat. We need a ton of fat. What kind of fats? Healthy fats from monounsaturated. So olive oils are fantastic.
Dr. Barrett:Olive oil's great. Saturated fats from coconut oil's fantastic, and avocados. What other fats? Omega-three fatty acids from fish, from nuts, and from seeds. These types of fats are so, so good for the brain.
Dr. Barrett:They calm the brain down. When we look at the nutrition of someone with ADHD, it just makes sense. They're eating a bunch of sugar, right? There's no protein. There's no grass fed protein.
Dr. Barrett:There's no high quality fats. There's no fiber. There's no low glycemic fruits, right? And what they're getting is high glycemic sugar. They're getting Gatorades and Powerades before soccer, after soccer, right?
Dr. Barrett:They're spiking their blood sugar, bunch of artificial colors, sweeteners, and dyes. They're eating, you know, who knows what for lunch. Eating a bunch of gluten and dairy that's flaming the brain. Well, okay. Now we have the story.
Dr. Barrett:Their brain literally has no nutrition to calm down. Remember that a brain, that most of the job of the brain, 90% of the job of the brain is to break, not to gas. It's not go, go, go. It's actually to break. The brain's job is to suppress, to inhibit.
Dr. Barrett:And when it can't inhibit, it overreacts. And we get a lot of that ADD, ADHD type symptomatology. So nutrition matters. Nutrition matters. Number three, we're gonna pull this out of the first one, but it's balance their blood sugar.
Dr. Barrett:Hey, guys, moms, dads, it doesn't matter if your kid doesn't like it. Okay? I don't care if my kid likes it or not, right? And the reality is they have to eat it. And we cannot create picky eaters, but we are.
Dr. Barrett:And so if you look at your child and say, hey, he doesn't like this, he doesn't like that, well why did you create that? I know it's strong, it's direct, but you created that. How did you create that? By hyper fixating their food, being myopic in their food, so narrow, it's their palate explosion. So how do we help that?
Dr. Barrett:One thing that you can do is give them diversity early on. So if you've got young ones, like really young ones, a year old, two years old, right? Spices and flavors are so important. But now as a kid, you have to balance their blood sugar. Blood sugar dysregulation is a major contributor to ADD, ADHD.
Dr. Barrett:Protein, fat with every meal. Minimize all of these, you know, blood sugar spikes and these quick carbs. Okay? No, they don't need Gatorade. They don't.
Dr. Barrett:They can have a banana. That's plenty of carbohydrates. It's all they need. Banana and a pack of electrolytes that are non sugar. Give them a pack of LMNT, right, and give them a banana and they'll be all right, okay?
Dr. Barrett:Make sure you're incorporating fiber into their meal. Yes, this means vegetables. They have to eat vegetables, okay? Those are good for their brain, but it's really good to balance their blood sugar. So number three, balance their blood sugar.
Dr. Barrett:Number four, reduce their toxin load. So most of these kids are consuming, you know, pretty toxic ingredients. What I say is like canned, bagged, you know, plastic bagged, processed, highly processed foods. And so if we're trying to help them live a less toxic lifestyle, we want to support their detoxification pathways. Toxins play a huge role.
Dr. Barrett:Heavy metals, pesticides, plastics play a massive role as not only endocrine disruptors, hormone disruptors, brain neurological disruptors. They create neuroinflammation. So they can actually disrupt brain chemistry and development. Support their liver. Glutathione is one of my favorite things to do to reduce toxin load or toxic load.
Dr. Barrett:Get them in the sauna. Have them sweat in the sauna with you, right? Get them working out, get them outside, sweating, hydration, water, right? Reducing toxic load. Get them out of the plastic environment, right?
Dr. Barrett:Make sure their deodorant isn't aluminum based deodorant. Like those small things matter, Right? Get them off a fluoride toothpaste. Get them on a calcium hydroxyapatite toothpaste. Right?
Dr. Barrett:Those things matter. Okay? Number five, how many hours of sleep are they getting? How many hours of sleep are they getting? So are they getting at least nine, ten plus hours?
Dr. Barrett:If they're not, as a child who's developing, they need that. They need that deep sleep. What time are they going to bed? Right? It's more important to get them to bed early, right?
Dr. Barrett:Then allow them to sleep in later, right? I'd rather create healthy lifestyles now with our kids. So get them to bed early, okay? You can just create a consistent bedtime routine. Now, this is important in sleep quality.
Dr. Barrett:What are they doing before they go to sleep? Are they on their screens? Number six, limit screen time. How much? It depends on how much they're on during their day at school.
Dr. Barrett:Like I know for my son, yeah, part of his school now is an iPad. So when do we shut that off? We shut that off at night. What if he's studying for an exam? Okay, I get it.
Dr. Barrett:He's studying and it's 7:00 at night. He just finished up soccer, 8:00 at night. All right, well, turn off the blue light on his screen, put some blue light blocking glasses on, and just prevent that suppression of melatonin and help the body get into deep sleep cycles. Another key component to not just removing screen time and looking at sleep quality, is number six, number five, is hey, a quick question is, are they getting quality sleep? It's not just about quantity, but going back to the area of sleep quality, do they breathe through their mouth?
Dr. Barrett:Are they oxygenating their brain at night? Right, so go into their room at night, see if they're breathing through their mouth. If their mouth is open, they're mouth breathers. Are there lip ties or their tongue ties or their functional reasons for that? And address that.
Dr. Barrett:Go to a chiropractor. Massive way to address breathing airway issues, okay? So that's number six. Number seven, brain retraining, right? So there is this model within our space where we call it hemisphericity.
Dr. Barrett:And hemisphericity means that one brain is overly strong, strong, and another side of the brain is weak. So for instance, ADD, ADHD. Typically what we find is that the right hemisphere of the brain is a little underdeveloped or weak, we call it weak, okay? And so we wanna do a lot of right brain stimulating activities. Now dyslexia.
Dr. Barrett:Dyslexia is typically left hemisphericity, which means the left brain is weak. So we're gonna do a lot of left brain type exercises. What am I even talking about, Dr. Barrett? What are we even- okay, here's what we're talking about.
Dr. Barrett:Left brain hemisphricity. Things like we're going to have them smell things through their left nose, listen to certain music in their right ear. We're gonna stimulate movement on the right side of the body. We're gonna do visual exercises. These things are exercises to strengthen the weak areas of the brain to bring balance and hemisphericity back to balance within the nervous system.
Dr. Barrett:This is something that you can look at by usually going to a neurologically focused chiropractor. We have this hemisphere checklist in the office, okay? And really what it looks at is, is your child's neurodevelopment disorder related to hemisphericity? Is one side of the brain truly weak, inhibited, not functioning? If it is, you can do so much by just balancing the hemispheres.
Dr. Barrett:If you reach out to our office, Instagram, through phone, through email, whatever. Okay? Ask for our brain hemis ferricity checklist. Score it, send it back to us, and we will let you know what exercise to do to balance that brain. Number eight, look for infections.
Dr. Barrett:What we find in ADHD, autistic spectrum disorders, is sometimes there is a neuro inflammatory process driven by infection. We call this PANDAS or PANS for short. Hidden infections like PANDAS that's brought on by strep based bacteria, or even chronic inflammation from viral loads can actually mimic or even worsen ADHD. It can mimic ADHD and worsen ADHD. It's amazing, a child can be diagnosed with ADHD, yet have really virtually have just an infection.
Dr. Barrett:This is where lab testing comes in. This is so important to work with a functional medicine provider and understand more about the body. What's actually causing- All right, I'm gonna give you 10 things today. All right, this is number eight. I'm give you 10 things.
Dr. Barrett:You don't need to do all 10. Some we need to focus on nutrition. Some we need to look for infections. Some we need to detox. Some we need to balance their hemisphere.
Dr. Barrett:But at at some level, how do you know? Well, you don't do all 10. You see someone for it. You go to a provider for it. I'm just helping you understand the brain.
Dr. Barrett:Your job is not to take today and just practically start applying it. It's to go use it, ask the questions, go to provider, right? Have them work with you through this process. Number 9, number 9. Get out in the environment and play.
Dr. Barrett:Kids are playing less and less. Kids are on screen more and more. Kids are under fluorescent lights, and their nervous systems are being exposed to frequencies that are non native. Non native EMFs is a very real trigger to the brain, creating hyperactivity. Get them onto the planet earth, walking on earth, okay?
Dr. Barrett:7.83 hertz, that's what our planet produces. That frequency is very calming to the nervous system, very grounding to the nervous system, very relaxing to the nervous system. We need to get these kids outside and limit their screen time, and get them outside moving and walking. Okay? Last one, number 10, and I mentioned it before.
Dr. Barrett:Look for these types of lab tests. I'm gonna give you some options. Look for an MTHFR issue, methyl tetrahydrofolate reduction. We've talked about last episode, genetic test for methylation defects. Check for heavy metals.
Dr. Barrett:Check for food sensitivities, okay? Food reactions that are very inflammatory to the brain. Do what's called an organic acids test. Number four, organic acids test. What's an organic acids test?
Dr. Barrett:It literally shows all nutritional deficiencies within the body and even shows detoxification pathways. And if there's overgrowth of certain organisms like bacteria and yeast, It's a simple urinary test that a child can do at home. Very easy, very practical. Oats test, food sensitivity testing, heavy metal testing, genetic testing, and finally a GI map. Are there infections?
Dr. Barrett:Are there is there a current leaky gut issue? Those five tests are my favorite functional test to do with kids. That's a quick overview. The top 10 things to start looking for. As you assess and process, hey, maybe you need to focus on nutrition first, and reduction of screen time, increase sleep quality.
Dr. Barrett:Great, awesome. Hey, maybe you need to look at hemisphericity. All right, reach out to our office. Make sure you get in contact with us so we can get you that hemisphere checklist. Maybe we need to do some lab testing.
Dr. Barrett:We're here to support. We're here to help. Whatever it is, choose at least one area to start implementing, and stick with it, stay with it long enough to start seeing the results. This week, as we talk about brain health and creating balance within kids' brains, I pray it's a blessing. I pray to add value to you.
Dr. Barrett:If you wanna learn more, make sure you sign up for our workshop. Okay? Our workshop this April. This will be- so it's April 29th. April 29th at 06:30pm Eastern Standard Time. Our brain master class, make sure you sign up for that and learn everything. It's completely free. It's on Zoom.
Dr. Barrett:No, your video's not on there. You're not gonna be recorded. It's just us, Dr. Reed, and myself educating you on the brain. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Real Health Podcast.
Dr. Barrett:Our passion is to add value to your healthcare journey. Anything that we do, we want to do it within a community to help as many people as possible. Thanks for listening to episodes of Real Health Podcast. If you could like, if you could subscribe, and you can share, it would help our mission to reach as many people with real health that produces real results for real people.
Listen to The Real Health Co. Podcast using one of many popular podcasting apps or directories.
