How Nutrition Affects Mental Health And Brain Function In Children

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the show. I’m Dr. Nicole. And on today’s episode, we’re talking about the profound ways that nutrition impacts mental health and brain function for children and adults. I have guests on the show regularly to talk about various aspects of nutrition and brain connection. Today is particularly exciting for me as one of my heroes in nutrition and mental health research, Dr. Julia Rucklidge is joining us on the show. Her research along with that of Dr. Bonnie Kaplan, who was with us on this show a couple of months ago, was a big part of my professional shift to understanding how nutrition impacts mental health for children, and how we can use nutritional interventions clinically to support patients. We’re going to talk about her research, why nutrition isn’t more mainstream in the world of mental health, and her new book, The Better Brain: Overcome Anxiety, Combat Depression, and Reduce ADHD and Stress with Nutrition.

Let me tell you a little bit more about Julia. She’s a professor of clinical psychology in the School of Psychology, Speech and Hearing at the University of Canterbury, the director of the Mental Health and Nutrition Research Lab, and co-author of The Better Brain. Originally from Toronto, Canada. She completed her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Calgary. And in 2000, she emigrated to New Zealand. Over the last 20 years Professor Rucklidge has become well known for her research, investigating the interface between nutrition and mental health, and has published over 140 scientific papers.

Her TEDx Talk, the surprisingly dramatic role of nutrition and mental health, which is somewhat controversial for crazy reasons that we’re going to get into. Has been viewed over 1.7 million times. Having witnessed conventional treatments failing so many people, Julia is passionate about helping people find alternative treatments for their psychiatric symptoms. Through her focus on translating research into practice, she hopes to make nutritional interventions mainstream. Julia, thank you for being here. Welcome.

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:

Oh, it’s my pleasure, Nicole, to be able to talk about this stuff with your audience.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

We’re going to have a great time and probably struggle to keep it within the time limits, but we’re going to make a go of it here. I want to start with just having you share with all of us how you got into the realm of looking at the intersection of nutrition and mental health. How did that come about for you?

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:

Sure. Well, I completely blame Bonnie Kaplan and you’ve had her on your show. So I did my PhD with Bonnie from 1995 to 1998.

And during that time I, and my PhD was on  looking at the effects of ADHD on women. So it was actually one of the first studies that had been done, looking at the psychosocial impacts of ADHD on sort of overall women’s functioning. So not to do with nutrition. That’s what I’m trying to emphasize. But while I was doing my PhD Bonnie was approached by some families from Southern Alberta, Canada, who suggested that you could use nutrients in a pill form of vitamins and minerals to treat very serious psychiatric disorders like bipolar, like psychosis, like depression.

And I’m sure Bonnie might’ve said something like, well, when they first approached her, she just said it was snake oil and she didn’t want to have anything to do with it. So, what is wonderful about Bonnie and the kind of thing that I like to instill in my own PhD students now is that she’s incredibly open to new ideas and she’s, you know, and she’s a fantastic scientist, a great critical thinker, and you’ve got to be led by the data.

I mean, data should change your mind. So if you have enough compelling data that suggests that you should actually rethink of how you conceptualize and understand a mental illness, then do that. Because we can’t just get stuck in the way we think about things. So, so she at least had the integrity to do a small clinical trial and that those data showed really wonderful reductions in bipolar disorder symptoms with a simultaneous reduction in use of medications in a fairly small group of people with bipolar disorder. And she published that in 2000 or early part of the century and just had an absolute, terrible time sense. Okay. And in terms of being able to continue to conduct research. So I was intrigued, but to be honest, I’d been taught nutrition really relevant to our brain. And I had a very traditional clinical psychology training.I suspect you were taught the same thing.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Absolutely.

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:

…especially when it came to ADHD, which was my area of research. I remember meeting families and parents during my graduate training, who would tell me about these alternative things they were doing and I’d go, well, why are you doing that? The research shows that it just doesn’t work.

And that medication is the only way you can treat this really serious condition. And I, and, and that had been instilled in me. And of course, when you’re a graduate student, you don’t challenge. What you’re taught. You’re like, this is what it is. They must know. And, and now I come to realize that a lot of those parents were probably right.

And I, while I dismissed it as a graduate student, I started listening when I had finished. And I, and I, it’s not that I, and to be honest, I was listening at the time, but I just, I struggled too kind of figure out how to put it into what I knew and I just, it just didn’t fit. So it just kept bouncing off of my worldview. So I had to change my worldview to kind of get where they were coming from. So, Bonnie did this really interesting research. I was intrigued, but with kind of like, Oh, but you know, that’s not something I’m going to study and I went off and I did a post-doc in Toronto with Rosemary at the hospital for sick children and looked at adolescents with ADHD and more of the neurocognitive functioning and some of the aspects associated with that. Moved to New Zealand and Bonnie came to visit us in New Zealand in 2000, I think it was 2003 and she presented some of these data and you just watch it going. Wow. That’s really interesting. And by then I was qualified you know, still naive, but. Kind of going, you know what I’ve seen? I thought that all these treatments like psychotherapy and medications, I thought they were the answer.

I thought they treated everybody and everyone got well. And that’s kind of the story I was under the impression I’ve well, it doesn’t take long before you kind of go. That’s not enough. People aren’t getting well with our current treatments. We owe it to the public, to the people who are struggling with these conditions to continue to, to explore new, new ways of thinking about them because you only get so far.

If you stay in these narrow ways of conceptualizing a mental health. Disorder. So I just, I took on what I see as being a really essential component of being a scientist, which is the critic and conscience of society. And that is that you need to, you need to challenge ways of thinking, even if they contravene the current way of thinking.

So by 2000 and I had my children in 2002 and 2004. So I was a little busy and it was the, not the time to be completely changing your way of your career and your research plan. I was treading water at the time, but I, once my kids… the youngest went to school, which was 2008. Well, yeah, 2009. He started preschool per like at five that’s what happens in New Zealand. So around 2008, 2009 that’s when I really got serious about exploring this idea. And I had kind of thought that other people should do it in my community because Bonnie comes, she talked to a psychiatrist and I really thought this was something that psychiatrist should study.

But it was too much for them. I really think that it was just too, it just, so it was so didn’t fit with their way of thinking about psychiatric disorders from a pharmaceutical perspective that they just never. Picked up and went with it. So in the end I did. And, and it started with a case, a case of a young man with obsessive compulsive disorder, who I had treated with the best cognitive behavior therapy, and where he really, you know, had gotten a little bit better, but they were, he was still impaired. He was still struggling with these symptoms on a daily basis. And so we had some of these nutrients at the time. And I just said, I don’t know, I’ve heard some case studies from Bonnie about some kids with OCD who got better. I don’t know, give it a go. And so we just monitored him with, you know, with measures of OCD and it was just a remarkable turnaround in a very quick period of time.

So when that happens to you and you see that kind of turnaround, you, you owe it to pay attention because you could say you could dismiss it, which is what I still hear. And it upsets me so much as when. You hear stories of people trying the nutrients and getting so much better in their GPS going well, you know?

Yeah. You would’ve gotten better anyway. It was something else that happened. Or you changed your diet or I don’t know, they dismiss it because it, they, they like like me back when I was a graduate student, I was like, this doesn’t fit. I can’t understand this just doesn’t this data doesn’t fit with what I understand.

So I’m just going to dismiss it. And I just wish people just had the curiosity to. Think about things in a different way. So did I, I don’t know. Did I answer your question? There you go. So I had this case and from there I started more clinical trials like open-label studies, and then we eventually moved to and did some randomized control trials.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I want to get in a minute some of the specific research that you’ve done because it is really compelling and really relevant to what a lot of our listeners are dealing with their kids. But I want to just touch on this point of this disconnect between what the data shows and the wealth of evidence that we have at this point that nutrition, in general, makes a difference for brain health and for symptoms of a wide variety of mental health disorders, that targeted nutrients and specific nutrient kinds of formulas can make a difference.

We’ve got this compelling data and yet we do have this real problem in the field of medicine on the whole and I would say mental health specifically within that, that it’s so difficult to get traction among professionals, whether we’re talking about our psychiatrist, our MD/DO colleagues, or we’re talking about our psychologist, and social work therapist colleagues. There just is this disconnect between what we see in the research and what our professional colleagues are willing to acknowledge and incorporate into their understanding of what’s going on with people and into their practice.

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:

Yeah. So I think I would like to be gracious to them, to my colleagues and just think that it’s a lack of understanding and education. And so I, right now for the first time I’m coordinating an undergraduate course in clinicals, in abnormal psychology. And I’ve, you know, w we’ve got one of those standard textbooks and I’m the, you know, I’m looking at their first few chapters and how they explain that there is nothing in there about the gut, and there’s nothing in there about how important nutrition is for brain health zero zero zero, zero. So of course you can imagine I’m just inserting it into all my lectures and going and trying to get the students to go, Oh my God, that’s so awful. Hopefully, we’ll see how that goes. But I think that, you know, if I, going, going back to my experience, both as going through school, going through university, that was never explained this really basic stuff. We learn about nutrition as being important for our. But our bones and for growth, but we forget, or we’ve neglected to highlight how important it is for brain development. We kind of know that at the level of when you’re pregnant, but unfortunately when, even when you’re pregnant and I can certainly, again talk about my experience. It wasn’t about what you should eat. It was all about what you shouldn’t eat. Right. And you’re just terrified I’m going to eat. Some kind of an unwashed salad and that I’m going to kill my baby.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Right. Or tuna fish.

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:

I’ll just, I’ll just avoid salad and you’re, and that is just such a bad message to be sending to women who are pregnant that, and then again, the fish story. We’ve had a greater impact on the cognitive development of children as a consequence of stop stopping women from eating fish during pregnancy because of they know those growing infants aren’t getting access to the essential fatty acids that you get out of fish, because we’re so scared of the effects of the mercury.

But in fact, that’s being more detrimental to their health than having exposure to a little bit of mercury. So that’s now. The tide has turned and now it’s okay to eat a couple of servings official week now when you’re pregnant and you should. But that’s, that was a lot of research looking at population data to say, Oh my God, that was a bit of a bad, bad mistake telling women to stop eating fish because of the mercury.

And that’s something I’m really grumpy about in general is that we have, we’re always about, what’s not in the food rather than what. Is in the food. So, you know, something they don’t have in America, but I still think that it illustrates that really well is that we have these star ratings over here and in the UK, they have these traffic light systems and it’s all on ultra-processed food. And it’s about, it’s got no calories, no saturated fats, no sodium, and no sugar. And it’s got one nutrient in there. So we give it a five-star rating and you’re kind of like, a cardboard box would get four stars. So please don’t tell me that I should eat that. So it’s, it’s this disconnect of not understanding why we should be eating nutrient-dense food, why it’s relevant to the brain.

So, you know, the thing that we go into in a lot of detail in the book that I think is really unique is explaining in words that are so. You know, very clear and understandable. We hired a writer to help us make sure that our academic side of writing was translated into an easier read, which is so important.

Cause we, we take a lot of that for granted. And so we’re explaining that those neurotransmitters that everybody has heard about, I think, cause the drug industry has really made sure that we know about serotonin and all that. Yeah. To make serotonin, you need a neurotransmitter. I mean, sorry, you need micronutrients. You need minerals and vitamins to make these neurotransmitters. So as co-factors as part of the chemical reactions, and so it’s like, it’s like making a cake and not including your eggs. Well, you’re not going to make a cake. So it’s the same thing with making your neurotransmitters. If you don’t have your minerals and vitamins, it’s going to be hard for your brain to make those neurotransmitters that are so important for the regulation of your emotions or for regulating your concentration or your sleep and all of these such essential emotional functions in our body.

So that’s what is I think, missing and why there’s a disconnect and why they’re scared of it because they don’t understand that basic biochemistry cause it’s kind of being forgotten.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think it’s totally true. And speaking for myself, as you said, I went through a very traditional clinical psychology PhD training program, and actually had gotten a bachelor’s and master’s in education prior to that. And in neither of those fields of my training was nutrition even discussed at all beyond things like, obvious starvation, malnutrition, those kinds of things.

But it was when I got into practice and started same thing as you going, “Wait a second, not everybody’s getting better.” In fact, seeing more and more kids and young adults who seemed to be getting worse and worse, the more medications that were added. Seeing all of these kids with extremely limited diets, very heavily processed diets with overlap of physical issues like, pre-diabetes, or asthma, or allergies. Seeing all these pieces and going, “Huh, I wonder if food has a piece to play in this.” Having parents come in who had tried different things and seeing the benefits. And that’s when I started really delving into what’s out there around this, what research do we have? And was so surprised to find that really we’ve had some good evidence. And then, in the studies that you have done, and others we’ve got a really solid body of evidence that says we should be looking at this.

And I just stood back and went, “Why did nobody tell me about this?” I’ve got all these degrees, and no one told me about this. So, I think your point is right on that professionals by and large aren’t being trained in this. And we do have a responsibility to stay up to date and look at what’s out there and to see what’s evolving and changing. Because as you said early on in our conversation today, we have too many people, children and adults with mental health issues who are not getting better with conventional treatment. In fact, when you really look at the stats on that, we have a pretty sad track record when we just look at things like psychotherapy and psychiatric medications. And so we do owe it to our patients as parents, we owe it to our kids to look at these pieces.

So, I’d love to have you talk a bit. Obviously, we don’t have time to get into all of the details of the many studies you’ve done. But you have done some very compelling work and have some really strong data around micronutrient formulas and kids with ADHD, with mental health issues. I’d love for you to just give our listeners a summary of some of the things that you have found.

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:
Sure. So as you say, the most compelling data we have is with ADHD and that’s because we did a really, you know, very. Controlled trial. That’s hard, very robust. It’s done like a drug study and you can’t fault it. And so if you’re, if you do want to fault it, then you need to fault pharmaceutical data as well. So I ran it just like that. Analyze the data, just like a drug study. So, yeah, but it wasn’t a drug, it was just vitamins and minerals and just everything that you would get out of a healthy diet, but at a higher dose.
So that is important for the listeners to know that we are giving people more than what you get out of it, of a diet. And there’s a number of reasons for that. And mostly is that maybe some people need more to just like build them back up. They’ve gone through such a longterm of depletion. Do we need to kind of really saturate them with more nutrients for a while to get them back running at optimal functioning? In some cases, I think though, or depends on the condition you’re treating. I think in some cases you need to keep going, because there’something that maybe genetically different about them, that they do need more nutrients than what you’re going to get out of your food. But the study that we did was kids with ADHD and randomized to placebo or micronutrients.
And what we found was that. The effect on ADHD is mixed. And I’ll be very upfront about that. It’s not a quick fix for your core symptoms of ADHD, but then when you think you talk to parents about ADHD, and then when you look at it, just overall, one of the bigger problems oftentimes is the stuff that goes along with ADHD that you see with those kids. And that’s like emotional dysregulation or a lot of challenges with regulating their anger, that irritability. And they’re all there. There’s a lot of research now and a number of professionals and scientists are saying we’ve been neglecting and this what’s looks like. Actually it’s a core component of ADHD it’s this emotional dysregulation. So that is where the effect is. Most robust is the strongest isn’t helping these kids regulate their emotion.
That means though that over time… so when we’ve, so in the eight weeks of an RCT, that’s the part that we see as being the strongest effect. And clinically, we see them as being overall functioning better than kids in the placebo. And they’re happier. They seem calmer. Yes. They still might have some ADHD symptoms in that short burst of time that we’re observing them. But a whole bunch of other things seem to be a whole lot better. So that’s really, for me, exciting because it’s not a giving nutrients is like a metabolic tune-up, it’s not specific.
It’s effect to a symptom it really is providing the body with what it needs in order to try to heal itself. Now, when though what I’d say though, when I look at the longterm data and that’s the people who stay on the nutrients, that’s when we really see the robust effects on ADHD. So does it need more time to correct some of those really long standing challenges? Maybe. It’s not to say that we don’t see it in the short term, but it’s not, definitely not as strong as medications in the short term, but in the longterm. That’s when we see these kids in remission and S like, just not do not meet criteria for ADHD in the morning anymore.
And that’s at the one-year follow-up. I mean, maybe they achieve that at six months, not sure because that’s not how we design the study. But at one year we see 80% of the kids who stay on nutrients are in remission. They’re perfectly normal, normal, happy kids. The kids who go onto medication who choose to go on medication after they finished the trial are not doing as well as the kids who are on the nutrients.
So do they represent a different type of child? Very possibly they’re the kids who maybe they didn’t do as well on the nutrients. Whole host of other reasons you could think of that explain that. But really if those medications are as good as we think they are, those kids should be just as good as those kids on nutrients, but they’re not, and they’re more depressed and they’re more anxious.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah.

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:

So, you know, if I was a parent with a child with ADHD, I’d go, okay, I know this is going to be a, it’s not going to be a quick fix. I should also be looking at the making sure that my child is getting the most nourishing foods possible. Do my best to fight against the trend of giving kids, ultra processed food all the time.

There is no room for fizzy drinks and a good diet. It’s not, they don’t, it shouldn’t be in there. And of course, in some cases, the additional nutrients are going to be necessary to get a child to that place, but it’s not a quick fix. Whereas Ritalin, you see the effects within four hours. It’s very, it’s compelling. It’s attractive, but in the long-term you’re not you’re, I don’t think you’re going to get to the same place with your child. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That’s exactly what I’ve see’d in my practice with using the nutrients. And the thing with Ritalin, and they’re talking about any of the stimulant medications or even some of the non-stimulants. Now, yes, for kids who are responders to those, you do see this quick improvement.

However, the thing that kids and parents are constantly complaining about is the steep drop off. That as soon as the medication wears off, so it’s like, that was in the system for four hours or an extended-release, maybe eight hours. And now the kid’s home from school.

Now we’re dealing with the back end of that we can’t give more Ritalin because they won’t sleep and they won’t eat. And now they’re crashing from that, the irritability and so just all of these other pieces and issues that for many, many kids accompany the taking of the stimulant medications, whereas we don’t see those same problems with kids on the nutrients.

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:
Not at all. You get the, and in fact, you get the opposite. As I said, the probably the, some of the first symptoms to improve are irritability. And so you, and you’d never get. You don’t get that crash. Although what we do here is that I know when my child has missed a dose of micronutrients, I often hear that.
Not at all. You get the, and in fact, you get the opposite. As I said, the probably the, some of the first symptoms to improve are irritability. And so you, and you’d never get. You don’t get that crash. Although what we do here is that I know when my child has missed a dose of micronutrients, I often hear that.And it’s probably more of a, I don’t know, maybe they just, they don’t deal with like, there’s a change in the situation and you can see that suddenly they’re not dealing with it as well. They’re not coping with it as well, or it’s that kind of change as opposed to something really quite obvious. But they just know something’s not quite right about their kid and that they, and then they realize, Oh, they missed their dose.
So, but yeah, I certainly don’t get that crash that you see with right with Ritalin. And so that’s, that is one of the plus sides of the micronutrients compared to Ritalin, but, you know, Ritalin has a place. I just, again, it’s just because of the, you know, some of them, the long-term effects of Ritalin that are, some of them are known the effects.

The one that worries me the most is the effect that it has on, on, on growth velocity and overall height. Yeah. I just, I can’t help, but just kind of go. Well, what else is it doing if it’s suppressing height, right? What other effects that we haven’t yeah. Measured and there may be no others, but that one does worry me a little bit.
But with the nutrients, one of the things that we observed in our, our study with the kids on the micronutrients grew just a little bit taller than the kids who were on placebo. Now it was a trend. So it was a, which means that you need it replicated, but it was a pretty intriguing. You know, somewhat surprising finding.
Cause we weren’t looking for that. It just happened that we were like, Oh my God, these kids are a little bit taller in eight weeks. So what does that mean over the long-term? I mean, feed you feed a plant. It will grow. I think that’s it. It’s not rocket science.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

No, and we’ve seen that trend in general and worldwide data over the last several decades of looking just at height and size overall, as it’s connected to ultra-processed foods being introduced into some of our communities being the main food source. And so, it’s interesting to think about those things. And I also think it’s really interesting some of the emerging research now that we have had children for several decades, who now are adults who have been on these medications.

Now we’re starting to see some of those studies of longer-term things and looking at some of the effects, not necessarily related to stimulants, but certainly related to some of the antidepressant medications and things of vulnerabilities and issues that come up then later in a person’s life when they’ve been started on these.
And I think that’s one of the things that concern so many parents is this feeling of their child being used as a guinea pig when it comes to these medications, because we just don’t have good long-term data. We can’t tell a parent if you start your five-year-old on an antidepressant medication, what that’s going to look like later on in their life necessarily. And so many of just the side effect concerns. And I think the bigger picture is just the large number of children and adults who don’t get perceptibly better with the interventions that we have.
And to me, that provides all the reason we need to look at other options that can be supportive. Not to say that therapy isn’t appropriate, it certainly is. Not to say that medications are never appropriate, they certainly can be. But to say, how can we make our outcomes even better? And I have long felt that if there were drug trials that got results as strong and robust as some of these micronutrient trials, it would be all over the news. And yet, when we’re talking about things like vitamins and minerals doesn’t quite get the airtime, it never does. 

Dr.Julia Rucklidge:
And that’s one of the challenges we’re having with, you know, just overall the publicity of the book is that we’re staying away from what’s. I think some of the, the core pieces that really interesting parts of the book or about the research that we’ve done and we have to keep minimizing it because if you, if you, if the book is seen as being a book about supplements, which it isn’t, it’s the overall piece of it. Then nobody’s going to, the media are going to, aren’t going to like it.

And they, because they only like stories that are bad news stories about supplements. So I don’t know, but our research really what I, if it can do one thing is that it puts nutrition back on the map. Because it’s a proof of principle. It’s proving that minerals and vitamins have a positive effect on some symptoms.
For some people it’s not a cure, doesn’t cure everybody. It’s something that keeps me up at night going, why didn’t some kids get better? Why was there no change whatsoever? We gave them so many nutrients, something else is going on. We haven’t figured that out yet. But so many kids do well. And so what is it saying that is something we need to pay attention to.

If these minerals and vitamins can have such a powerful effect for, for these children, then that should force us all to go, hold on. Where do we get those minerals and vitamins from? Oh, we get them from our food. Oh, how are the foods that I’m feeding my children really? That nourishing, maybe I need to reconsider making sure that they’re more nutrient dense.

So. That’s if I can do that. I’m happy.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

It’s such an important thing. And I want to touch on this leads into a little bit of what I think would be interesting for us listeners, what I consider some ridiculous controversy. But the whole hubbub that happened with your TEDx Talk, basically, you did, and for all of you listening, if you have not seen Julia’s TEDx Talk, look it up. It’s a wonderful synopsis of the things that we’re talking about today. But really great to pass along to family members, or even professionals who you’re working with, who maybe are new to this.

But you presented just data research, like this wasn’t just, “Oh, I’m Julie, and these are my ideas about what I think is helpful.” You presented data, and that talk ended up getting labeled with a warning that said that, you should be careful about consuming this information, because it’s not substantiated. Say a little bit about that.

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:

Oh, it’s painful. It was one of the most upsetting things to happen in my career was to have that flag. And it was a few years ago now, but it was, I was ashamed to be honest, like, you know, having this talk that I had worked so hard on and I knew was robust on the science and to have Ted come along and put that flag on to say, she’s a quack and she’s, you know, she’s not legitimate, you shouldn’t pay attention to this research. It was incredibly hurtful. And it was like, I was in absolute tears over it because it just brought so much shame. It’s like your house getting tagged. It’s like things that, you know, and you couldn’t, I couldn’t erase it. I couldn’t do anything about it. I, all I could do was get the community to try to write to Ted.

I wrote letters, the curator, the local curator at TEDx Christchurch wrote letters to them. And I, and it. All it did was that we were finally able to change a little bit of the wording because at the time it said, she’s, you know, she’s gone outside of the curatorial guidelines, which makes, and when you look at the curatorial guidelines, it’s things like, Oh, she doesn’t have a PhD or she’s not a scientist.
So, or she’s, you know, made up her science like a whole bunch. And you’re like, But I tick tick, tick, I meet, all those boxes. So they must’ve had so much pressure from someone or some big industry that they could not take the flag down. And it’s not, I mean, what was interesting that you might have my husband’s a journalist and so he uncovered that Merck is a sponsor of Ted. Yeah. How can this be? How can this be? So did that, I don’t know. You, you don’t want to come up with too many conspiracy theories or it’ll drive you crazy, but some, there was some kind of pressure on Ted to keep that flag up there. So the best we could do, and that is the flag that’s there at the moment is that she over-simplified legitimate studies.And you’re just like who doesn’t oversimplify in 18 minutes. That’s right. Yeah. And, and that’s there and it’s, and I can kind of live with that. I’d rather it wasn’t there at all because it suggests that what I do is fringe and it’s not, and there’s so much research now so much then there wasn’t 2014.
When I did that, we now have randomized control trials showing them the benefit of, of the Mediterranean diet compared to control. We’ve got more research replication on the studies that I talked about at the time. So there’s more now than there was a 2014. So it’s still painful. There, but I don’t think it’s ever going to, I don’t know how to get it to come down and believe me. I did everything in my power and I used every bit of iota of science and argument, very well-crafted letters to Ted that were completely pretty much ignored. Well, I mean, I think we got this slightly changed, but I’m still grumpy.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

The reason I raise that, not to like have your pain be fresh, but I think it’s really important for our listeners to understand what we’re all up against with this. And I mean what I said a few minutes ago, where if we had as robust of data for many of the pharmaceutical interventions or even other kinds of therapeutic interventions that are used with kids and adults, that we have with some of these nutritional things, it would be all over.

I think it’s really important for people to understand. And for those of you who are listening as parents or even professionals, if you’ve had the experience of being dismissed by your child’s pediatrician, by your own primary health care provider, by mental health people that you are working with or talking with, when you bring up nutrition, I want you to know you’re not alone. I experienced that all the time. And I am a highly degreed credential professiona

Julia’s saying, she’s the one who’s done a lot of this research. She has the data, and the same thing happens. And I think that’s really important for us to understand that there are forces out there that make it difficult for practitioners, for the mass population at large to have this information. And that doesn’t mean we’re wrong to be looking at these things. That doesn’t mean we’re wrong to be researching these things. In fact, it should strengthen our resolve to do even more to get this information out there, to apply this information. And so, I think that’s a really important and powerful takeaway from that.

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:

Absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more is that there are powerful forces that have the potential to lose a lot from this research. So, and there are two of the biggest companies in the world and the most powerful, and that’s the pharmaceutical industry and the food industry. Right. So they are going to do everything they can because wouldn’t you, if that was, you know, your livelihood and your stock prices was dependent on ensuring that the public continued to purchase your products.

Yeah. So, you know, from that side, it’s not surprising, but I just wish humanity would prevail. I just hear that. Yeah. And I wish the compassion towards people who are struggling with mental health issues would be at the top, the highest point of interest. And that that’s what we should care about, you know?

And it, and it doesn’t so far. I mean, what’s, what’s such a struggle here in New Zealand and we’re just a small country, 5 million. We have a wonderful prime minister, but I still can’t make inroads on changing how things are done in New Zealand. And again, yes, you forget about it. Yeah. Yeah. But we were, we were able to change gun laws within a few weeks of that mosque shoot here in Christchurch. So if there’s a will, there’s a way. So if there was the will to say, you know what, we’re, we should accept that these pharmaceuticals are not doing enough good things for our children. There’s this amazing research that’s locally grown. That is showing another way forward. Let’s pull out all the red tape that’s stopping this from becoming mainstream. That’s right. It shouldn’t be me who has to do that. So I can’t do it. It’s got to come from, from someone who’s got that political clout and power.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That’s right. And that’s where I think though, that each of us as individual consumers, consumers of the things that we’re purchasing food wise, we have seen huge shifts in that over the last decade, where pretty much any supermarket at least in the U.S. now that you go and you have a much wider array of options for organic, for getting high fructose corn syrup out

We vote, and send the message to corporations about what’s important to us and how we spend our money. And that’s true in food. And I believe it’s true in the care that we seek out medically as well. And the kinds of things that we choose to do treatment wise for ourselves and our kids. And so, well, I do think we need to continue to try to make inroads politically and where the dollars are, in terms of our governments and things with this. I don’t want to overlook the power that each of us has as an individual, as a parent, as an educator, as a therapist, as a whoever to make a dent in that how we choose to engage, how we choose to spend our money, because ultimately, that’s what speaks.

Tell us, I want to dive into having you share a bit about what people can expect with the book. But you know, you always have lots of studies going on, what’s something in the pipeline that you’re most excited about research wise. Either your own research or research that you’re aware of related to all of this that you’re excited about right now?

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:

Yeah, I think there’s a lot that’s going on in terms of the ADHD work that we’ve done. There’s a replication that’s completed in the United States that was led by Dr. John Jenny Johnston, and some other people at Ohio state university or Oregon health sciences university. So that data may be out by the time the show goes live. So that’s exciting because replication, as I said is so important. So we’ll, you know, we’re, you know, we’re just waiting for those results. Some other exciting things that are happening are, are there is the research that’s on the microbiome. Lowering that, and sort of better understanding the role that our bacteria have in our mental health.

And it’s so new and exciting, but we don’t know really what it means. And so that’s something that I’m constantly keeping my eye open for is better and understanding that I don’t think we have a lot that we can share at this stage because there’s so much unknown, but I think it’s a great. It’s gonna offer some great opportunities for treatment for mental health illnesses in the future.
We have we’re we were just at the moment finishing a whole bunch of, of research. And I kind of want to keep, sort of take stock on that and, and figure out some ways, you know, where we’re going. Next. One of the things that I feel, I want to go back to, we, you know, I did some research with adults and then we did research with kids and then we’ve done a study that was done with women in pregnancy who were struggling with depression.

So. Yeah, we wait for those results. That’s, that’s kind of, we’re in the process of just we’ll, we’ll start delving into that soon. So what I’m actually really interested in that study is to see whether or not we have any effects on birth outcomes, because we’re following these the infants and what happens, you know, can we have an effect on prematurity or weight to birth based on micronutrients during pregnancy? So there’s some really exciting, I hope science that we’re going to uncover with that study. But we’re now moving back into children, got a couple of studies that are going to start with kids. And really the thing I said about that study with ADHD was that the big effect was on dysregulation. And so we want to recruit a bunch of adolescents who are mood dysregulated and, and target that specifically.

Doesn’t that those, that constellation symptoms doesn’t seem to do very well with medication. But to be honest, one of the things about the exciting things about going back to child research is that they, their brains. At least in New Zealand. I don’t know if this is true in the United States, but at least in New Zealand, they haven’t had the same level of exposure to medications.

And so they are what I call medication naive. One of the challenges of the nutrients is the medications. And so when you’re working with the adult population, the majority are. Are either on medication or have been on medication. And I just worry about the effect that the medications is having on their brain wiring long-term and I do think that means that if you are an adult with a chronic condition, I don’t know if you’ve had the same experience, right.
But my kind of clinical experience with them, with people like that, chronic condition, chronic mental health issues have been on medications. They just seem to take a lot longer to recover and that nutrient for nutrients to have the effect. Whereas with. Kids. We tend to see the effects much more quickly and you know, that’s kind of more rewarding is to see effects more quickly.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think that that’s true. And one of the challenges, unfortunately, in the United States, we do medicate kids earlier and more often than many other parts of the world. So it is not uncommon at all. In fact, it’s very much the norm in my. Clinic to have kids come in, who are on one, two, three up to 10 different psychiatric drugs. The average number of drugs that kids are on and come to our clinic is two and a half prescriptions at the time of intake. So unfortunately in the U S we do a lot more with that. I think what’s important for parents to understand is that, you know, I can say anecdotally, At least. And we do have some, you know, certainly research on this as well.

These kids can do very well on nutrients. We have to be more cautious about how we titrate up the nutrients, how those interact with those psychiatric drugs, carefully tapering down medications, because the effects of those can become potentiated by the nutrients. So it certainly, there is more complexity involved and you need a good physician. And you need a physician who’s on boards, right? So otherwise it doesn’t work, but it can be done. And I, I think, you know, I just want parents to hear that, that I see can be done any kids, you know, in our practice who do very well with the nutrients and are able to at least come down on or completely come off of their medications. You just have to do that in a very informed and careful and collaborative way.

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:

Absolutely. And I agree with you is that it can be done. It’s just a bit more complicated as a scientist that makes doing control trials a lot more difficult though. Absolutely. Well, we’re excited about all these studies. I, you know, watch the space where you provide information carefully looking at the journals, coming out, excited to see those.

I want before we wrap up to have you share with people about the book. So this is exciting, the better brain you and. Bonnie Copland together on this. Just give us a quick snapshot of what people can expect to get and where they can access it. Sure. Well, you can probably access it from any bookstore, Amazon through the publisher HMH.

I don’t think that’s going to be it’s out there. Yes. It’s out this week so you can get it everywhere. Exactly. Exactly. So not hard to buy the better brain. And then if you just put that together with Caplin and or records, you will find it. So, so yes, it’s out there and it’s, it covers a lot of the ground that we’ve covered today really helps people understand why we should care, why we should care about nutrients, why?

In some cases, a diet manipulation isn’t sufficient, but our message is food. First. That’s really primary food first food first, because even though lots of people say they eat well. When we look at the data, the dietary surveys, 50% of the calories that North Americans eat comes from ultra processed foods.
So, and that’s, that’s based on assuming people are honest about what they eat. So I suspect it might even be higher and that. No more than 20% of the adult population is hitting their, even their, their daily quota for fruit and vegetables. So we have a long way to go to get that right. So that’s why our message really is food first, then supplements.

If that’s not sufficient and try the supplements, and then we get the wealth of data. Very no cherry picking. We talk about the pros. We talk about the cons. We talk about some of the studies that haven’t worked, why we think they haven’t worked so that you get a really honest opinion you know, review of that research.
And then we’ve also got recipes in there that are, we tried to make them well, of course healthy, but also cost conscience so that they are using ingredients. And practical and hopefully not too hard to follow. So, and hopefully I’ve sort of envisioned for the future. That is going to be different than the one that we have right now.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So it’s so exciting when I first heard about the project. So excited about it, all of you listening, because my audience is so supportive of. These topics, this information, I want all of you to go. Now, whether it’s Amazon, your local bookstore or wherever, go buy the books, support the important, important work and research that Julia and Bonnie and their teams are doing.
Get the book, read it for yourself. Share the information with your healthcare providers, with the mental health people that you’re coming in contact with, read the book and then pass it along or get somebody else a copy. We need to get this information in the hands of. More people who are engaged with working with kids and adults around these really important issues.

So I know that my community will be big supporters of this and I am ,Julia. I really appreciate during this very busy time with the book coming out, that you were able to take some time for us today. A great conversation. Thank you for the work that you’re doing and thank you for being here with us. I will.

Dr. Julia Rucklidge:
Thank you very much, Nicole, for having me and I, we certainly hope it makes a difference.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Thanks to all of you for listening as always. We’ll catch you back here next week for our next episode of the better behavior show.