Plant Medicine Can Help Children With Better Brain Function, Behavior, and Sleep

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the show. I’m Dr. Nicole, and on today’s episode, we are talking about the power of plants to support brain function, behavior and more. We all know that plants like fruits and vegetables are important for brain and body health, but today we are going to talk specifically about how the bioactive compounds in plants, also called phytonutrients, which you have probably heard me mentioned before, impact our health and how they can even be used therapeutically to improve specific symptoms. To help us understand how all this works and some starting points to consider, I’ve invited Dr. Dan Gubler on the show today. Let me tell you a bit about him.

He is a natural product chemist that has traveled to every continent, discovering and researching bioactive compounds in plants and using them to help others. He has 16 patents and has developed 70 nutritional supplements. He is an expert on how phytonutrients can improve health conditions. He is a member of the London Speaker Bureau, has spoken at over 150 events in 40 countries, and is co-founder and chief scientific officer at Brilliant, an innovative proactive wellness company that creates nutritional supplements to help people unleash their innate brilliance. He is also the host of Discover with Dr. Dan, the proactive health podcast. Dr. Dan, thank you so much for being here. Welcome!

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Dr. Nicole, it’s sure a delight to be with you. I’m so excited.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

So I’m thrilled to have you on to talk about this topic because I think this is such an under-appreciated, under-recognized component of health and wellness and of addressing symptoms. So this is going to be such a great conversation, I would love to start by really having you share a little bit about your story. I don’t know your background, so I’d love to hear how you got interested in focusing on plants and health.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, so I’m a natural products chemist by training. And so like you said, I travel around the world studying compounds in plants. It really started from a young age. I grew up in Utah in the Mountain West and I loved hiking, I loved collecting plants, I collected fungi, mushrooms, and whatnot. And I started reading traditional medicine books about Navajo traditional medicine and Anasazi, and in the Four Corners area where I spent a lot of time when I was younger, talking with different traditional medicine healers and learning that there are different things that you can do when you have a cut, there are things other than Neosporin, and a band-aid, which is kind of common. It was just fascinating to learn that certain plants and different resins from plants could do different things. And when you steeped plants in liquids, you could pull out the bioactive compounds. And so it kind of went from there. I remember, from a young age, I loved mixing potions. I would beg my mom during the summertime, that’s just horror for a mom, when the kids are at home and there is nothing to do. And the mom and the parents are like, “Oh my goodness.” I would beg my mother if I could go into her kitchen and start mixing different spices with water and things, and I would mess with steeping times and whatnot, and drink that drink the potions or have it be the undesirable reward for someone who got caught in our game.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

So chemistry was in your future for sure.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

It was. My grandfather was a was a biochemist, and so I grew up with just playing around in his lab, and it went from there that I started wanting to understand more the organic chemistry, the structure of the bioactive compounds, like what compounds were actually in the plant and some of their bioactivities. And so it went from there that I did my undergraduate and then went to graduate school and postdoctoral research as a professor. Too much school, way too much school. You know that path. But it really set me on a path to do what I love, which is finding compounds from plants and using them to help others.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

It’s really great. And I think I don’t know if this is true just from my experience, but I know a lot of people who are chemists, but there are not a lot of natural product chemists. Most people who go into chemistry, bio-engineering, those kinds of things, are not looking at the stuff that you specialize in.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

No, not at all, but most of the time chemistry is all about titration or people working in the petroleum industry, or even in pharma. They do work with organic compounds and whatnot, but they aren’t really looking in-depth at compounds in plants, especially in foods and how they interact with the body.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Yeah, well let’s go there next because I want to lay a foundation for people. Some of our listeners are probably interacting with this and going “Wow, this is awesome. I can’t wait to delve into this!”, and some people are probably going “What do you mean plant compounds?” What are we talking about here? So let’s lay a foundation. What are we really talking about when we say plant compounds, phytonutrients? What are these things?

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, so when we look at a plant, and if we were to put a microscope on it and pull it apart, we have different components of a plant. You have macronutrients, which we all know. That’s fats, proteins, carbohydrates. You have micronutrients, which are the vitamins and minerals. Those reside in plants as well. And they are hugely beneficial. And then you have phytonutrients. And phytonutrients are a broad class of basically organic compounds. And when we say organic compounds, we are not talking about organically grown produce or whatnot. We are talking about molecules that primarily have carbon in them. And so a lot of us have probably heard that drinking a glass of red wine a day could be good for you because of a natural compound called resveratrol. Or you have probably heard of curcumin in turmeric. Those are examples of bioactive compounds of phytonutrients. Those are the major components of plants, and it’s the phytonutrients that really is a whole class of underutilized. It’s an underutilized area of science. Like you said, there are not too many people that specialize specifically in this area.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

And it’s interesting to me, because when we look at what the more predominant approach is, in this country at least, which is pharmacology, which is pharmaceutical drugs, really the origins of many of the compounds, many of the things that are manufactured now and used in these drugs, the origins of that are in plants, correct?

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Exactly, yeah. 50% of all pharmaceutical drugs are from plants. If I’m a pharma chemist — and I was one for a little bit, if you’re a medicinal chemist, you get a structure that comes across your board saying, “Hey, we want you to make a drug, and this is the starting scaffold that we want you to use.” And that starting scaffold is actually a molecule from a plant. When pharma wants to find a lead to develop a new drug, they take all these molecules from nature, screen them through a huge library to find something that’s the closest fit to what they want to do, and then that’s their starting point.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

I think that’s so important for people to understand, because I find that many people in the general population just dismiss the power of plants. “Oh that’s just whatever, oh, that’s holistic, natural, whatever”, and I think it’s very compelling for people to hear that no, there is tremendous power in these, to the point where 50% of the drugs that you believe in and you take actually are based on compounds in plants. I think that’s a really important frame to put around this for people to understand.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

That’s right. And it’s nice that the paradigm is shifting a little bit. I see the last 5-10 years, we are moving in the right direction, rapidly, I would say. That’s good. So plant medicine is no longer seen as that crazy thing that only hippies do, or your crazy aunt that visits once a year does. And there is a lot of good science that’s actually coming online too. The scientific literature is exploding on people who are studying compounds in plants and actually showing their benefits. They are running pharmaceutical grade studies, clinical studies, on compounds in plants, just like they are doing with pharma drugs, and showing efficacy.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

And that’s so important. I think a big piece of that is especially in the realm that I operate in of mental health psychiatry, and psychology, so many of the medications that have been produced and in use now for decades have really underperformed. We still have massive problems within the general population of people still being partially or fully symptomatic, even on these drugs. We have got the side effects issues. And so I think it has driven interest, both among consumers, as well as companies, as well as professionals, looking at other approaches that we can use here, plants being one of them.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Right. I think human nature is black or white, right? It’s either this or that. And what we are starting to realize is that pharmaceuticals are great, they are fantastic, they do a great job. These are small molecules that have been specifically designed to hit an active site, an enzyme in the body. And they bind with really, really tight affinity, nano-molar affinity, so they are not coming off, lot times are suicide inhibitors. And so they do a great job, especially in reactive type wellness situations where our health is just kind of spiraling and it’s going down, and you need something really strong to pull you out of that nosedive. But oftentimes, we don’t need really harsh reactive measures, proactive type measures. And that’s where compounds from plants are great, because compounds from plants have evolved with humans over millions of years. And so when we take compounds from plants, they bind to targets in the body, but they don’t bind as tightly as pharmaceutically designed drugs do. So they can kind of pop on and off, and that’s actually good, because they can help modulate health in a more mild but effective way. And really, that’s all the body needs a lot of times, just a gentle nudge to get back on course, rather than this harsh hammer, so to speak.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

That’s really a great way of describing it. So let’s go through some of the common things that we see in kids and in adults, but we will focus specifically on kids and teens, and have you share some of the things and the research, from your experience, that can be helpful. So let’s start with anxiety, because that is certainly the big one, especially right now, after almost two years of this pandemic situation. Just huge portions of the population of kids and adults dealing with some degree of problematic anxiety in their life. So what are some of the things that we can be thinking about in terms of these bioactive compounds from plants and anxiety issues?

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, so one of my favorites is a micronutrient called selenium, and it’s really important. It’s super important for mood disorders. When we look at mood disorders, a lot of times, selenium is something that we are deficient in. A lot of people are deficient in selenium. And the Brazil nut is a rich source of selenium. It actually has organal-selenium molecules. So it’s not just selenium, the mineral itself, but it’s attached to an organic compound. And so because of that, it’s absorbed really quickly into the body. And so eating just one or two Brazil nuts a day, one Brazil on average, it depends. But it contains 70 to 90 micrograms of selenium. So if you take one or two of those a day, you’re getting a huge dose of selenium. So that’s a really nice way to get good amounts of selenium that can help with mood.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

That’s awesome. How about things like — there is a lot of talk now. And I’ve seen some papers about some of the adaptogenic herbs and things for anxiety in particular. What are some of the specific ones?

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, when we look at adaptogens for anxiety, the best literature, hands down, is on ashwagandha. And a lot of us have probably heard of ashwagandha. It’s from Ayurvedic medicine, it’s now gotten mainstream. It’s in a lot of different nutritional supplements, you could buy it as a powder just by itself. You could buy it in capsules. But ashwagandha has bioactive compounds in it, phytonutrients called withanolides. And these withanolides are really good at effectively reducing anxiety, particularly anxiety related to stress. So if it’s stress-induced anxiety, Ashwagandha is very, very good at helping with it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

One of the things that a lot of kids who have moderate to high anxiety really struggle with, is that it can manifest as sort of hyperactivity or just overexcitement and elevation, which is different from how it can show up in adults, but we get that. And also the other thing that I see, often hand in hand with the high anxiety in kids, is sleep issues. and I know that there are several compounds, several things that can be helpful. Passionflower, valerian, lemon balm, some of those things that can be helpful for calming as we go towards sleep time. Are there certain ones that you think are more research-supported or good to be thinking about for that sort of anxious-can’t-shut-the-mind-off to settle down for sleep kind of situation?

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, the ones that come to my mind are actually two natural compounds called magnolol and honokiol from Magnolia bark. Magnolia is really, really good with stress and anxiety, and it’s also really good with sleep. And the active compounds in Magnolia bark that help with sleep and anxiety are magnolol and honokiol. And again, you can buy Magnolia bark powder, standardized to these two bioactive compounds and it’s really effective.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

That leads me to a question that maybe would be good for us to answer or talk about before we go any further. What should people be looking for with these? I mean, there is a broad range with this stuff, right? Everything from — like we have got a local place here in town, that people will just show up in my office with these baggies of things, all the way to pharmaceutical grade standardized supplements. What do you suggest that people be looking at from a consumer standpoint when they are thinking about purchasing or using some of these kinds of compounds?

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah. This is a big deal, and that’s a great question because obviously when we put something into our body, the amount of inherent trust there is huge. It’s a lot different than laying on a mattress or using a pencil or whatnot, and so we need to be super vigilant. And I’m surprised at how people will just, off a whim, just go grab something and throw it in their mouth when they don’t know where it’s been. And so really, you want to choose a company that that has clinical studies on it, that has patents on it, that has transparency where you can actually see the lot that the supplement was produced, the micronutrients and the macronutrients, and to make sure it’s not going to get you sick. Just standard stuff like that. You really need to demand to see those sorts of things.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

And I think especially where children are concerned, something that’s good standardized dosing on it — I mean, if you’re just doing whatever, you have a bag of something — you have to be really careful with children, with all supplement kinds of things, not just the specific like herbs and plant compounds. Kids are not just miniature adults. And so we want to make sure that we are being appropriately cautious, and that we know what we are giving them and how much of these active ingredients is in it. And I agree, I’m always surprised, I think that’s just this bias that a lot of the general population has, “Oh, it’s natural, so it’s fine.” And it’s like, these are actually powerful things!

Dr. Dan Gubler 

And like you said, standardization is key. We need to demand standardization. So a lot of times we think ginkgo is ginkgo. Well, no, you have gingko that is standardized to bioactive compounds called ginkgolides. And then you have gingko that’s not standardized at all. So we have no idea what’s in there. It’s just a nice, green-looking powder. And so we need to make sure that whenever we take any compound from a plant, it needs to be standardized. It’s kind of like pharma. When you take a pharma drug, you know you’re getting 10mg of Risperdal or whatever. We need to know that when I take this the supplement that’s hopefully been clinically studied, I’m getting 10 milligrams of ginkgolide B, I’m getting 20 milligrams of honokiol, and so forth, so that you can actually quantify and run clinical studies, and know that it’s going to do its job reproducibly. That’s the other problem, a lot of times people buy something that works, gingko or whatever, and they’ll run out of that bottle, and they’ll go and grab something else, and it doesn’t work anymore, right? Because it’s just totally different stuff.

 

 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

I’ve seen that happen to families a lot, even with basic micronutrient kinds of things. The formula, the type, all of that really matters, especially when we are talking about kids and their little bodies. And I think this is a bit of a tangent, but I think it’s important to mention here: Nowhere is this a bigger issue right now than when we think about the whole realm of hemp, cannabis, CBD, all of that. As you were talking, that came to mind because I’ve just been having conversation after conversation over the last couple years with parents and adult patients around that, and that whole issue of what is actually in this thing that you’re taking, what is the standardization? I mean, I don’t know if that’s a concern you have but it’s something that I’m seeing that just is really problematic right now.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, huge. The CBD, THC cannabinoid industry in general is skyrocketing. And there is some nice literature coming out on CBD. It needs to be controlled. When we say CBD or cannabinoids, there are 50 different cannabinoids in the plant, and more yet to be discovered. There are more cannabinoids being discovered all the time because there are different strains that are being made of the cannabis plant, and those strains are producing different cannabinoids. And so while there is some pretty good anecdotal data on CBD, it hasn’t been rigorously tested, especially in children at all. There really aren’t any studies. And so it’s questionable, I would stay away from that. I mean, potentially someone would come to me and say, “Well I gave CBD to my child, and it really helped.” And great, I believe them. But when it comes to hardcore scientists, we don’t speak until we see the data, and the data is just not there.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Yeah, I think the one area where we are seeing more of it come out, in particular to the pediatric population, is when we talk about epilepsy and specific forms of epilepsy. And certainly, there are some guidelines for use there. I think the concern is again, what is it that you’re taking? That whole industry is like the wild, wild west right now, and I think to your point about running out of one bottle, it’s like what is even in this stuff? How much? I get concerned about that, particularly for kids, when we are talking about that whole hemp, CBD arena. You need to really know what’s in the product and how much you’re getting. That’s just super important.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, and that’s the problem. And I think that’s why the FDA is being cautious because they want CBD to have approval. It’s kind of a catch 22, because CBD is already approved, like you said, as a pharmaceutical drug. Epidiolex is 100% CBD, and it’s amazing in its ability for intractable seizures, Dravet syndrome and different types of seizures. But just saying CBD or cannabinoids, now you have Delta-8 cannabinoids that people are producing and whatnot. So it’s basically kind of the wild west. You have street drug type cannabinoids, where people are taking CBD and THC as starting materials and they are doing chemistry on it to make different things. We have to be careful.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

And I think it’s something important that we talk about and educate our teens and young adults about too, because it’s stuff that they are going to be exposed to, especially now when we talk about cannabis and the fact that marijuana is being legalized now across so many of the states. This is a reality of our kids’ lives, and helping them to have some education and a healthy respect for what the plants are, what these can possibly do, problems that you can encounter, the safety pieces, these are conversations as parents that maybe it wouldn’t have entered our mind 20 years ago, that these were necessary conversations to have, but today, it’s really important.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, especially in the cannabis realm. Back in the day you just had THC predominant variants, and THC is psychoactive and whatnot, but it’s not going to really harm you. It’s blunting and whatnot. Some of these cannabinoids that are synthetically being developed are just crazy active in crazy small amounts, and so it’s dangerous. And when you talk about that, that made me think a lot of people think, “Well plant-based stuff is great, it’s amazing.” And it is, and it’s safe, a lot of it is. But it can also be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. There are plants that can help you, but there are plants that could kill you deader than a doornail in a nanosecond if you’re not careful. So we need to really understand what we are doing and what we are putting into our bodies.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

That makes me think also about the precautions around the mixing of plant compounds and certain natural substances with pharmaceuticals that you or your child might be taking. That it’s important to be talking with your health care provider about that to make sure that things in combination — like there are certain things that sometimes are recommended in the realm of mental health, let’s say for anxiety or something like that, that really are contraindicated if you’re currently on an SSRI drug or something like that. And so just being open and honest with everyone on your care team about what it is that you’re taking, natural or not, is really the safe route, especially when we are talking about kids.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Right? Yeah, no, that’s exactly right. Especially with supplements too. When you make a supplement, you can throw anything into the supplement, theoretically, that’s generally recognized as safe by the FDA. But that which is generally recognized as safe does not include synergistic interactions. And so we talk about synergy, and everybody thinks, well, one plus one is three, that’s great. But you can also have negative synergy. One plus one can equal minus a thousand, right? So a lot of times, you can have a supplement where people don’t clinically test the final product, where they are just like, “Oh, more is better. This is cool, this is cool. This is cool.” And they throw it in, and they can actually have contraindications and deleterious side effects in that supplement because people aren’t thinking smartly. You have bioactive compounds that are working on different biosynthetic machineries and pathways in the body, and they can cause harm if you don’t know what you’re doing, if you’re just throwing things in.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Yeah, it’s a great point. Let’s get back to sort of our condition-specific things. We talked a bit about some anxiety, let’s talk about ADHD, because there is some interesting data on specific bioactive compounds. What we call ADHD, I contend is probably actually dozens of different presentations of symptoms, but in general when we think about ADHD presentations, were talking about problems with focus and concentration, the impulsivity, the hyperactivity, so what are some of the things to be thinking about with plants and those kinds of symptoms?

Dr. Dan Gubler 

So not quite a plant, but I would lump it in that realm with bioactive compounds: Omega 3 fatty acids, where we have DHA specifically. If you look at the literature, 300 milligrams of ADHD seems to be a really good dose that can help with a lot of symptoms with ADHD. EPA and DHA, your listeners have probably heard those before, those are omega 3 fatty acids. One thing that’s really interesting in omega is that EPA and DHA are actually pro-drugs. So they are not the active compounds. They are actually converted in the body into a class of compounds called specialized pro-resolving mediators or SPMs, like resolvins, protectins and maresins, and these actually help to resolve inflammation. And so inflammation, as you know, is the root cause of all disease. If you ask a medical doctor, inflammation, you want to reduce inflammation. And inflammation is present in a lot of these mental health states. The brain is an organ. It gets inflamed. And so omega 3, and these specialized pro resolving mediators that come from DHA are really good at supporting inflammation, specifically related to brain health and ADHD.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

I want to ask about — and this kind of ties in with the anxiety piece too, because I’ve seen literature on both: Saffron. It’s an interesting option now. I might be wrong with this, but I think I read an article fairly recently, that there are some drug manufacturers looking at how to make proprietary types of saffron to include in their formulas. Can you talk a bit about that because I think some of the data on that so far is pretty compelling.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, saffron does have really good data. It’s a bit stronger in anxiety than it is in ADHD. I would say the anxiety data is very, very strong. The ADHD data is quite strong. There is more that needs to be done there, but it’s still really, really good. There is a bioactive compound in saffron called Safranal. Now, and Safranal now is the compound that a lot of people — again pharma drugs are taking it as a starting point and trying to do their magic to make different derivatives to see if they could find something that’s more active that fits their needs, but saffron is really good. Using saffron in cooking, if you can, I know it’s expensive, is a really, really good thing to do. Taking a teaspoon of saffron and steeping it as a tea, a teaspoon of saffron threads in eight ounces of water and steeping it for five minutes or so is really good. Side note, saffron is also really good with PMS and PMDD. It’s very effective for that. So lots of good bioactive compounds in saffron.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

That’s great. I didn’t know that about PMDD. That’s great, because I see a handful of cases of severe PMDD in younger girls and young adult women. So that’s great to know. What also is sort of the focus piece of things? Sometimes we hear about things like maybe rhodiola and some of these other kinds of herbs and plants that maybe have some efficacy for that, or in the focus formulas that parents often ask about. Any data for any of those? Are there other ones that you think makes sense to consider or that are often included in formulas for these kinds of issues?

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Some of the ones that have the best research on them talk about Omega 3. The next one is Phosphatidylserine. Phosphatidylserine has some really good data on it. About 200 milligrams of Phosphatidylserine. They did a clinical study, several clinical studies. And the average time, 200 milligrams a day, and they looked at ADHD symptoms over the course of two months, and they found that there was a marked reduction in ADHD tendencies and behaviors and symptoms, when on Phosphatidylserine. So that’s a really good one. The other one that has good data is carnitine, L Carnitine. 500 to about 1000 mgs is the standard. About 750 mgs in children ages 7 to 12. Obviously, talk with your doctor, but that’s usually what they recommend. And they found that supplementation with carnitine really helps with symptoms of ADHD, reduce aggression where delinquency is a problem, they saw significant reductions in delinquency rates and improved attention.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Yeah, and I think it’s worth noting, going back to what you had said about the omega 3 fatty acids, often parents will come in and say, “Oh I tried that.” And we talk about what they use, they aren’t anywhere close to a therapeutic dose of what the studies show is actually supportive of symptom reductions. I think that’s as important to mention, because parents go “I got this bottle of fish oil, these capsules and I was just giving the dose on the label.” And actually, in the studies, what we see is that these kids and adults benefit from much higher dosing.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Right, exactly. And a lot of times when we talk about Omega 3, it’s specifically DHA, right? And a lot of times people will be using just run of the mill fish oil that’s not standardized at all to either EPA or DHA. And so it’s no wonder it’s not working. But yeah, you have to look at the standardization there. And like you said, a lot of times you might have to up the dose, depending on the form and the standardization in the bottle.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Yeah. And I think that’s just important to recognize with all of these things. If you’re thinking “Well, I tried that”, just to consider: Was it the right form? Was it a therapeutic dose? All of those factors really make a difference.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. It’s not just a blanket saying “I tried that”, but it really has to be just scientifically, like a pharma drug. It has to be dialed in, it has to be specific, it has to be standardized, it has to be at the right dose. And when you do that, the literature is pretty good.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Yeah. Let’s talk about autism spectrum disorder specifically, some research that’s coming out about that, some things that you think should be on our radar so far if a child is having symptoms of autism or has been diagnosed as autistic. Is there some evidence for this? Are there specific compounds we should be thinking about?

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, when you look at the scientific literature, the natural compounds that I think are the strongest, are again, L carnitine, that’s really good; 50 mgs per kilogram of body weight is kind of one of the standard doses there. And then N-Acetyl Cysteine is also really good by itself, but it also is really good as an adjuvant. There have been some studies coming out showing that N-Acetyl Cysteine, as an adjuvant — there was one with Risperidone, that it significantly reduced irritability and other and a few other parameters related to autism. So those are the two that I’ve seen that are the strongest. Other ones that are out there are gingko biloba. I don’t think the literature on ginkgo is that strong for autism. Gingko is obviously an amazing adaptogen, it’s a nootropic, it helps with cognitive function and a lot of other things, but when it comes to autism, I’m not really seeing it. CoQ10, there is some data there. I would say that the data is okay. There are some more studies that need to be done, but that’s kind of where I see things are right now.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Yeah, and I think the challenge with something like autism is that it’s such a broad spectrum. And again, my clinical opinion is that what we call autism spectrum disorder is probably hundreds of very specific presentations of genetic and environmental combinations, which makes it difficult to study, right? Because you can say, well, we studied this compound or this medication or this type of therapy on 100 12-year-olds diagnosed with autism. Well, that really doesn’t tell us anything about how similar they are to one another. And so I think that’s a challenge. What I find often with kids diagnosed on the spectrum is you have to look at their specific symptom presentations, and for example, if you have a kid who is obviously highly anxious, you might look to some of the compounds or some of the things that we use in anxiety to help support that, as opposed to just looking at like “What do we have that’s effective for the Autism?” I think a lot of times we are looking at what’s effective at supporting reduction of some of these co-occurring kinds of symptoms.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Exactly.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Sleep being a huge one. I know that there have been a couple of good studies on more developmental disabilities more broadly, in kids, looking at combinations like Valerian and lemon balm, but sleep is such a problem in the population of kids with neurodevelopmental issues. What do you think about sleep with kids, whether they have a diagnosed disorder or not? Are there certain things just more broadly for sleep issues?

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, so when it comes to sleep, I do like Magnolia bark. That’s one thing, standardized to magnolol and honokiol. That’s quite good. That has good data behind it. Lemon balm is not bad. Valerian root, the literature on valerian root, it looks strong when you look at it, but then when you kind of dig into the studies, I’m not so hot on valerian, it seems like there is some what what’s the word I’m looking for?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Your mileage may vary.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Your mileage may vary. That there is a vested interest for maybe other groups. Yeah. So there, it looks like there is some of that going on. Valerian is not bad. But Magnolia bark is quite good.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Yeah. You had mentioned the Magnolia bark, and I wondered if that was specific to more of the anxiety or more broadly, but you’re saying just for kids with sleep issues, in general, the Magnolia bark is a good one to look at.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

It is good for both.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

That’s great. That’s great. I want to ask about one more sort of round before we wrap up, and that is kids and people who don’t have a specific mental health diagnosis, but maybe just are struggling with regulating emotions and behaviors — and this could be adults or kids, and I think this is particularly relevant in this, I’d love to say post-pandemic, but I’m just going to say pandemic stage that we are living through. People are struggling with managing their emotions, their behaviors. Are there some links to organic compounds? Either things that maybe people are exposed to that are making that more problematic, or things that we could use that can support us in that way.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, so in studying compounds in plants, one of the common threads that I’m seeing is — just kind of a brief primer on how the body works — the body performs millions of chemical reactions every single second. And these reactions are involved in everything from heart health, brain health, respiration, breathing, all the way to maintaining a healthy mood, keeping anxiety at bay. And these reactions are controlled by enzymes, right? If we take a step back, enzymes are these machines that make it happen. If you step back from enzymes, genes control enzymes; we have heard of genes, DNA and genes in our body. These are like switches that turn on and off. And then if you step back from there, you have what are called signal transduction cascades or bio-signaling mechanisms. And when we look at the root cause of what molecules in plants do, most of them are regulators of these bio signaling reactions. So they are at the very, very beginning, they actually helped to catalyze and make sure all the reactions in the body are functioning properly. And so natural compounds like ginkgolides and gingko, and rosavins from rhodiola, and Berberine are actually really good at regulating bio signaling mechanisms in the body. That can help with mood, that can help with cognitive performance, with productivity, with mindset, positive mindset, and a lot of different things that are just really helpful, like you said, for all of us. Just part of trying to be a good human being and get through the day.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Right. Absolutely. So interesting to have you explain the physiological processes behind that, because we don’t think about that, right? We don’t think about all those steps and components we take for granted when things are operating well in our brain and our body. We don’t really think about all the intricate steps of how that happens, and I just think it’s so good sometimes to take a step back and look at all those pieces of look at all the things that have to work together and work properly to allow us to function well!

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Right, and these phytonutrients are critical for human health. These are the medicinal components of plants, and with the modern process diet, no shocker, you can go an entire day without taking a single Phytonutrient, and it’s not that hard, right? You think about foods that we are prone to give our children, and that we eat ourselves. The modern processed diets, there are no phytonutrients in any of that, really. It’s a miracle of food engineering that we are able to make food. But good health is so much more than macros. It’s just funny to see people counting macros and paying so much attention to that, but they are not paying attention to phytonutrients that actually regulate the genes in the body. It doesn’t matter if your macros are right. If your genes aren’t working, then it’s a losing battle.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

So true. And so I think as we wrap up on a broad level, we have talked about specific compounds supplements and things to look at, but really, at a foundational level, one of the most important things we can all be doing for ourselves in our kids is working on getting more plants into our bodies, in the form of the food that we are eating every day, right?

Dr. Dan Gubler 

That’s right. It’s that simple, really. Plants have been with us since the beginning of time. They are here to help us. Eating plants, these phytonutrients are just vital for health. And so we need to make sure that we take the time and the effort, and it can be laborious sometimes to get phytonutrients into the mouths of our kids, and for us to take them, but it’s vital for health.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Yeah, absolutely. Such an important point, and I really appreciate all the information that you shared. I want to make sure that listeners know where they can find out more about you and your work.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Yeah, so I have a podcast, and I had you as a guest on my podcast. Look forward to that episode airing. So it’s Discover with Dr. Dan, Proactive Health, so your listeners can go there and check that out. I’m on Instagram, @drdangubler. I’m also on Tik Tok, same handle, trying to do the young kid thing. We are giving that a go. And then I do make some supplements. So if you want to look at different supplements, I have a company called Brilliant, and the website is feelbrilliant.com, and I also have a women’s wellness brand called Clea, the URL for that is helloclea.com.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Wonderful, amazing! I know people are going to want to go check all those out. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom around this. Such a fascinating topic. I really appreciate your time.

Dr. Dan Gubler 

Thanks, Dr. Nicole for having me. It was marvelous.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

And thanks to all of you, as always, for listening. We will catch you back here next time.