0:00

Andrew became well his OCD symptoms which had been severe um went down to

0:06

zero his psychosis his hallucinations took longer they took more than six months to go to zero but by the end of a

0:13

year they were to [Music]

0:23

zero greetings hello good day everybody wherever you are in the world thank you so much for joining true Hope cast the

0:30

official true hope Canada podcast my name is Simon and I'm your host true hope Canada is a mind and body based

0:36

supplement company that is dedicated first and foremost to promoting brain and body Health through non-invasive

0:42

nutritional means now more than ever people are looking for ways to support their mental health and this is a huge

0:48

part of what we're continuously always doing at true hope Canada for more information you can visit trop canada.com and you can visit us on all

0:55

the usual social media sites we've got a very special guest on the show today Dr

1:01

Bonnie Kaplan Dr Kaplan is a research psychologist and semi-retired professor

1:07

at the University of Calgary's um Coming school of medicine for many years she studied the role of nutrition in mental

1:14

illness and brain development and during her 40-year scientific career she's

1:20

published widely on the biological basis of Developmental disorders and mental health particularly focusing on the

1:27

contributing sorry the contribution of nutrition to brain development and brain

1:32

function and Dr Klan has enjoyed many many different Awards along her way

1:38

including the Dr Rogers prize for excellent excellence in complimentary and alternative medicine now in

1:44

retirement her passion is to teach people how our diet influences our brain

1:50

and our mental health Dr Kaplan thank you so much for joining us first question as always how are you oh I'm

1:58

fine thank you I think retirement was uh actually good training for coping with

2:04

the isolation of covid yeah absolutely well that's that's

2:09

probably one positive that's great to hear um would you be kind enough to share with us a little bit about your

2:14

journey into the remarkable study of nutrition and its role its pivotal role

2:21

in mental illness sure well my journey started probably before most of your listeners

2:27

were born um I entered graduate school in 1968 knowing that I wanted to study

2:34

psychology but that I never wanted to be a clinician um and a lot of people might

2:39

not realize that that there is this other aspect of studying psychology that involves experimental research

2:46

Understanding Psychology as opposed to actually training yourself to become a clinical psychologist so as I was

2:54

following my graduate program this was at brandise University in Boston and um learning about the

3:02

brain and behavior I found myself constantly drawn to understanding the biochemistry of the brain so if I was

3:09

assigned a topic uh say in learning or memory I was always selecting uh you

3:16

know information related to the biochemical basis of how learning and memory uh memories are stored Etc and in

3:24

fact the very first peer-reviewed scientific publication on my CV is dated

3:29

19 1972 and it was on was entitled malnutrition and mental development so I

3:35

had a very old interest in nutrition but um I found it very

3:41

difficult to study nutrition for various reasons there wasn't a lot of interest in it I decided to do post-doctoral

3:49

training uh to learn more about neurophysiology so I that was a fiveyear

3:54

sojourn um at the neuropsychology laboratory affiliated with Yale University and then I went on to the

4:00

faculty at Yale doing neurophysiological research not related to nutrition though

4:07

and then when I moved to Canada in 1979 um there it was right in the middle

4:13

of a big controversy going on I was at the research center affiliated with Alberta children's hospital and a big

4:20

controversy going on about actually um through a dietitian who was recommending

4:26

that families feed their children better in order to cope with difficult behavior

4:32

isn't that controversial what a wild wild thought idea and the pediatricians

4:37

were not wild about it and so I was asked to work with her and do a study

4:43

and so we did a study the fine gold diet was was very prominent and we did a study comparing um and it was a double

4:50

blind Placebo controlled uh study actually in very young children um and

4:57

published it in Pediatrics in 198 89 and showed that children who ate a healthier diet C we called it the clear diet

5:05

because it didn't have the ultra processed food and additives um were noticeably better in terms of their

5:11

hyperactive impulsive kinds of behaviors and I still found it difficult

5:17

to create a career around nutrition though because I kept running

5:22

into um I'll call them True Believers Simon people who would I I just remember

5:28

kind of the strong that broke the camel's back when a mother said to me Bonnie I believe in nutrition and I

5:35

thought my goodness on a on a good day I believe in God but nutrition isn't something this is really nutrition is

5:42

not something that you have to have some kind of faith in it simply is it's it's

5:48

the foundation of how our cells grow and develop and function and I understood what she meant

5:55

but it just made me realize that that and some other things that I was dealing with people who were sometimes quite

6:02

fanatical and I'm not comfortable around fanaticism of any kind in science

6:08

religion or politics or anything so I remember um this will be

6:14

the longest answer I give you Simon okay no problem this is great I remember

6:20

saying to my husband in around 1990 that's it I am never going to try to

6:25

study nutrition again I keep trying and trying and I just it's just not the way

6:30

forward and so I moved into another Direction fortunately didn't get fired

6:36

for lack of productivity and was able to develop a career and then Along came a

6:42

day in 1996 when I met Tony stefen his daughter

6:49

Autumn stringam and David Hardy and I knew that

6:55

there was something going on they didn't have a company called true hope then they didn't form true hope till I think

7:01

about 1999 you might know the date better than I do but um they certainly

7:07

knew that they were helping people and when I listened to Autumn's story I knew this was not a scam it wasn't a fraud it

7:14

wasn't fanaticism it was real and I was um relatively well positioned and

7:21

knowledgeable enough to study it and that launched me right back into

7:27

nutrition which is pretty much where I stay for the rest of my career amazing my husband reminds me occasionally that

7:33

I swear I'd never do that but you know yeah that's that's really cool and I I just wanted to kind of backtrack a

7:38

little bit in regards to that experience you had where it was

7:43

it seemed very very difficult for you to actually follow nutrition so you're at this point where I mean in your

7:50

experience over over many years what what why is there s what I think even

7:56

still now there's a there's a big uh oh yeah there I know what you're getting at Simon yeah so yeah still have

8:03

obstacles is that your question yeah I mean I'm just wondering like just trying to think about the obstacles back then because you've obviously got a lot of

8:09

individuals who choose who CH choose and chose back back let say back in the day

8:16

to feed themselves and feed their families good quality food and good quality nutrition and those people may

8:22

may not experience cognitive issues and then you

8:28

have people that do maybe eat more like a processed diet and eating a lot more additives and artificial foods and

8:35

they're experiencing issues why is it that back in I think you said

8:41

1968 when you started nutritional study what do you think that there was such this blockade in the scientific

8:49

Community to um to opening up the door of talking about nutrition nutritional

8:55

deficiencies and their impact on the body okay so there actually a couple questions buried in your question let me

9:02

address the obstacles in 1968 I was just a student I wasn't actually running

9:07

studies I was reading the literature and the biochemical basis of how brains work etc but I certainly had a lot of

9:15

obstacles and um they still exist and I'll tell you to me there are there are

9:21

a number of reasons but I I'll give you three okay and let me make a note of them so I don't lose my train of thought

9:28

so one is lack of education um the third one is the media but in between we have to talk about the

9:35

psychopharmacology revolution so education is so important um just this

9:42

week one of my colleagues in the states emailed me that the psychiatrist who she

9:48

was trying to convince to treat a young child with micronutrients instead of

9:55

medication um had said to her I'm open to this but I've been in practice for 30

10:01

years why don't I know about this why don't why was I never taught that nutrition was relevant for the brain and

10:08

so he's learning okay and let's hope he becomes an ally in the future but that's in the year

10:15

2021 education education education I've taught children as young as uh grade

10:22

six what minerals and vitamins do in the brain what co-factors are why we have to

10:28

have them in the brain every single minute that we are alive and it's not

10:33

taught in schools ordinarily and it's not even taught in medical school so if you don't learn it it's not you're

10:40

stupid it's that you just haven't been taught this information so that's number one reason for obstacles and so I've had

10:48

psychiatrists in particular but other Physicians say to me over the years things like Bonnie those minerals and

10:54

vitamins you're studying they don't really affect how the brain functions do they and you know my jaw just drops I

11:01

mean what what affects our brain function besides the nutrients and the air and the water and everything that we

11:08

expose it to okay so education is one secondly the psychopharmacology revolution really took off right about

11:15

the time I was entering um the the world of science in the 70s and people love magic Solutions

11:24

right we've got a theory we know now we just have to take this pill and

11:30

magically we'll get rid of bipolar disorder for example well it didn't turn out that way everything was oversold but

11:36

I mean Time Magazine even had proac on the cover saying should everyone take the happy pill you know there was and

11:44

it's always looking for a single pill that's how we're it's kind of out of you

11:49

know the way we used to think about antibiotics and it's more complicated now we know yeah so the

11:55

psychopharmacology revolution swamp the world and the third thing is the Terrible media coverage for the last oh

12:02

at least 5 to 10 years the every article that you read in the media that that

12:08

touches on on nutrition in pill form is always about how it's killing you are

12:14

your are your vitamins killing you don't take I mean New York Times had an article don't take

12:19

multivitamins that's somehow been very much in the media and you got to wonder

12:25

who's paying for some of those articles right so you can certainly follow the money I think in a lot of those

12:31

Publications to you know there has to be for for a statement to be made like that on on a really big

12:37

platform um that I think most people can look at and kind of say that's does that does not quite seem right you've got to

12:44

there got to be questions asked there right and and by the way it in Canada

12:50

anyway it has seemed to me that some of these negative articles have come in a flurry as if they got a payment that

12:57

said let's have a few articles on how bad that's interesting but that's very

13:02

subjective I'm not sure it's true so um you touched on a totally different area

13:08

in that question Simon I don't know if you want me to comment or not and that is kind of the the the implication of

13:14

what you said is some people are eating well and still having symptoms do you want me to Absolut absolutely yeah

13:21

please do yeah well um this gets down to individual differences that's a um

13:27

something that we're taught a lot in Psychology is about individual differences and it it relates to um

13:33

environmental factors as well as genetic factors and we know now that there are

13:40

um individual differences in our needs for micronutrients and so everybody who's done research in this area can

13:46

tell you stories of people who come in with a diet diary that shows they eat a wonderful Whole Foods Mediterranean type

13:53

of diet and they still have mood instability and so

14:00

some of those people benefit from taking additional nutrients in pill form others don't but clearly there are individual

14:07

differences and I often use myself as an example I eat a healthy diet but I am certain that if I ate a highly processed

14:16

diet that I would not develop M you know depression or anxiety because they just

14:21

aren't part of my makeup right I I would get fat and sluggish and other things

14:27

you know but not that so paying attention to the quality of

14:32

food is extremely important I don't know if you know this but fewer than 10% of North Americans are meeting guidelines

14:40

for fruit and vegetable intake on a daily basis I I to I totally believe that and I suppose a lot of those

14:46

guidelines and um recommended daily allowances are probably too low anyway

14:52

exactly and we're not even meeting the low bar right and if you look at the

14:57

breakdown of food in to whole versus processed versus Ultra processed um

15:03

Ultra processed which is not really a food anymore because it doesn't build or

15:08

sustain cells which is what food is supposed to do but think about the the

15:13

packaged Foods packaged items okay that people buy which are basically just um

15:19

sugar and usually bad fats and salt and chemicals um more than 50% of what we're

15:26

putting in our mouths is Ultra Pro so we really should be working very hard in

15:33

every mental health clinic to teach people to improve their diet but even still some people will need additional

15:42

micronutrients meaning minerals and vitamins and there have been a number of papers now that have described phenomena

15:50

where um uh there are genetic mutations that are associated with the need for

15:55

extra micronutrients maybe I won't go into that in this podcast though okay yeah maybe we could maybe we could do a

16:01

separate one on that because that would be a big but very very interesting topic and just before we kind of move on a

16:07

little bit in regards to your connection to True hope I just wanted to make a comment in regards to how I think it's

16:13

very interesting that now like in 2021 in the in in the middle of this pandemic or I hope it's the end of this pandemic

16:20

but we we'll see um we're still not hearing from governments about the educational piece of what you can do

16:27

with your own nutrition or going to supplement store or eating well or exercising or drinking good quality

16:32

water we're not hearing this information from our governing bodies that are you know their role is to serve us and we

16:39

are still not hearing this you know this is from when you started studying nutrition in like

16:46

1968 the the information out there and the education is still in significant in

16:52

infancy and it's just not good enough absolutely true and and as usual people

16:59

glom on to a Magic Bullet the one thing doctors are telling their patients is to take vitamin D well that's good we know

17:06

that vitamin D plays a really important part in the immune various immune systems okay and sometimes they're being

17:12

told to take zinc but they're not being told about the resilience literature showing B complex and the whole broad

17:19

spectrum of minerals and vitamins improves our it's the foundation of our

17:25

resilience both physical and mental we actually have a paper coming out about that very soon um based on the earth

17:33

it's an overview of the earthquakes uh in um New Zealand the

17:39

flood in Alberta and the mosque shootings back in New Zealand Julia

17:44

ruckl is the first author of that and it's in press um and it summarizes all

17:50

of our studies showing how important it is to get people to improve their diet

17:55

and more importantly to be taking micronutrients in pill form um after a crisis well isn't Co a crisis

18:03

you know we should all be looking at that absolutely yeah mean you can consider a crisis like one of those

18:08

examples as a significant stresser onto the mind and body and then covid and

18:15

depending on what your experience has been over the past 11 months a very similar stressor but day in day out a

18:21

year ago preco people are experiencing micro stresses constantly all the time

18:28

just in the way that they know we engage our fight ORF flight nervous system in our response to to to stress and as well

18:34

as like the food that we choose to eat can either inflame us and stress us further or it can provide us nutrition

18:41

to you know allow our body to kind of do what it does best and do what it wants to do which is to you know make us feel

18:47

awesome yeah I just want to add a comment in in our upcoming book the better brain uh Julie and I describ both

18:55

the fight ORF flight and what that does for nutrient demands and also triage Theory which explains a little

19:01

bit more about U why we need more nutrients in times of Crisis so amazing

19:08

that's great yeah we'll definitely touch on the book book book towards the end that's really cool um so you've got an

19:14

interesting history with with true hope and you kind of touched on the introduction um a little bit just at the

19:20

at the end there um there's a history that involves a little bit of hesitation on your part can you tell us a little

19:26

can you tell us a little bit about that I skipped over that well given what I told you about not wanting to study

19:33

nutrition anymore because I was fed up you can imagine how I reacted when my friend and colleague at University of

19:39

Lethbridge Dr Brian Cole contacted me in 19 in the spring of 1996 and said he had

19:47

these two guys in his office who were talking to him about vitamins and he wanted me to talk to them and I said

19:54

better you than me I've talked to every flake in Alberta I'm not more I couldn't believe that just some

20:01

vitamins were going to really fix mental health problems so I I fed him some

20:07

forms because Brian was primarily a neuroscientist animal researcher I FX them some forms that he could use to

20:14

help them look at a few kids that they had been working with and I totally put

20:19

it out of my mind and I think that was in May of 96 and then in August I got a

20:26

fact that I kept on my bulletin in my office for the rest of my career to keep

20:31

me humble nice which was uh the data that he had collected and uh well he

20:39

didn't collect it sorry Tony and David collected it and Brian analyzed it and then written on it is where I did an

20:45

analysis of variance it's a statistical test manually right on this piece of paper and thought what the heck is this

20:52

this looks interesting you know and then I agreed to meet with Tony and David who

20:57

I had never even heard of before I just knew there were two guys in Southern Alberta that Brian thought I should meet

21:04

well that's amazing that's amazing it's amazing that you were able to um first of all pass over those those papers for

21:11

them to actually get you the data that you needed to you know kind of see something different than you did before

21:17

now that was just questionnaire Simon nothing special there it was just like okay you study rats this is what we used

21:23

to study kids okay you go off and do it leave me alone yeah that's a really cool

21:28

start so can you talk to us about some of the studies that you've done over the years using nutritional supplementation

21:35

um do any do anyone do any in particular stand out okay so um do any standout most the

21:44

standout ones are the more recent ones that Julia Ruck is doing in uh New Zealand she's got the most active

21:50

research group and also a really exciting study that has just been finished and is under review that

21:57

involves two sites in the us and one in Canada but if you go back to the old days when I was doing studies um you

22:05

know I I try to teach people that there is something more than randomized controlled trials when you have a new

22:14

idea and I mean let's face that broadspectrum micronutrients was a really new idea nobody was looking we

22:20

looked back to the year um I think it was uh 1929 all the research on nutrition and

22:27

mental health we published review paper in about uh 2007 I think that came out

22:33

and we looked at all the studies and they were all on one nutrient at a time just the always the Magic Bullet

22:38

thinking just like now with Co take your vitamin D that's your magic bullet it's

22:43

not the way the brain works but that's the way we think as human beings we're always looking for a magical solution

22:50

starting out with something really novel as I was doing in about 1998 was the

22:56

first study and and true hope didn't exist and Empower plus did not exist we

23:01

were using they were using and and I was studying um combination of pills and liquids that they bought over the

23:07

counter um I knew that starting out with a randomized control trial just does not

23:13

make sense you there's there are too many unknowns you don't know dose you don't know age you don't know symptoms

23:19

you want to focus on Etc so case studies and also um case Series where you take

23:27

people in sequence and say the first 10 that walk through the door we're going to try this with um and also um within

23:36

subject crossover that's sometimes called ABAB design so you you study a

23:42

person evaluate their behavior then you put them on the formula evaluate it again take the formula

23:48

away and then look at their behavior give it to them again so you show onoff

23:54

control of symptoms I was doing all of that for a number of years um um before

23:59

we could get you know progress to randomize control trial so I'll tell you

24:04

about one case report would you like uh something concrete I'd love that place

24:11

okay so this was a really interesting one I did not know this family until I

24:17

received a phone call um from I'm going to call the boy

24:23

Andrew uh it's not his real name it's the name we used in our book too when we describe we describe a lot of cases and

24:29

anecdotes in the book and we used you know um uh fake names to protect their

24:35

identity but Andrew um had had an interesting history um where even as a

24:41

very young child he'd had a lot of anxiety and agitation and and he he

24:46

seemed to be different from his older and younger brothers uh in that he had a

24:52

um a mild mental handicap uh and that didn't kind of fit

24:58

with the family so he had actually was well known at Children's Hospital genetics Clinic because they thought he

25:03

had some genetic syndrome and they they never found one but by the time he reached 11 his um anxiety and agitation

25:12

uh had really really gotten out of control and he started having hallucinations and delusions and they started trying him on

25:20

various medications because this is the psychopharmacology era right people want their

25:26

drugs and and that's what uh Psychiatry had to offer and he ended up so severely

25:33

impaired he was an impatient at Children's hospital now while he was an inpatient

25:39

he was there for six months they did lots and lots of Trials of different medications and at the end of six months

25:45

they had gotten nowhere he was still really severely psychotic and um in very bad shape and

25:53

he was discharged to go home because they just didn't know what to do his

25:58

mother had heard about by then we had the company true hope and uh thank goodness for the internet you know so

26:05

the people were finding true Hope by then and um she her son was being seen

26:11

at the Outpatient Clinic uh and by Dr Megan rodway who was the uh medical

26:18

director and she wanted Dr rodway to try EMP Power Plus on her son and she was

26:26

afraid that if Dr Rob way wouldn't do it um what would the family do I mean to

26:33

put yourself in the place of a family if there are psychiatrists maybe still but certainly many over the years would say

26:40

if you try vitamins and minerals don't come back to see me I will not help you

26:46

um it's fear of the unknown but it's I think it's an unethical thing to say to a family but I know for a fact that some

26:53

psychiatrist said it I don't think Dr rodway would have but the mother called me and asked if I would serve as

27:00

intermediary and attend the appointment with them uh so that I could tell Dr rodway that this was a legitimate thing

27:07

it's not well proven yet but legitimate and worth a try little did I know when I

27:13

arrived at uh I think the second meeting with them that Dr rodway would tell me she had gotten quite fed up with

27:19

medications anyway she was delighted to try micronutrients and by the way Dr

27:25

rodway eventually dropped out of traditional psych psychiatric clinics

27:31

and went and trained as an integrative psychiatrist and she's now the um fully

27:36

certified integrative psychiatrist in Calgary so it was a very excellent situation and so we collected the data

27:44

of him we had data from six months inpatient and then we collected data for

27:50

more than six months outpatient as Andrew became well his OCD symptoms

27:56

which had been severe um went down to zero his psychosis his hallucinations

28:01

took longer they took more than six months to go to zero but by the end of a year they were to zero Etc and we

28:08

published that and I'd be happy to make sure that you have the link for your um

28:14

uh podcast website and then we did one more thing and this is why I'm dwelling on it one

28:20

of the things I've begun to talk about more and more is how we need to pay attention to the cost savings with

28:27

nutritional treatment either diet for some people or diet and

28:32

nutrients in fill form for others and in this case we called in a health Economist who pulled this boy's data

28:38

from six months inpatient and compared it to the immediately following six months

28:44

outpatient and I mean the cost was less than 2% uh in the second six months compared

28:51

to the first six months now outpatient to inpatient is not a totally fair

28:57

comparison but keep in mine he got well as an outpatient on nutrients he did not

29:02

get well as a as an inpatient so that is published and I can

29:08

give you that link that's amazing we'd love to share that with our audience we'll make sure that that link is in is in the show notes and yeah what a

29:15

remarkable turnaround and I find it interesting that that that particular doctor seemed kind of fed up

29:21

with pharmaceutical drugs and prescribing them and probably the reason that that person was fed up is because

29:27

they weren seeing the results that they wanted because obviously most people most people go into medicine because they want to help

29:33

people and um it's just wonderful that this it sounds like that that whole experience inspired inspired her to um

29:40

get into integrative more kind of holistic psychology which is just a phenomenal win for uh the nutritional

29:48

side she not just nutritional she really teaches a lot of people um like even

29:53

Andrew still has residual anxiety anxiety can still be hard to to totally get rid of in people and she teaches

30:00

breathing and meditation and so forth so these are Hallmarks of her treatments

30:06

yeah so that that story and that study and that testimonial that was done using Empower plus is that right um either

30:13

ower Plus or Empower yeah I think it's ch it's certainly we've changed the name a few

30:19

times but yeah yeah yeah that's that's just wonderful do you have any um have

30:25

you you ever have you ever used the products have you seeing obviously all the examples and all the studies um

30:31

yourself have you ever ever used EMP Power Plus sure I often get ask this question Simon and I'm happy to answer

30:38

it um I have inherited a very stable disposition as has my husband neither

30:44

one of us would be taking any nutrients to try to control mental health you know

30:49

there are other health problems you don't get to be in your 70s without having problems but not mental health

30:55

however as you get older you absorb nutrients less efficiently and I know a

31:02

quite a lot and have analyzed some soil assays from our Canadian fields and I

31:08

know that we don't get as many nutrients in our food as even if you have an ideal

31:13

diet so of course I I want to supplement my diet and so I do take um you know the

31:21

when the company split into two and we have both true hope and Hardy nutritionals I have stayed agnostic I am

31:29

not you know I'm not have never been financially affiliated with either company I hope your listeners understand

31:35

that um and I don't want to preferentially you know lean one way or the other they both make very good

31:41

broadspectrum M multi-nutrient products so one month

31:46

I'll buy from one and the next month the other and my husband and I take low doses of both of

31:52

those don't take we don't take as much as people need to take usually to control

31:58

um mental health symptoms but I think we take enough to enhance our dietary intake of nutrients yeah and you make a

32:05

brilliant point about the fact that our soil is just not what it used to be um through many many many different reasons

32:11

and that yes supplementing is kind of something that we nobody can really aford afford not to look into and as as

32:18

you mentioned some people don't need as much some people have different um levels of

32:25

uptaking nutrition and you know some people have compromised small intestines so they're

32:31

not actually uptaking as much as they can that's a whole different that's a whole different um um there's a whole

32:37

different story that is when it comes to you know digestive integrity and the ability to absorb nutrition um I'd love

32:44

to talk about um your book that's coming up and it's called the better brain the

32:51

better brain right and the subtitle um specifies you know learn how to overcome

32:58

mood problems ADHD Etc um and by the way there's a a half of a chapter in there

33:04

teaching people because I don't think most people know um the importance of

33:09

soil mineralization because that's how a lot of people don't know that's how we get our vitamins the soil provides

33:17

plants with what they need along with sunshine and water um to synthesize

33:23

vitamins we can't synthesize minerals or 99% of our vitamins we can only you know

33:29

the our if our gut is healthy we'll be synthesizing a wee bit of some B vitamins but we aren't even doing that

33:36

it's the healthy gut bugs that are smart enough to do that we're really quite incompetent at manufacturing minerals

33:44

and vitamins so we have to be getting them from our diet um and we have to be

33:49

getting in them from a diet that is Rich and grown in in good soil or from the

33:55

animals that come along and eat the plants and I'm not a vegetarian myself so I throw that in um so what else can I

34:02

tell you about our book it's written for the general public it's uh you can I'm sure you'll

34:08

want to put the link on your podcast website but it's uh the better brain

34:14

book.com Orca if you're in Canada and it's uh will be released in April but

34:20

you can order it now um we really try to teach people in a very simple way about

34:29

what is happening in your brain every minute that you're alive and why you need to pay attention to your diet and

34:36

then we talk to you about how to pay attention to your diet and we even give you a chapter of recipes because that's

34:42

always fun yeah and uh we give you lots of stories and anecdotes from our experience but uh

34:50

but it is we do actually cover this scientific research in a in a in a I

34:56

think reader friendly way for people to understand yeah that's that's very important especially when it comes to

35:02

obviously you're coming from a very sciency background and translating a lot a lot of that into into a form where

35:08

people are able to to understand it and to um apply that knowledge as well in in

35:14

in some to to-dos and having recipes is obviously wonderful as well yeah I look forward to getting my hands on that

35:21

that's great you also teach people how diet influences our brain and mental

35:26

health is is that something you're doing right now or is that something that's kind of on hold at the moment no I I do

35:32

lots of Zoom lectures I I did a long one on Monday I anybody who wants me to

35:39

educate remember I said the obstacles to not having this field more accepted

35:44

number one is lack of Education how can I not be willing to give lectures so I give a lot of talks um some of them are

35:51

recorded and they're on my own website which I guess we could put on your uh site also it's Bonnie jcapl

35:58

there are some videos there that when sometimes when people give me the link I

36:03

don't know maybe when you're done with this Simon I can put the link to your P podcast on there too absolutely and and

36:12

I really like trying to influence uh people at every level I've I've taught

36:17

to grade six kids and also to family doctors you know yeah the educational

36:24

piece is so important and you know I I sometimes think about how um many

36:29

medical doctors you know we can't we can't blame them for not looking towards diet and nutrition and supplementation

36:36

because at the end of the day they they don't they don't really learn about it so if if you're not exposed to certain pieces of information you're not going

36:43

to have those thoughts circulate they're not going to they're not going to start

36:48

turning into opinions and beliefs and you're not going to use them in practice and you're not going to see the application of them so it makes total

36:56

sense that you know if you're going to a doctor office with with with uh levels of anxiety or stress or depression Etc

37:02

their training is to know assess and then to prescribe a pharmaceutical and

37:08

as you mentioned about that kind of that one pill that we're you know we're kind of like in our society that that magic

37:13

one thing that's going to help us fix this whatever it is but when we're

37:18

talking about nutrition and supplementation we're talking about actual prevention we're talking about healing we're talking about people

37:24

experiencing something very very different and good quality supplementation in

37:30

nutrition doesn't really come with side effects but these drugs these very harsh pharmaceutical drugs come with

37:37

significantly harsh side effects that can often be worse than the the issues

37:42

themselves so that's obviously a a big Point as well and that's I think an educational piece missing from the

37:48

general public where we have a responsibility to um be looking into these things ourselves rather than just

37:54

taking the opinion of somebody else I think yeah that's actually why I try I

38:01

don't always succeed but I try not to refer to something like in power plus as a supplement to me food and nutrients in

38:09

pill form should be the primary treatment in that order and medication is sometimes needed as a supplement

38:16

that's my vision for the future absolutely that's beautiful well thank

38:22

you so much for talking with us today I really appreciate your time you mentioned that um you've got the website

38:27

B J kaplan.com and we'll leave the link to that in the in the show notes and also the book has got um a Facebook page

38:34

as well which I checked out which um people can can get connected and and look look a little bit more about the

38:40

book um but yeah thanks again do you have any any closing remarks um no just that I'm available

38:47

for you know people can email me through my website if they um are interested in

38:53

having me do talks or anything like that to encourage more research I guess I

38:58

should mention my fundraising am I okay to do that oh please so um the other

39:04

goal as I was nearing retirement I retired technically from the University in 2016 which means I can't do act I'm

39:11

not supported to do adequately to do independent research anymore but I I'm

39:17

still very busy but one of my goals was to raise money for my junior colleagues because the main um agencies uh are are

39:26

just not willing to look at anything except Magic Bullet nutrients you know you can get a grant to study vitamin D

39:32

and depression even though we know that it's a very modest effect but to get a grant to study broadspectrum nutrients

39:40

um you can't do it so I set up two charitable funds one in the US and one

39:46

in Canada and the reason I did it that way is so that people can get charitable tax receipts and I've raised actually if

39:53

you treat the Canadian dollar as if it were equal to the US which unfor forun it is not and lump them together we've

40:00

reached almost $900,000 and it's all been distributed it's supporting randomized control trials it's

40:06

supporting some basic research it supported some uh uh epigenetic analyses

40:13

um all related to what nutrition is doing in the brain and what it can do clinically and because it is all

40:19

distributed there is a great need for additional funds out there and if anyone is interested in that again it's on my

40:26

website and we welcome contributions none of it goes to me because I'm not doing studies anymore but it goes to

40:32

people who are in good academic settings in Canada the US and New Zealand so far

40:38

thank you again for joining us Dr Kaplan um for more information about anything we've spoken about in this episode you

40:44

can see the show notes to get connected there and you can always connect with Dr Kaplan as well thank you so much for

40:49

listening everybody Dr Kaplan thank you again um this is true Hope cast the

40:55

official podcast of true hope Canada I hope you've enjoy this episode and we will see you next week thank you

41:03

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