all right welcome to the show dr mushtaq how are

you this morning pretty good pretty good it's uh

thank you for having me it's a it's a good day

it's a good rainy day actually in hankover here um

but uh yeah you no i'm doing very well yeah we've

got the same similar weather here in kamloops it's

just cloudy and it's uh it can be sometimes

difficult to motivate motivate yourself on days like

this when it's just like a kind of sleepy movie

day but i had a coffee feeling all right we're

good to go sounds good yeah i got my tea here

too excellent then we're set so why don't you kick

off tell us a little bit about your journey into

functional

medicine because i've listened to your ted talk

which is very very very good by the way and i'll

share in the um in the show notes so people can

check that out i think you talk about concussions

and how they're connected to adhd um so why don't

you tell us a little bit about your journey

because you've got there's a personal there's a

personal connection there with your story i think

um yeah um in my my professional journey into

mental health goes back to uh the naturopathic

medicine and um and how um i came across the idea

of you know um the emphasis that there's there's

put on in naturopathic medicine around um what are

some

of the mental components of of health in general

regardless of just mental health right like um

because when you think about health um this this

aspect of functional medicine and and uh and mental

health is um every kind of disease you think about

is going to have some kind of impact on on how

you feel about yourself um you know there is there

is a mental health into let's say kidney health

because if if you can't if you can't um go and

and pee um on a regular basis as you're supposed

to um well that's a mental health and it's a

mental health and it's a mental health that's gonna

that's gonna create a lot of mental health issues

right so um this idea of mind-body connection is

always um was always part of like the professional

training um but i was also a little bit more um

in a way attuned to it because of um just my own

experience um my own um mental health struggles in

terms of immigration in terms of um like early

childhood experiences and whatnot um so i was

always a little bit more keen on kind of how um

people's behaviors and how they interacted and my

own responses to them so it was a natural kind of

um move into this field in this this area of um

trying to help everyone else with some of the

techniques i've learned along and um with uh with

something

Something that was,

um,

you know,

I've learned a lot from,

um,

you know,

I've learned a lot from.

Was familiar something that was,

um,

part of uh how my,

my personal brain was wired,

yeah.

It sounds like you got it,

sounds like you got a deep connection to it and

it was always something that you were passionate

about and that it was something that you know

found you and you've been lucky enough to,

um,

pursue it and now you know you're able to support

people every single day in regards to their mental

health,

that's just wonderful.

Thank you.

Why don't you tell...

You mentioned that you're talking about conventional

medicine and you know people

Hear a lot about that,

can you maybe just give us a brief understanding

what's the difference between what we know as

conventional medicine and then functional medicine?

Yeah,

so the functional medicine is it is it's an

amazing field and and a lot of conventional medical

practitioners are moving in that direction um

because in a way it is part of their training too

is they learn about biology they're learning about

biochemistry how different organs have their

functions and how different molecules and nutrients

do their work within the body um how um you know

neurotransmitters are connecting,

how the gut microbiome Is it having an impact on

these neurotransmitters and the detox pathways?

So,

these are some of the things that any medical

student going through school learns about.

Um,

but then when it comes to the practice of medicine

in conventional medicine,

it becomes all algorithms.

Right,

and the algorithm starts from the diagnosis.

Diagnosis is essentially something that's called a

disease without paying attention to all these

functions that led to the disease.

Because,

let's say again,

the example of kidney disease.

Um,

you know,

um,

it's there could be many,

many reasons why this functional disease started.

If it's If it's heavy metals,

that's the person who is chronically exposed to um,

that's one reason the person has the kidney

disease; if it is aging and the process of um

oxidative damage,

natural oxidative damage,

that's another problem and another functional problem

you're dealing with.

And and if it is from um,

let's say cardiovascular um high blood pressure,

um,

that's another problem and another functional problem

you're dealing with,

that's another; it's the same kidney disease.

Um,

it's,

let's say,

it's pyelonephritis.

It's,

um,

it might have like some kind of bacterial component

to it because of,

you know,

everything else that leads into it.

But at the end of the day,

the function of how it came to be is totally

different.

Uh,

and because of that,

the treatment approach needs to address the

functional deficiencies within the component of the

diagnosis.

So,

um,

the conventional medicine; the difference really is

that it's - it builds it up.

It builds it up really well from the baseline in

terms of training.

But when we come from the top down of the disease

to treatment,

then it jumps over to first-line therapy: this

medication,

second line,

this,

that,

the other.

Um,

and true enough,

there is,

there is evidence for those first,

second,

third.

And,

you know,

if you got pyelonephritis,

you probably are coming to a functional medical

doctor too late.

You should have come in,

uh,

you know,

five,

10 years ago when the aging process was setting,

when the cardiovascular system was setting,

when the,

uh,

um,

uh,

the,

uh,

high blood pressure was,

was impacting it.

Right.

Uh,

so you are going to need those medications,

medications to,

to at that point manage symptoms,

which is,

which conventional medicine is really good at.

Um,

but when it comes to functional medicine,

the idea is healing.

The idea is the capacity that if you,

if you correct function,

um,

outcome will be,

will be corrected of in itself.

That's great.

And it's interesting.

You just bought a thought process for me.

Like when anyone goes to medical school,

these individuals,

they learn this,

they have this broad education and they are

learning and studying in a functional way because

they're learning about the physiology of all over

the body and how all these incredible systems kind

of integrate and work together.

And then as they go further in their education,

their experience,

the kind of funnel into a speciality,

which kind of sometimes forgets about the other

important aspects.

And then,

as you say,

we're talking about symptom management in that

specific area,

be that the brain,

the,

um,

the kidneys,

reproductive areas,

then yeah,

that's really,

that's a really interesting,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

um,

way of looking at it and having a functional

perspective,

even just like that perspective of looking at an

individual,

looking at their symptoms,

how long it's been going on for these other

factors,

you're able to maybe take three or four steps back

and look at,

you know,

what's,

what's the function,

What's going on rather than just putting bad

band-aids on these symptoms.

And I think I'm hoping that as,

um,

medicine progresses and individuals come a little

bit more aware than this functional idea of

preventative healing healthcare.

Um,

people will be more um more connected and more

drawn towards that rather than getting to the point

over a decade when they go from some mild symptoms

to some really serious ones and have serious

pathology,

and then some.

You know,

and their experience in the world is a lot

different,

hopefully they've got the option of going to a

functional medicine practitioner that they can you

know they can work with yeah talking about this,

the functional aspect,

there's this idea of like disease um as a process

and an impregnation of the disease um or the idea

that it goes from function into a tissue and it

becomes a pathology by the time it's a pathology,

that's you know it's almost too late.

You know it's not not to say it's too late,

and the body can't heal,

it's just that there is a lot more effort that's

going to go into the healing uh there's a lot

more time that's going to go into it um but if

you prevent I like that they use that word prevent

knowing the functional aspects um of how the body

body processes and stays healthy then then you know

that's the idea,

it's it's There is some effort,

a little bit of effort goes to it every day now,

um,

so that you don't need a lot of effort later on

when those when you encounter those individuals that

have got to that point where it's like quite

serious that you were mentioning if you got if you

got to them 5-10 years before it'd be a very

different story.

Those individuals that get to a point where they

are in a,

no,

they're in a serious condition now because of their

symptoms have just progressed for so long,

yeah.

Do you find do you um in your experience have you

had any like um thoughts around the mind-body

connection of those people whether they are just

Not really feeling that their mind and body is so

disconnected that they're not actually thinking about

the feelings that they're having,

like sensationally in their body,

and they're just living with these symptoms for so

long and getting used to them and just then being

a normal part of their lives,

just like normal.

This pain I have is normal; this discomfort I have

is just like normal.

I just think about like when people are a little

bit more aware and they meditate a bit more and

they're a bit more conscious and aware of their

body and how it's feeling and how it's doing what

it needs.

Those individuals,

I feel won't.

Get to that point of when they're you know come

to somebody like you when they're like in serious

need of help,

yeah,

for sure.

I mean it's again,

I like,

I like the words they use.

Is awareness is um awareness is,

is the beginning of healing,

you know,

like um,

first become aware of the problem before you start

coming for around solutions around it,

right?

So practicing awareness on a daily basis can

circumvent some of these um,

you know,

physiological more like psychological components but,

but physiological like if awareness of how much

water you're drinking,

you know,

leads into drinking proper amount of water,

awareness of how much Exercise you're doing leads

into creating the time to do that,

yeah absolutely.

In my own personal nutritional practice,

you know I talk a lot about habitual change and

habitual transformation,

and how...

When I finish when I finish a session with

somebody,

I'm not going to give them pages and pages of

things to focus on; I'm going to give them maybe

three things.

And I explain the reason I do that because it's

so simple: is because you've built up these habits

and these clusters of neurons in their mind in

their heads for decades,

and they are so habitual that you don't even think

about them; you just do them,

and when You're looking to make the changes to

help you're going up against 20 years of learned

habitual behavior,

so it's very,

very important to subtly work with new changes

rather than putting a lot of new habits into

somebody's already busy habitual world.

That's why it's so important to work with this

like kind of subtle sniper effect rather than this

like habitual grenade.

And I find it works so much better every single

time when people start understanding that the reason

they might only drink one glass of water a day is

because they've habitually trained their mind and

body to just take that one,

if they want to go to one.

To twelve a day,

they're going to have to progress that in maybe

three six months because you know there's no way

their kidneys or their bladder is going to be

ready for 12 glasses of water right away,

so we have to start slowly progressing these things

because we're going up against decades of decades

of habits,

yeah exactly.

Alright,

um can you tell us a little bit about what uh

integrative mental health is or IMH and how it can

help individuals suffering from mental illness?

Um,

yeah,

so you know if you look at mental health with a

functional medicine perspective,

um,

you're leaving one thing behind the fact that one

of the functions Of mental health is through

interactions with other human beings,

that's that's not explained in physiology,

that's not explained in molecular biochemistry,

it's not explained purely on genetic terms.

Um,

so integrative mental health then becomes looking at

those aspects,

looking at the functions of mental health and how

it can help individuals suffering from mental

illness; a functional medicine component of mental

health,

uh,

plus the psychosomatic sensation component where um

it's um,

and even that is is missing missing another

component which is the psycho-spiritual components of

of mental health.

Right,

um,

so it's um it's trying to bring in um everything

that makes mental health um the the challenge of

it is,

um,

you're trying to deliver that in a clinical

setting,

so um,

recreating the outside environment isn't necessarily

a possibility.

What is a possibility is recreating the internal um

perception of the external reality because the

perception is a lot of times a sort of on-demand

external traumatic event um as you can see in like

uh mass uh mass traumas,

but everyone depending on their internal reality of

how they they make interpretation of that they can

survive,

they can come out,

they can become a stronger person.

so in integrating integrative mental health with

mental health um really is is the functional aspect

is is is there is like that's that's that's a

major component you always want to figure out um

what are the imbalances what are the what are the

misconnections what are the uh you know what are

the what can be corrected what what is the disease

like uh blasting true in terms of nutrients and

minerals and what are some of the deficiencies that

can actually be causative or if not causative

aggravating factor and if you don't have it you're

not going to be able to deal with inflammation per

se and without inflammation you

Can't really heal any functional aspects of disease,

then and then coming and saying,

okay,

you know,

um,

now now let's look at um the psychology of this

um so it's a very narrow field of practice,

narrow not in the sense that it's its scope,

it's narrow in the sense of practitioners that can

deliver it um because psychiatrists and psychologists

um for say don't look at the functional component

um and most functional medicine practitioners don't

look at the psychosomatic component.

Interesting,

yeah,

yeah,

that's um,

you just kind of described to me I think a little

bit a big part of what's around mental health

depression.

Anxiety in a conventional clinical setting because

there's no way you could do all of what you just

said in a 10-minute GP appointment,

right.

I mean the conversation around people's support

circles,

their past traumas,

all these things and as you say we all experience

trauma and tragedy in some way or another,

but how much that affects you internally and how

that affects you going forward,

that is completely,

completely different for every single person.

It'd be impossible to have that conversation in 10

minutes,

but if you're able to have an hour or 90-minute

consultation with an individual,

you can certainly start digging.

A little bit deeper,

and I find that when I have like a 90-minute

intake,

which quite in-depth,

because the individuals barely had like five minutes

to talk about their issues before,

and they have this big space of time to just be

open and honest,

and you know somebody asking them good questions,

they actually kind of come to their own conclusions

and they can start figuring out what's actually

going on for themselves a little bit,

and then they start stepping into taking like big

responsibility in their own in their own health

care,

which I find really profound,

because people can really start helping themselves

once.

They sit back and they have a,

you know,

somebody who they can talk to because not a lot

of people these days have somebody that they can

really open up to and be honest with,

and be vulnerable,

and start to,

um,

start to translate a lot of what they're thinking

and feeling internally.

You know,

they can start talking to the information that,

that that might we know so yeah,

and that's so...

That in that hour and a half it really what's

happening is you're creating a space for to

increase their awareness of the problem.

It's too,

like,

because it's too like because it very likely

they've never had that stay on and have

concentrated time to actually Focus on really,

what are my problems,

yeah,

uh,

because oftentimes you look at my problem at this

moment right now,

and then you move on to the next thing,

and you don't think about that one,

you think about your next problem,

yeah.

But when you bring all the problems together in a

way,

you get like an awareness of,

okay,

you know,

like this is a staff that's holding all these

crawlers around,

you know,

yeah!

If I remove the staff,

the crawlers will will will the creepers will fall

down on the ground right.

So um it's once you make once you become aware of

the problem it oftentimes is we all have the

capacity to self-heal and self-direct.

and self self-correct yeah we have so many um

external stimuli that are kind of blocking that

process of actually sitting down for an hour or an

hour and a half or even like 10 minutes to just

self-reflect go internal figure out kind of what's

going on and take some steps towards doing it

we're so um we're so used to this hyper novelty

in our culture that it can be sometimes really

difficult to people to sit still for more than

five minutes and then we're so used to this hyper

novelty in our culture that it can that's very

interesting thanks for sharing that um let's talk

about hormones and neurotransmitters so how how

important

Is it to have like proper hormone and

neurotransmitter levels in your body,

yeah,

um,

well if you think about it,

if you don't have proper hormone,

neurotransmitter levels,

you're gonna have some symptoms.

Um,

you know,

if you don't have proper hormones,

there's an area of them,

like if you don't have enough thyroid hormone,

you can have um,

you could have depression,

you can have a lot of other symptoms.

You,

without the thyroid,

some of the,

some of the aspects of basic metabolism isn't

happening so the neurons that are responsible for

making neurotransmitters aren't making the

neurotransmitters,

and then,

and then vice Versa,

if you don't have the neurotransmitters,

um,

the uh,

the ovaries aren't making um,

you know enough,

enough of the estrogen and progesterone,

and the testes isn't making enough uh,

testosterone.

And if you have lower on those,

you're definitely having some anxiety,

depression,

uh,

cyclical problems.

So it is,

it is the foundation of,

uh,

functional medicine when it comes to mental health

and just when it comes to hormones and

neurotransmitters and how beautifully,

incredibly,

and complicated they are,

you know they're so connected,

it's,

it's just insane to even contemplate what what the

body does on a continuous basis.

how neurotransmitter levels are reliant on the

microbiome in some sense and then our hormones and

everything is so interconnected how challenging is

it for conventional medicine when there are all

these complex issues that are so interconnected but

that they have this complex issue and they're so

interconnected and they're so interconnected and so

interconnected and they're so interconnected and

they're so interconnected and i'm i'm really looking

forward of faces like reductionist view of looking

at just like one marker or one point or one

system like how how much does that set set set

them back yeah um you

Know,

even when you look at like um some of the things

we do as naturopathic doctors in terms of

neurotransmitter testing and and what not um they

are limited they are in a way like they're not as

reductionist as like looking at one thing but but

they're reductionist in the sense that you know um

oftentimes neurotransmitters um if they're not

because of a deficiency or an exact toxic excess

um same thing as hormones themselves are secondary

to um psychosomatic uh regulations so for example

like if you think about hormones in general um

cortisol is is I would say like the the least um

um important conventionally but The most important

functionally,

because it's not measured at all in conventional

medicine,

I mean unless you're looking for like tumors and

whatnot,

but um or growths.

But um,

it's not measured in conventional medicine in

functional medicine.

It regulates everything else if you're running under

stress,

whether that's perceived or um or external.

And um,

your cortisol is impacting your microbiome,

your microbiome is a third of our you know your

neurotransmitters.

Your cortisol is impacting your uh,

your liver,

your liver is detoxifying your hormones after they

have done their work in the system um,

it's impacting your fat cells they're they're

releasing their own uh you know uh local local

transmitters and that's the thing that's the thing

that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing

that's impacting your overall sense of energy and

mental health so um it's um measuring them is

tough um in in real practice i do i do often do

that um because it gives me clues it's one of the

pieces of puzzles so neurotransmitters and hormones

you always want to like they're your they're your

foundation um foundation labs when you deal even

with concussions a lot of concussions um when i

get um the um testosterone or progesterone gets

affected

Post-concussion,

some of the some of the later on symptoms you

see,

like in post-concussive symptoms six years seven

years are very likely these low-grade reductions in

testosterone progesterone and the areas are not like

healing themselves because of that um,

and then they start showing up because now you you

got regions of the brain that are um in in

basically hypoxic state,

non-regenerative right tissue.

What um,

what symptoms are coming to I come into your

office,

and what symptoms would lead you to think that I

have a neurotransmitter issue or like an imbalance

or something?

Like,

what symptoms might I explain?

to you that might lead you to that conclusion yeah

um if it's um um so if it's lack of of of of

of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of

of of of of of of of of of of of of of joy um

and sadness um it's generally if if there's is any

type of a mood disorder there's there's always an

neurotransmitter issue that's just what it is

whether it's like you know um pure diagnosed

anxiety or like bipolar depression or schizophrenic

there is always a neurotransmitter issue um so

what's what leads me to think about neurotransmitter

issues is in every patient um really like it's

it's in every patient i i don't um but but you

can you can take them

And say,

okay,

you know,

like,

let's say if somebody's got um addictive type of

personalities,

they they have attention disorder,

they have um,

you know,

moving from,

from mood regulation problems.

I might think more dopamine um,

as the culprit,

or or um,

if they have uh severe anxiety,

I might think norepinephrine and and um and GABA,

if they have like happiness and sadness issues and

mood regulation in that front,

might think serotonin.

Um,

nonetheless,

when you again go to the functional aspects,

you drive you,

you remove a layer from where these

neurotransmitters are,

and you go back and say okay well how did they

come to be um,

a lot.

Of times,

what you can address is um the the precursor

molecules that that can lead into it,

interesting or um the whole ends,

the enzyme enzymatic cofactors,

the vitamins and minerals that help the proteins to

transport these precursors into the final

neurotransmitters,

so um,

it's in every case,

um,

you always always rule out what is going on with

neurotransmitters,

you always rule out what's going on with um,

with hormones,

uh,

testing around hormones is a little bit more

straightforward than testing around neurotransmitters,

but I was going to ask you,

what type of testing you do in your clinic would

be,

would be i'd be interested to know about that what

type of testing you do yeah um there's a

neurotransmitter panel that i run um but uh i do

that um not as as a blanket um again it's like

sometimes it's a lot easier to just take the case

and and say okay you know this is this is this

is not like this is a neurotransmitter issue which

is always a neurotransmitter issue yeah um but this

is because your microbiome is is not doing its its

right work because you got you got you got yeast

in your system and that's really all is happening

right you got yeast the yeast is making alcohol

it's you know it's backing up your liver your

hormones are

Off your skin is off,

you're not sleeping well because you're scratching

yourself all night,

um,

and you're not digesting your food because you got

yeast,

and you get bloating.

Let's get out of the yeast; no transmitters will

balance themselves,

but then you get to like these patients that are

really like they are,

um,

they have gone,

um,

like you said it's,

you know,

they have come after the disease has become a

pathology,

yeah,

okay,

it's not functional anymore,

it's actually pathology,

um,

which in the case of the brain,

um,

that pathology is often,

um,

a functional loss of electrical communication,

so it's uh,

it's losing some of the aspects of some of the

aspects of learning that you did all your life

right so uh if you think about let's say um i

don't know if i'm going off topic from your your

question but like you got a little bit yeah if

you think about attention for example um it's

something that we acquire for the first roughly

about the most of it in the first seven years of

life the next seven year cycle is is a lot of

time and a lot of time is a lot of time and a

lot of time is a lot of time is more and then

the last seven years cycle to 21 by the time

you're 21 your attention networks are what your

attention networks are because the bulk of it are

developed during

those times if an infant you do this and they're

going to be like losing attention from one thing

the other it's easy to distract them a child they

might be you know they might be wanting to buy

something in a store and you can do that but an

adult is you know like at that point it's it's

all under control nobody else can influence it and

so um now if the attention network is not working

well you could have anxiety issues because a

thought comes in and the attention network grabs

onto it and just keeps festering over and over and

over right as opposed to saying okay who needs

that thought or unwanted not not not a thought

that at

Present can help me right,

um,

so um when a patient comes in at that state of

pathology where they're actually dealing with um,

with problems generally the neurotransmitters are

off,

some aspects of hormones are off and some of the

some of the functional aspects of the brain

communicating is going to be off because um,

it has adapted a posture over time to being like

that.

The brain is is a reflective organ; it's whatever

you give it,

it puts out.

And if it's been doing something for a long time,

it knows how to put that out best.

So,

if the person has come in and they've been in

this space for like three,

four,

five years,

it's very easy.

For the brain to move into that,

so it's it's one from a functional standpoint; it's

adapted from a physiological standpoint.

You have neurotransmitter issues because of that

adaptation and from a hormonal standpoint,

you're going to have very likely either causations

within the hormone hormone things or secondary

impacts on the hormonal regulations.

Gotcha!

I think that's a really great transition into

talking about Empower Plus and True Hope Canada,

because you're talking about there that you know if

your body doesn't have the necessary ingredients to

produce hormones,

proteins um neurotransmitters.

Proteins,

then it's not going to be able to make these

things in in one quality and two quantity so I

think it's very important that we actually talk

about that because that's when we we can start

talking about the brain-body connection.

Because you know if the if the body,

the digestive system is unable to digest um your

food or supplements or micro-micronutrients to create

these to create these chemicals then we're going to

have a lack,

we're going to have a deficiency and if you do

that over years then yeah it certainly turns into

something more serious.

So why don't you tell us a little bit about your

experience with um true Hope Canada yeah um I love

the product I love the empower Plus product it's

um it's one of the cornerstones of my nutritional

um kind of guidance to my patients along with what

to do and what not to do with their diet and um

other foods essentially um I think it's it is

tough to assess whether there's deficiency uh when

someone comes in it's tough to know if they got

they got like micronutrient deficiency is there is

there molybdenum on the low is there chromium on

the low is there selenium on the low um there are

there are expensive panels you can run for these

but the panels unfortunately don't look

At all of them,

some of them look at micronutrients,

uh vitamins.

Other ones look at um,

uh antioxidants,

um,

you know,

and and and if even if you bring all of them

together,

the databases that that are associated with these

labs,

um,

often tend to be narrow in in their scope.

So the ranges are um,

as not not as defined as what you would find on

um,

let's say for um,

your your serum zinc,

um,

you know,

it's it's um,

so um,

in the absence of a clinical assessment tool for

knowing exactly who is deficient and who is not,

um,

I always make the assumption of deficiency and I

make that because of a couple of things,

um,

it's it's not a it's not a blind assumption.

It's uh,

it's a valid assumption because of two reasons,

and I can probably find more reasons.

But the main two reasons are: if you've been in a

disease estate,

the disease estate generally is burning through your

antioxidants and in the process,

you're burning through your minerals,

coenzymes,

and full factors and vitamins,

so you're just essentially,

you need more because you are this disease; in a

disease.

Then,

B,

the agricultural industry has depleted the the food

source from micronutrients and metals.

Um,

it's,

and it's this is not this is not to blame the

agricultural industry; they have done great to

provide food supply.

for everyone but we're all figuring it out like

now we've figured out that it's done that so I'm

sure he like you know and give it another few

generations we're going to figure out how to how

to correct that to some degree and and that

correction will become better and better as we go

on but but at stands in presence um I'm I'm you

would be hard to press someone that's not deficient

in selenium for example unless they're like really

like into their oysters and their uh their Brazil

nuts and you know um it's uh so um I I use that

as a blankets uh multivitamin mineral um

neurotransmitter precursor for patients dealing with

alcohol

Concussion,

um,

on medication wanting to go off medication,

um,

you name it,

yeah.

I think you make,

I mean the two points you make there in regards

to making that assumption that somebody's deficient

in something and you know when you take a

micronutrient product like Empower Plus with so many

different ingredients,

you're able to make sure they're at least getting

a baseline foundational nutritional intake.

And when you talk about somebody's inflamed or with

a dis-ease,

their body is just going to be in a certain state

of just like resource grabbing wherever it can get

it,

whether it's getting from your food or your

internal.

Tissues it's going to get it from somewhere to try

and deal with that,

and then you're talking about the agricultural

aspect as well,

that our soil is not exactly what what it was,

which means our food is not what it was.

I think that when they think about these huge big

mass plans like agricultural farming that's trying

to feed a mass amount of people for cheaper,

I think when they think about that they know it

sounds like an amazing idea,

but usually when we have these big ideas as as a

human society,

we don't really think about the costs in the

future and we try and deal with them as they come

up,

and one big cost would be that most people's Food

nowadays is nutritionally deficient,

meaning that they will become so.

And we know,

with you knowing just looking throughout history,

that if we have specific nutrients who are

deficient in then we can we can obtain certain

disease states.

But using a product like Empower Plus,

that's able to take care of that foundational

nutrition.

What's really cool about our product is that it's

so bioavailable that you can have quite poor

digestion and still uptake a lot of the nutrition

which um can be really,

really beneficial for kind of anybody that really

needs kind of that kickstart.

And you mentioned concussions,

I I find the whole idea of concussions very

interesting.

I think it's honestly when I first I watched that

Will Smith movie about the American American

footballer and I think a lot of people reference

that.

I was listening to a Joe Rogan podcast this

weekend and he he had you know he spoke about

that,

obviously he's into all sorts of uh,

um,

like martial arts and fighting and things,

and how it's a you know,

it's a really serious concern in those sports as

well as even like things like soccer which you

wouldn't necessarily,

oh yeah with concussions.

But like when these young kids are you know,

banging their heads or even when you know the

professionals are doing it as well it has some

serious ramifications and we've had Morris lukowich

on the on the show a couple of times and you

know he would suffer three or four concussions in

a game he might take a two minute break from the

ice but he'd be straight in there but this is the

you know this is like the 70s yeah yeah so what's

your what's your experience with um concussions in

your clinic and you know you have this Ted talk

about concussions and how they're connected to um

attention deficit disorders can you talk a little

bit about that and like how micronutrient

supplementation might support those

Individuals who do have that diseased brain

inflammation,

state yeah so um,

the bulk of the patients I work with have

concussion or have had concussion at some point;

it's tough to find somebody who's not had a

concussion.

The problem is some people heal well from it,

some people don't,

and the older you are,

the lesser you have a tendency to heal.

Um,

just because again,

like your brain develops and it just stays

developed right um,

and then you can compare it to other organs,

let's see,

you compare it to your to your liver um,

or even like this membrane of your your um,

your gut which which is replacing itself every two

to three weeks.

And your liver,

every two to three to four months,

you get a brand new one.

Your brain is is doing the same thing; certain

neurons are dying,

and you know the phagocytes come in and just chop

them away,

and new new neurons are developing,

but that process is happening over seven-year

cycles,

right?

Um,

so um,

you come in with a concussion,

and you create this big shearing force within the

brain,

which is really well designed to protect itself

against it; like,

it's got you've got this thick skull that that

keeps it from like um any type any type of um

instant um instant force or anything that's going

to break through and have like an impact on It

um,

you've got the cerebral spinal fluid in the middle

of it,

that's cushioning it.

Um,

you've got multiple layers of dura matter,

these connective tissues that are holding it within

the skull,

slightly suspending it and the the fluids that are

running above it,

in terms of your your blood vessels.

Um,

and then you've got these muscles around your eyes

that are like,

your optic nerve is a big chunk of your brain,

and these muscles around your eyes are like

projecting that.

And you've got your neck,

and even if you're in an accident,

all of these are supposed to kick in,

but sometimes they don't; sometimes they do

everything they can.

And in the process,

something gets impacted.

It could be the the eyes,

the eye muscles.

It could be the neck,

it could be the blood flow to the brain,

it could be the uh the the the cerebrospinal

fluid.

But but it also could be the actual nerves and

axons,

uh,

and when it's the nerves and axons,

the problem happens generally over the folds of the

brain or within the head line because they are

more prone to the shearing and moving,

um,

and sudden moves.

Um,

and there is an overlap of your attention networks

on these areas of folds,

so a lot of concussions end up impacting your

attention,

um,

or,

to the every concussion will impact your attention.

That's working one way or another,

but some of them impact it a lot more.

Um,

which means,

and to the extent that those nodes within the

attention network are overlapping other networks,

you're going to have problems.

Um,

the way the brain is structured,

it's we got,

you got three hierarchical um networks in a way:

you got your default network,

your receptive network,

your your proprioception,

your visual field,

and your notes out.

But you got your senses,

and then the senses receive information um and pass

it on through the seed which is your salience

network; that then salience meaning that which is

important.

Right now,

um,

so it's the attention networks and your attention

networks then recruit the rest of the brain to

create executive functions and do work,

so when you impact the salient network or the

attention networks,

um,

and it's attention networks because they're voluntary

and involuntary attention networks.

So,

when you impact the salient network,

then you're going to have impacts on um every

other aspect of um,

attention.

If that attention overlaps um,

repetitive thoughts,

you get anxiety; if that attention overlaps anger

regulation,

you get angry; if that attention overlaps your um,

let's say Auditory components,

um,

then you you might have attention ads around

conversations,

um,

so,

um,

in a scenario like that,

everybody with concussion is having,

um,

who is having some kind of an impact on the

brain,

um,

from a cellular regenerative state again it's going

to be the basic building blocks to,

to,

to build that and they're going to need,

um,

the basic building blocks to build that um and

they're going to need,

um,

the basic building blocks,

blocks to deal with the inflammation that's come

secondary to that concussion so the nutritional

approach is,

is a must um as a foundation um oftentimes it's

not a standalone it's um they need.

more like let's say someone comes in with you know

like a sports injury that's that's had that's had

multiple concussion um you can provide the basic

nutrients but sometimes the networks are impacted so

much you got to rebuild those networks right you

gotta you gotta retrain those networks um you gotta

you gotta relearn some of your skills um sometimes

the impact is um is is more on the cardiovascular

and blood flow component of the pain um and um as

soon as the person starts doing some work they

start getting some some headaches because um you're

getting almost this reperfusion injury each time um

that area of the brain

Is not getting enough blood flow because it's gone

into this phase of constriction and inflammatory

constriction,

and um,

and as soon as you start using it it gets gets

more blood flow,

and you can't handle that,

yeah,

um,

or,

um,

that it's its networks get overwhelmed and it can't

handle that.

So,

in scenarios like that with concussions,

um,

then you say,

okay,

let's say,

let's nutritional deficiencies as an obstacle to

cure,

you resolve that with supplementation,

and then,

um,

deficiencies in healing,

a lot of times are age-related,

right?

Younger people don't,

you don't see like 20-year-olds with post-concussive

syndrome.

and if you see them there it's very rare okay you

see a lot of 40 year olds and 50 year olds and

and whatnot and you see that's it's very rare and

you see that's it's very rare and you see that's

it's a lot of a lot of like patients with uh

memory losses and um you know um early onset

dementia and whatnot um in their later 60s and 70s

because because it's it's progressive right it's

progressive so here's the thing i think everybody

needs to address their nutritional deficiency um

with a really good diet and just the foundational

um supplementation um which which needs to be done

in everyone but uh within the context of the brain

Pathology: there is always relearning that needs to

happen,

and there is always healing.

Is an obstacle to cure because healing within the

brain naturally happens in six-seven year cycles;

seven year cycles,

that's a long time to to even assess whether there

was healing happening or not,

right?

So you want to facilitate that medically.

You definitely want to go above and beyond um the

the aspects of how does the brain heal itself,

and what are some of the tools and manipulations -

electronic,

what are um,

what are or to molecular,

that we have to actually address those healings.

And we know so much more about neuroplasticity.

Neuro regenerate regeneration,

like how the brain can heal given certain

circumstances,

and they have to be coming from different angles.

Whether we are giving the brain the nutrition that

it needs to make these you know very functional

things that are made up of matter,

we need to give them the ingredients,

the building blocks,

to produce those.

And it's also very important that we're doing the

the work kind of outside of that,

you know,

like working on those brain regions trying to

reduce our stress so we're not you know flooding

our body with inflammation which will just go

absolutely everywhere,

so there's certainly a lot of um,

a lot of work that the people you know,

the people have to do themselves as well as you

know,

you can eat the best diet in the world and take

all the best nutrients.

But if you're not assessing your relationship with

the external stresses and inflammatories of life,

then you're going to really struggle and that seven

years might be ten or it could be five or four,

you know,

we'll,

we'll,

it can be a progressive decline right,

if you're not healing it,

it's progressively declining.

Um,

yeah,

I would say like if you were to bold it boil it

down to like a couple of things in terms of brain

health,

you would say,

I would say it's it's Building block nutrients and

blood flow,

post-concussion always gets affected.

And when you don't have blood flow,

you don't have nutrient delivery and you don't have

waste removal,

which creates chronic inflammation.

So,

that blood flow - I mean,

there is there's a huge impact on um increasing

exercise tolerance because,

because it's the blood flow has become a problem

within concussion context.

So,

uh,

pushing yourself generally creates symptoms,

but you want to push yourself to that level of

tolerance and you want to increase and increase and

increase that because you want to break that blood

flow into The brain,

um,

in a clinical setting,

we achieve that with uh,

with pulse EMF pulses of electromagnetic waves,

um,

we achieve that with what to molecular doses of

niacinamide and um,

to create,

with hyperbaric oxygen,

a lot of techniques that you can achieve that.

But on a personal level,

um,

in terms of that,

increasing again like going back to that awareness

of what the person might need,

we always need movement.

There's not a single person that doesn't need

chronic movement as,

as we both sit here talking to you in our chairs,

yeah,

yeah.

So when you talk about blood flow for concussions,

you're talking about blood Flow for concussions:

You're talking about injury or even injury in

general,

because obviously when we cause we have an injury

anywhere in our body,

our body is going to send out its immune system

to create inflammation and you know do all the

amazing things that it does.

But as you say,

our blood is going to be like the transportation

device for our nutrients to get to these areas to

perform these healing mechanisms.

And obviously the byproduct of inflammation and

healing is going to be you know scar tissue and

all these other toxins and waste that the body

can't use anymore because primarily dead tissue.

It needs to get rid of those things,

as well.

That's a very interesting thought around making sure

we're getting the right ingredients,

increasing that blood flow so we're actually getting

the things where they need to go and getting rid

of the things that we need to excrete that are

going to cause issues if they just stayed there

sedentary not doing anything,

very interesting.

That's really cool.

I really appreciate it.

We're just coming up to the hour point now,

and how can people connect with you?

I practice in North Vancouver,

British Columbia; um,

North Shore Naturopathic Clinic; um,

you can um,

you can look us up online.

on northshoremd.ca northshorend.ca perfect yeah i'll

make sure i'll make sure there are links in the

show notes so people can connect with those uh

connect with you there and i'm also going to put

that youtube the youtube tedx talk that you did in

vancouver on concussions and how they're connected

to adhd oh yeah very important talk as well yeah

that's um that was that was a great experience to

be able to be there because there were there were

during that tedx show there were a couple of

individuals um that talked about concussion i think

the awareness of it is is increasing um and they

that they spoke from personal experience

And,

um,

I should remember the name,

yeah,

um,

yeah,

I'm sure it was an exciting time.

I will blame it on my own concussion,

but uh,

yeah,

it was a long time ago.

It's uh,

but,

but,

it is the awareness is increasing and and it's

it's interesting how like there was one research

that came out a couple years ago looking at events

five or six years after a concussion,

like depression cases six years after that.

So,

it is a huge thing um,

especially like in sports,

that's I mean in boxing it's crazy in martial arts

yeah well then when you've got concussion upon

concussion in these like top levels yeah it's like

and then we see in the you know the concussion

Movie which I believe brought a lot of awareness

to this issue for a lot of people,

you know.

They're not experiencing their like significant

neurological breakdown until like 10 years after

their career's done or 10 years after they've

stopped playing,

you know.

Like,

it kind of just like bubbles up to the surface

and they deal with these things and because they're

playing these like macro sports,

they don't talk about it or deal with it,

you know.

They just suppress it and suppress it and suppress

it to the point where it's just like too late.

And um,

it's great that we're seeing more conversations

about about mental health.

And depression,

anxieties,

and then actually connecting it to concussions,

I think it gives people a lot of hope that a lot

of these things that we internally feel aren't

necessarily our fault or the the just something

that there's not something wrong with us.

Like we have this physical trauma inside of our

inside of ourselves that that can be causing a lot

of our issues.

And I think that gives people a little bit more,

a little bit more calm to be able to step into

an arena to start taking care of it.

Well,

thanks for having me,

Simon.

That was a wonderful hour; I'm glad we rearranged

this and um,

it was a good experience.

Me to be here,

thank you,

thank you very much,

that's awesome.

Well,

thanks again for joining us again today,

and for more information about anything that we've

spoken about in this episode,

you can check out the show notes.

Don't forget to subscribe!

Thank you so much for listening.

This is True Hope Cast,

the official podcast of True Hope Canada.

We'll see you next week.