The podcast discusses the role of nutrition in managing ADD/ADHD, emphasizing the importance of addressing the root cause rather than relying on stimulant medication. It highlights the need for healthy proteins and fats, hydration, and electrolytes to support brain function and reduce inflammation. The importance of modeling healthy eating habits for children is also emphasized.
Highlights
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey guys, it's Dr. Justin Marchegiani. Welcome to the Beyond Wellness Radio podcast. Feel free and head over to justinhealth. com. We have all of our podcast transcriptions there, as well as video series on different health topics ranging from thyroid to hormones, ketogenic diets, and gluten. While you're there, you can also schedule a consult with myself, Dr.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: J, and or our colleagues and staff to help dive into any pressing health issues you really want to get to the root cause on. Again, if you enjoy the podcast, feel free and share the information with friends or family. Hey guys, Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. Today is gonna be a great podcast. I have Rob Edwards from Heritage Health on the podcast today.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We'll put Rob's links down below here. And Rob is actually a good friend from back in college. So he goes way back. He's a nutritionist now, works with patients families all over the country. So we'll put Rob's info down below, but today we're gonna be chatting about maximizing focus, getting to the root cause of ADD or ADHD, right?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Your inability to control behavior, inability to focus, concentrate. Maybe there's a little bit of anxiety and mood issues along with it. We're gonna be talking about getting to the root underlying cause, because conventional medicine's approach with it, it really is just throwing stimulants at the problem.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Not really getting to the underlying issue. Throwing things like Adderall or Ritalin or just kind of like basically, methylphenidate type of methamphetamines, if you will, these are stimulants, right? They're gonna whip the adrenals, they're gonna whip adrenaline, and it's gonna allow you to focus better, but that's not really getting to the root underlying issue.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And the more you stimulate the brain, you're actually burning up your neurotransmitters. You're essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul. You're whipping a tired horse to get better performance in the short run, but you're sacrificing neurotransmitter health for In the long run, it's like someone not sleeping, eating poorly, and trying to just overly drink coffee every hour to keep their attention up.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Maybe for studying for a final, it can work acutely, but long term, it's not. So, excited to dive into this topic today. Rob, how we doing, man?
Rob Edwards: Yeah, good. I'm excited to be on here. So, this is my number one podcast. We were talking before. The last podcast I did, I was in the executive search, and it was the CEO for Duncan.
Rob Edwards: Donut brands. And that was an interesting conversation, but, you know, switching switching up and you know, getting into functional medicine has been a huge change for me. And so I appreciate you, your mentorship and everything else that you've you've been able to help me out with. So I'm excited to be a part of this and this journey, but more importantly, excited to help people on their journey.
Rob Edwards: You know, and today excited to talk about this ADHD. And I think it's something that, you know, a lot of people initially associate that with children. But, you know, most adults would say, Hey, I have the same kind of symptomology that, that I'm seeing in my own life. And I think there's a couple of different factors that can play into that.
Rob Edwards: Not just maybe mainstream ideas, but even things like cell phones, scrolling on Facebook the, the neural patterns that change inside of your brain. You know, when we're doing those kinds of things, especially late at night and things like that. So what do you think about that? Dr. Justin
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Marchegiani So out of the gate, you have things that are overstimulating the brain, right?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So if we look at like downstream symptoms, right? ADD, inability to focus, let's say your kids too, young kids, inability to focus, especially with boys, you know, they may be put into a classroom environment where they don't have the the brain development to focus yet. So maybe the expectations on boys may be a little bit too high.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Maybe you were We're kind of holding younger boys to the same expectation of a girl at that same age, girls tend to have a better ability to focus at that similar age when they're young, let's say below 10, below nine or so, and boys develop that ability to focus as they get older. And I'm singling out boys because boys tend to be the ones that get thrown a lot of the 80.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: HD medication, ADD medication early on. This is going to be the Ritalin, the methylphenidate, the methamphetamine medications to overstimulate the brain. And again, we don't want to overstimulate the brain, especially when it's in that sensitive area of brain development. And also, a lot of times, kids have underlying driving factors that are, that are contributing to that even more.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We'll go into that. So, if we have downstream symptoms of inability to focus, What are some of the simple things that people are doing that is causing these symptoms downstream? So I would just say the first thing out of the gate is not having good healthy proteins and fats at each meal. I think it's good starting point because proteins and fats, one, the fats are gonna have that raw material building block for all your cell membranes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Number two, it's gonna provide the, the cholesterol, usually within the high quality fat, is gonna be building block for the brain and the neurological tissue and the myelin, which is important for those nerves to be able to conduct. Think of it as like putting wiring in your house. Well, if the wiring's frayed or rusty, it may not conduct signal.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, same thing. If you don't have good, healthy myelination in your nervous system, that's gonna impact conduction. If you don't have the proteins, the proteins are also gonna be the building block for almost all of your amino acids, which is what conducts that nerve signal. from pre to post synaptic neuron.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You have this pre synaptic neuron, the post synaptic neuron, you have this little middle part called the pre synaptic cleft and you need neurotransmitters to help conduct that signal, whether it's serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline. And so, your neurotransmitters come from protein. So, the first foundational thing I look at when anyone has attention issues, especially kids, is are we having good healthy proteins and fats to work on the building blocks of the neurological tissue and the building blocks of the neurotransmitters.
Rob Edwards: Right. But I think a part of that too is just taking an honest assessment in terms of like, what are, what are your kids eating in the morning? Like, what do they wake up? What's the first thing that they're, that they're intaking? Are they having, are they getting enough water? Are they getting enough nutrients just from their food?
Rob Edwards: I think, you know, the, the standard American diet, of course, is just, we're always run, run, run. And nobody's eating, you know, omega fat omega three fatty acids. We're not getting that through our eggs. We're not getting that through, through the meals that would help us to, to get these nutrients of the raw materials that we need for our body to grow.
Rob Edwards: And, and I think we sort of take that for granted that our body needs these nutrients. They're essential. They're not sort of optional. And we tend to go towards what we like, or like, especially if we have our children, we tend to go towards what will make them stop arguing, what what will make them stop like throwing a fit.
Rob Edwards: And so we're like, well, you know, we know what we need to do, but it's, it's difficult to do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep. There's a behavioral component with this. And part of it as a parent is you have to look at it and say, I need to give my kid what they need, not what they want. Especially if your kids are getting exposure to any TV or commercials, your kids are going to be primed to want all the junk food.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now my kids literally have. Zero experience watching commercials at all. And so it's funny, like we go into a store every now and then like walk through Costco or Whole Foods. There's not any priming to want to reach for this or that junk food. And so keeping your kids away from the tech as much as you can, obviously age dependent and the social media is going to help allow you as a parent to give your kid what they need.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Because if you're trying to give them what they need and they have all this marketing propaganda saying, I need to have these things or this junk food, then it becomes a little bit harder as a parent. So you really have to. You know, set the foundation, set the boundaries with your kids, you know, this is what we're going to eat.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mom and dad are going to eat it. We're going to model it to you. This is why we eat it. And you try to provide an environment where the other crap isn't there in the house. Or if there is some treats and stuff, you try to provide the healthier versions of that. You know, think, you know, the unreal high quality dark chocolate coconut or the chalk XO keto chocolates.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We try to have things like that that are low sugar. Good healthy fat. So if we're gonna eat fat, there's still some blood sugar stabilizing impact there. There's still very low carbohydrate Maybe it's a little bit of stevia Maybe it's a little bit of natural low sugar stuff and we would just time it up after a meal But starting off the gates breakfast is so important because that sets the table for blood sugar that sets the table for cravings That provides the building block anti inflammatory fat like the omega 3s like you mentioned Dr.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Justin Marchegiani. Especially if it's grass fed, pasture fed type of chickens. Evan Brand Yeah. Dr. Justin 3 in those eggs is gonna be much higher. That's gonna set the brain for really good focus because the more the brain inflammation is down, the more you're able to focus. The more brain inflammation is high, you activate microglial cells in the brain.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So the immune cells in the brain are higher. When there's more inflammation and the microglial cells will cause more brain fog when the brain's inflamed And so your ability to focus when you have brain inflammation that microglial those immune cells in the brain are activated It's much be much higher in regards to your inability to focus And so if we can set the table with the solid anti inflammatory proteins and fats That allows the brain to be in a much better starting point, keeps the cravings down, so now your kids are in a place to make better decisions throughout the day, if they're not in the house, in regards to what foods they're gonna eat.
Rob Edwards: Yeah, I mean, it's also a little bit of a cycle too, right? Because it's like, you're, you're, You're eating in the morning. If you have ADHD, you're likely stressed, right? So your, your children are like high levels of stress that correlates back with the hormones and cortisol. And when your cortisol is is up high, it's also going to suppress your gut function and suppress your immune function.
Rob Edwards: It's going to suppress other hormonal production. And so it's, it's one of those deals where it's like a chicken or the egg, which do we do first, but dealing with. The food, I think, especially in kids is easier up front out of the gates to deal with and getting through that sort of getting through that resistance phase.
Rob Edwards: Which I think to your point, you were saying, you know, explain to them why you do have to educate your kids. If you're not educating your kids, it's going to be very difficult to just say, Hey, eat this because I told you to. Right? It's like, how, how well does that work for us? And, but if we explain why, and we make it easy for them to understand and we're saying, Hey, we're doing it with you.
Rob Edwards: We're doing this together. I think that goes a long way because, you know, will that cause a stress response at the beginning? It's going to cause a little bit of that, but. But, you know, from what I've experienced, having five kids is eventually they get over it. They say, okay, I need to eat an apple because apparently that's all we have left in the house to eat.
Rob Edwards: And sometimes that's, that's the name of the game, right? Is you, you don't have it in the house.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And there's two issues, right? You start out before you even have kids or when the kids are super young, it's all they know. And then it's just easy. You build those patterns and you just move and you just go, or if you, let's say you got this information.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: a few years after having kids and they have some bad habits, then you gotta just rip that bandaid off. Rip it off, but the key is modeling. Modeling, modeling, modeling, showing them that you're not you know, that you're subject to the rules as well. So, let's talk about couple, about some other key nutrients that are gonna be important as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, out of the gate, I always like to make sure my kids are hydrated as soon as they get up. Right? Water is very important. Hydration is really important. Most of the fluids in your body are gonna be water based, so good high quality, clean filtered water. If it's reverse osmosis, we're adding some electrolytes or minerals to that water.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Again, RO water is good because you're gonna at least have all the microplastics, toxins, pesticides, those kind of things out. So RO is great, you just have to be careful because now it's very devoid of minerals, so having a really good high quality Redmond's Real Solves or a trace mineral supplement that we can put a little bit back into that water and remineralize is great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great. Or if you have a little mineral water, like I'll have some of these Topo Chico's or Gerald Steiner's or Mountain Valley, and we'll do some of that sometimes just to ensure the water electrolyte concentrations very rich. And so we'll start off with hydration, start off with electrolytes, because your nervous system needs that sodium potassium pump to work properly.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So if we don't have good quality electrolytes, the nervous system's ability to communicate. So we talked about the myelin, that's kind of the structural integrity. But at a cellular level. At a cell membrane level, we need the fats, and we need good quality electrolytes and hydration. So, that sets the table right there out of the gate.
Rob Edwards: Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, it comes back down to the macronutrients, you know, that you're getting your, your proteins, your fats, your carbohydrates. And I think part of that as well is, and I've noticed this thing, particularly like with my my sister is, you know, she's thinking carbohydrates means, you know, a tortilla or something like that.
Rob Edwards: That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about carbohydrates. We're talking about whole food whole food nutrient dense. Carbohydrate options. And I think a lot of people get confused with that and still go to the highly processed foods that are out there that has all kinds of chemicals and preservatives and other things like that, that create other issues down the road for them.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yep, exactly. Like with my kids, we started them off today. They had, they had one to two eggs, pasture fed. eggs cooked in ghee, some sea salt on it, cut up an apple, handful of berries. And so, you know, if your kids are at a pretty good weight, kids are pretty active. As long as your kid doesn't have a metabolic issue, whether or not already over very overweight, you know, keep your carbs.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So like an apple, some berries, those kinds of things are fine. If your kids are going to be doing a lot more, more energized, doing a lot more activity, you could throw in a little bit of a safe starch, squash, sweet potatoes, some hash browns. Or, you know, even a half of, you know, half to a quarter of a green banana could be okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You just gotta look at where your kids are at metabolically. My kids, good proteins, good fats, and a little bit of high quality fruit to start the day. Good potassium, good vitamin C. Now, supplement wise, I really wanna keep glutamate down. So glutamate is kind of an excitatory neurotransmitter and we want to be able to calm that down.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So the big tools that I have in my toolbox metabolically to calm that down are going to be cysteine or N acetylcysteine. We'll utilize that. I mean, you'll see high levels of glutamate and a lot of OCD type of people that obsessive compulsive anxiety. So that glutamate can be suppressed. with good healthy proteins and fats.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now, supplementally, we're gonna use cysteine. That's shown to modulate glutamate significantly. There's been different studies looking at trichotillomania of kids that were just picking at their skin or literally ripping their hair out and eating it, and they saw significant improvements with cysteine.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, cysteine's very powerful at calming down glutamate. I also like theanine. Theanine, GABA, or just GABA by itself, but theanine's an important building block to kind of really getting in that GABA upregulated in the brain. And GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter. Think of inhibition as it's gonna be the brake on the nervous system.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So that nervous system's already in overdrive and they're already very overstimulated, well, much better off. to calm things down and utilize GABA, then say, okay, we're already stimulated. Let's overstimulate you to the point where now you come back down. Now, instead of overstimulating, we're trying to just hit the brakes and bring you back down.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, it's a different mindset than what conventional medicine does. They overstimulate to the point of creating focus, because you go so high, it actually creates focus. But we actually want to do the opposite. We want to actually bring it back down with GABA. We could even do things like lemon balm. We could even do things like valerian, but some of those can be a little too sedating.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So I like to keep it simple. I'm going to use theanine, I'm going to use cysteine, I'm going to use some magnesium. It's going to be some really good nutrients that we can add in supplementally.
Rob Edwards: Magnesium having the calming effect on the brain. And then we also have like vitamin D, which you know, some literature out there says about 78.
Rob Edwards: 4 percent of children with that are deficient in vitamin D. And then we have iron, iron deficiencies, anemia. That's associated with that. Of course, we talked about Omega 3s, and then Zinc in terms of regulating the Dr. Justin Marchegiani I
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: think Vitamin D out of the gate, just to highlight Vitamin D.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I mean, I think if you're low in Vitamin D, that's gonna impact your immune system, right? And so much of what's going on in the brain is, is immune driven, right? If a lot of people are set up with this kind of subclinical autoimmune issue, I think, because if you look at autoimmune disease in general, it's, it's on the rise in today's society and culture.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And so, anything you can do to modulate the immune system puts you in a you know, a place of keeping that autoimmune issue from expressing. And we know these conditions are probably starting when kids are young and then taking full effect as they get into their 20s and 30s. So, vitamin D, I think, is an important break that we can put on that autoimmune condition from progressing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Dr. Justin
Rob Edwards: Marchegiani Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, little things in terms of like, you know, even grounding, which sort of gives us our attention back, right? We can go outside and we can stand and just notice things, just notice the world, notice the trees, notice the sky. You know, paying attention and you're sort of just training yourself to do that.
Rob Edwards: I think that's part of it as well. That maybe it doesn't get talked about enough is that we, we really can't hold our attention for that long. Even if you look at all the marketing strategies that are out there now, nowadays, it's like, it's attention grabbing. Right. And so it's creating issues even in that.
Rob Edwards: So being able to slow down, go outside in the morning, like take your kids out there and just like do some grounding techniques and, it goes, it goes really far. I think there's also,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: go ahead. Yes. Go ahead. I
Rob Edwards: think there's a lot of improvement there and that's a simple thing to do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And also get some first morning sun, you know, seven 30, eight o'clock your kids are up, you know, if it's cold out, open up a window or open up a screen and have them sit in front of that window for five, 10 minutes if you can or just try to find a place where they can eat their breakfast, get some sunlight on their skin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Even if it's that low morning light, the UVB is very low. But that's gonna be very helpful for resetting their circadian rhythm, so if their sleep or general wake and sleep cycles off, that can be very powerful at resetting things. And then, we kind of already talked about it implicitly, but I haven't said it specifically.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Cutting out the processed sugar is an important thing. So when you consume too much sugar, what's happening is you're flooding dopamine and serotonin into the brain, into those synapses, into the presynaptic neuron, post synaptic neuron, you're flooding it in between those synapses. And when you do that, you get this big bump.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right? Well, guess what also does that? Stimulants do that.
Rob Edwards: Dr. Justin Marchegiani
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm hmm. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Ritalin, Adderall, these methylphenidate type of compounds, these methamphetamines, they're over flooding the system with serotonin and dopamine. You get that with sugar, right? The problem is when you do that, you get this big increase, but then the problem is, the blood sugar drops because your body makes insulin, pulls it into the cell, so you have this big increase, And then you have this crash, this letdown where you feel crummy, your focus is even more poor, now you're tired again, and then guess what you do?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You reach for that other bit of sugar at lunch, bring you back up. Maybe you want a juice for snack, and you just keep on going on this roller coaster all day long, and when you flood with serotonin and dopamine, that dopamine also can get converted to adrenaline. Or norepinephrine, or a catecholamine, it's three words for the same thing, but that dopamine can get converted to adrenaline.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Dopamine is very important for focus, but if we're Over stimulating it up with sugar and then it comes back down as blood sugar drops Right you're on this roller coaster of up and down energy and focus and then when you're in this down part You feel terrible and then you reach for the thing that once you went back up and then you're on this cycle You don't want to get off it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You want to find things that bring Blood sugar and nutrition up, and then it comes down slow. Then you eat and you're in this snaking pattern throughout the day versus this rollercoaster pattern of blood sugar and nutrition.
Rob Edwards: Yeah, and I think that really it, it connects like the body to so many different areas as well from the endocrine system, you know, talking about all the clans that produce hormones.
Rob Edwards: So it's not just, it's not just isolated to one thing. It, it expands out to multiple. Multiple things throughout your body. And the interesting thing is, is, and everybody is kind of knows this is when we start looking at the stats, that children are starting to get, you know, type two diabetes at a younger age.
Rob Edwards: Even some of this stuff being an onset to what some people call diabetic diabetes, number three, right. Which is yeah, in the brain. And so all of this stuff is interconnected. This isn't like an isolated situation. And I think that's important for people to understand this blood sugar regulation.
Rob Edwards: It's, it's a behavioral issue. Right. It's like, if you're saying, well, where's the root cause? Well, the root cause is the decisions that we make, right? The decision we're oftentimes the biggest antigen in our own life. Right. It's like, what's the problem? How did the problem happen? It's like, well, it's the decisions that I made.
Rob Edwards: And I think a lot of people for the longest time in traditional medicine thought, well, these were just like the genetics that I have, I have no choice, you know, if I'm going to get sick, I'm going to get sick, if I'm going to get diabetes, I'm going to get diabetes. And, you know, there's some truth to that, like we were talking about yesterday, that if you have a genetic issue that happens at birth, it is what it is.
Rob Edwards: But then there's these epigenetic factors that are causing our bodies to go haywire. ADHD is one thing out of many, right, that can happen through blood sugar dysregulation. I think that's, that's important for people to know. And then younger and younger, we're seeing these chronic symptoms happening in kids that we wouldn't have talked about that 15 years ago.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. When you start to overconsume processed sugar and stimulate cortisol, and you overstimulate insulin during pregnancy, you activate epigenetic triggers that make your kiddos more prone to obesity.
Rob Edwards: Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: and, and mood issues. So then when they're born and they're exposed to the same foods, these genes are more active than, let's say you had a healthier pregnancy with healthier food.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And so epigenetics are real. And if you look at the, the data on the pottinger cat studies, this is where they took healthy cats and they, they fed them more processed food and they, they followed the litters of the different cats and the cat's health for two and three generations. They found by the third generations of the, the cats eating more processed junky food, they lost the ability to reproduce.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah. And so these genetic, these genetic issues really have been epigenetic issues that have been activated generations ahead of time. And so that's important, right? You know, so like, you know, you see in the Bible like the, the sins of the parents are passed on to the kids. Evan Brand Well, nutritionally, you can kind of see that play out when the pottinger cat study, right?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You can see that play out. So if you're a parent it's important that when you eat, you're not just thinking about you, you're thinking about the generation that comes after you. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Absolutely. Evan Brand Like I think it's important. And then also I try to get people's thinking about nutrition.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A little bit more holistically. Most people think about like food coming in. It's calories. I'm taking it. I'm putting it into a furnace. I'm burning it up. I challenge that way of thinking or putting like fuel in the car. I'm going to burn it up, right? I'm just going to the cheapest gas station. Oh, that's the cheapest price.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I'm going there, right? Well, think about it like this. If I put car, I put gas in the gas tank, right? The car just burns that gas. The car is not re metabolizing or remaking the bumper or the suspension or remaking the engine every year. Yeah. With the, with the fuel in the car. But your body's doing that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It's using it to make its hormones, it's remaking the liver, it's remaking its endocrine system. It's remaking the neurological tissue. Mm-Hmm. with that raw material. So if you're putting junky fuel in that tank, the ability for those cells to turn over and become healthier. Are going to be impacted. So yes, the car does not turn over like that, but we do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And so it's really important. Think about the raw material and think about how you want yourselves to look better and function better over time and not become depleted.
Rob Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. And it really is like an onion in that sense that like, you know, you sort of have a first wave round of things that you're doing, trying to change your cellular expression, cellular function.
Rob Edwards: And, you know, cells replicate, right? So we change ourselves out every single year. You know, some of them faster, some of them slower. But generally speaking, can we change these out? So it's important for people to understand that, especially whenever your child is young and they're learning just behaviors, right?
Rob Edwards: How should I eat? How should I take care of my body? How should I do these different things in our generation? At least with me, with my parents, it was kind of like, I mean, it's like everybody all for themselves, right? It's like, yeah, you eat whatever's in front of you. You go out and ride your bike wherever, and you're never worrying about anything.
Rob Edwards: But, but the problem with that is our generation now just kind of, we are the standard American diet, right? We're the standard American, like everything, whatever we want, whatever we want to do, we do. And the results of that are not like, they're not in, they're not innate. Right. It affects you, you start eating a certain way for long period of your life.
Rob Edwards: It's going to affect you. You start drinking water. That's that's affected with certain things or, or, or contaminated. It's going to affect you. All of these little things are going to affect you. And we haven't even gotten into like heavy metals. We haven't gotten into all these other things in our discussion, but I think right out of the gates, it's been a great conversation because we're talking about one of the first things that we can do, which is the intake that we have inside of our mouth.
Rob Edwards: Right? So the water and the food that goes a long way. And just mindfulness starting to be mindful about you know, getting your kids, getting yourself to get outside, do some grounding re engage back with reality, right. And starting to steward your bodies, take responsibility for them. Take responsibility for your children.
Rob Edwards: And start doing these things. It goes a long, long way faster than what I think most people think is possible.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I agree. Now, when people get, people love to reach for diagnoses. Well, I need a diagnosis, but it's like a diagnosis is only helpful to the means of which, which you use that to get to the root cause.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The problem with, I have an ADHD or ADD. diagnosis. What's the tool the conventional medicine is going to use to address that issue? It's usually going to be some kind of a stimulant or some kind of an SSRI medication. None of it's going to address the underlying issue. Younger kids, there may be some developmental impact over stimulating a brain for 10, 20 years.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And so, I wouldn't overly rely on that. And so, Well, what can we do to actually get to the root cause? So we talked about different nutrients, talked about magnesium and theanine and things to ways to knock down glutamate. We talked about ways to help get the insulin resistance in check by focusing on good proteins and fats.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And if we're going to do carbs, try to do more whole food based carbs based on how active your kids are. If your kids are sitting around all day, they probably don't need a bunch of starch. If, you know, they're gonna be in a classroom, maybe you give them a handful of blueberries instead, right? We talked about a lot of these blood sugar issues.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Start the inflammation in the brain. Start the type 3 diabetes, the placking that's gonna start contributing to Alzheimer's and dementia. I mean, newsflash, Alzheimer's and dementia starts in your 20s, maybe even your teens. And then takes, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 years to manifest. And so, you know, get on top of these things.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Don't just think that they happen in your 60s and 70s. They start now. I would say, we can look at different lab testing. We can run organic acid testing to see where methylation's at. Methylation can be very important. Looking at folate, looking at B6. These are B12. These are important nutrients that help.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Dr. Justin Marchegiani Methylate and activate a lot of your neurotransmitters. We can look at getting more building blocks to make dopamine and adrenaline in your brain. Most kids tend to be low protein. They tend to reach for carbs. And so they don't have enough good amino acids in there. So obviously get it from food.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But we may also want to supplement it too. These are good kind of first line approaches. Many kids have been over prescribed antibiotics and they have maybe a lot of dysbiosis, a lot of fungal overgrowth or candida. And these things could be impacting the microbiome. They could also be impacting nutrient absorption and creating lots of cravings and 80 percent of your immune systems in the gut.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And so if we have a lot of dysbiotic bacteria or candida, these can be impact. So you may want to look at dealing with and interacting with the gut, doing gut function tests, looking at methylation, looking at organic acid to see what could be happening under that hood.
Rob Edwards: Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, the tests that are out there now, you know, they're phenomenal.
Rob Edwards: They give us a lot of insights in terms of nutrient deficiencies, how your body's operating. You know, whether or not your gut is susceptible or infected you know, like you were saying with, with Candida or H. pylori or you know, all the different things, parasites, we can, we can take a good snapshot and picture of these things and to support these things you know, to, to, to.
Rob Edwards: To drive a good outcome faster than, you know, faster than if you didn't have those, there's some assumptions that you can make and you can do some things based off of assumptions. But I think testing is the best way to go because you can just see what's going on. You know, where these pieces are at, you know, you have a good starting point for their specific biochemistry needs.
Rob Edwards: Cause we're all different. At the end of the day, we're all different biochemistry wise, and we all have different epigenetic factors. You know, a person living in New Mexico is completely different than a person living in, you know, New York. You're likely to see, for example, more mold in New York than you are in New Mexico.
Rob Edwards: So there's just variances in, in how we approach hitting the ball, I guess, you know. Dr. Justin Marchegiani
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And then we kind of focused on some of the, you know, our youngsters and things in this podcast, but a lot of these principles can be applied to adults as well. And whether you're male or female, if you have hormonal issues, whether it's low progesterone, low estrogen, low testosterone, these hormones have a major impact on your neurotransmitters as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So a lot of women, we see very low progesterone because they're overly stressed and they're, they're pinch hitting that progesterone to go downstream and make more cortisol. So low progesterone could be a thing. Progesterone opens those GABA chloride channels. Also, things like estrogen. Estrogen is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, it's like a natural SSRI. So, if your hormones are a bit low, that can impact how you hold on to your neurotransmitters between the synapses. That could be an issue. Guys, testosterone has a quite a bit of input on that frontal cortex, which plays a big role with focus and motivation and decision making.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, low testosterone could be an issue. And guys, you'll also see higher estrogen because they're aromatizing. So, a lot of their testosterone to estrogen. Aromatization is an enzyme that converts testosterone to estrogen due to typically inflammation and insulin resistance due to primarily too many junky foods and processed carbs.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then women these days, if they have lots of insulin problems, they can actually have higher levels of testosterone, which can cause more hormonal issues, can cause prolactin problems and, and cause cycle aberrations. the number one cause of infertility. Testosterone due to ovarian cysts. So that's a big factor as well.
Rob Edwards: Yeah. And that's where I was at. Like I was you know, my testosterone was low, my estrogen was trending high and, you know, working on that. The thing is, is you can, you can switch these things around pretty quickly epigenetically and with the support of you know, specific supplementation, diet rest, you know, movement, all of these different things that we can do.
Rob Edwards: Our body is. And I think that's the good news out of, out of all of this is, is, you know, if somebody has ADHD, they've got brain fog, they've got, or, or their children do there's many different things we can do to move the needle on that and, and, and it's successful So, yeah, I think it, it's a great conversation.
Rob Edwards: It's a thing that needs to get out there more because I think more and more people are starting to experience this. And like you said, I don't want to get Alzheimer's. I mean, I think about that from time to time. I have a relative of mine that I'm not going to mention who she is, but you know, she's, she's got Alzheimer's and she's going down that path and it's not, it's not fun to watch.
Rob Edwards: And I don't want to get to that point. Epigenetically, we know we can influence these factors. So it's like, it's like time to get on it, you know, especially if you're trending towards like 30, 40 years old. Get on it, man. Like, stop waiting because you need to start getting your body in a position for the next 40 years where you're going to start feeling this stuff.
Rob Edwards: And the further it goes, the harder it is to correct. And that's the same with children too. Dr. Justin
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Marchegiani Yep. And one last component is stress hormones mobilize glucose. Think about it, right? If you were encountered like some kind of a lion or a bear, That stress hormone that would stimulate you would mobilize a whole bunch of fuel, aka glucose, so you could run, fight, and flee.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And so, we're chronically stressed, but now that glucose just hangs out in our system because we're not using it. And so, this is why exercise or just going for a walk when you're stressed can be a huge thing, because it can just start to clear out all that glucose. from the stress hormone. So if you are noticing you're getting more stress, go for that walk, do some zone two cardio, do a little bit of lifting, just do some gentle movement to say, okay, I'm going to clear out some of that glucose.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now that stress hormones not going to be as Overly stimulating me as well. And so people think of like, oh, I'm getting glucose from eating too much cars. But no, you can get it from stress and that's why doing some movement can really help rebalance you.
Rob Edwards: Yeah, and I love the love, the fact that you mentioned movement.
Rob Edwards: I think, you know, a lot of people that I think are around our age, we, we were brought up sort of thinking, you know, what it means to exercise is. Maxing out on the bench press or, you know, going on a six mile run or something like that. And that's still even inside it. When I was in my thirties, I still thought that was the way to do it.
Rob Edwards: And that's just not the case. We're talking about movement to help out the lymphatic system, to get your body recognizing that you're still a living human being that, that needs energy production in your extremities and throughout your entire body.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and 80s and 90s moms had it right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: They're like, oh, your kids are hyperactive? Guys, go outside. Go run around, go in the backyard, get an hour or two, and then you come back in, they're all chilled out, chilled out and relaxed and, and and everything's been burnt off, right? We intuitively knew that. But today it's like, Oh, just, yeah. Okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You're, you're hyper here. Have an iPad here. Go. Let's put on Netflix for you. Let's stimulate more dopamine stimulation. Right? So we got to go back to the generation that guys go outside and go run around. Right. We got to go into that.
Rob Edwards: And then not feel guilty about saying that, like not to feel guilty about saying that, like, Your kids are going to be like, let me play on the iPad.
Rob Edwards: Right. No, right. It's don't feel guilty about it. You're doing it for their best benefit. And you know, I think rocking it that way, it goes a long way more than what people realize.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I walk around our neighborhood these days and we just don't see as many kids outside, but the parks are empty. And I think that's a big deal.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think parents, it's really easy and comforting to put your kid in front of an iPad that you can just see the kid right there. You know, they're safe. And that's, it's it. And you think, okay, you're doing a good job as a parent. But you know, we got to get kids moving again a little bit. I think, I think parents intuitively know that anyone from our generation, right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Can, can remember that. I think can really empathize with that.
Rob Edwards: Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think it's
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: great
Rob Edwards: conversation.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: All right. Excellent. Well, guys, hope you enjoyed today's. conversation. If you did, please let us know in the comments. Again, Rob's website is heritagehealth. life. Link down below. Again, I'm Dr. J, justinhealth.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: com as well. Both do functional medicine support consultations worldwide. Need that? Feel free and let us know. Excellent time chatting today, Rob. Good chat with you, man. Dr. brother. Evan Brand Take care. Bye now. Dr.
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