LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Anxiety

Natural Remedies for ADHD in Children; Do They Work?

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natural remedies for ADHD in children
Photo courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/aliarda/

I believe every parent is inherently hesitant to put a child on drugs that mess with the brain. It would seem that natural remedies for ADHD in children would be safer.

Our childrens’ brains undergo some incredible changes throughout the entire adolescent period.  And when it comes to the brain, we know very little about the details.  This is why I believe that drugs need to be the very, very last option.  We have already seen a long list of natural approaches in the research that have demonstrated a benefit for behavioral problems in children.  These include:

  1. Avoiding junk foods.  These have been shown to contribute to behavioral problems in kids.
  2. Phosphatidylserine found in soy and brain supplements.
  3. Lithium (the natural kind, not the prescription).
  4. Getting  a good night’s sleep (even just 27 extra minutes of sleep led to improvements in behavior).
  5. Healthy fats have a strong history of being good for all brain conditions.

The list is longer, but you at least get the idea.  It is clear that natural approaches are not only safe, they are at least as effective as the medications used to attention and behavioral problems in children.  More importantly, natural treatments for ADHD work WITH the brain, rather than against it.

This particular study adds another natural tool to the arsenal of natural treatments for ADHD.  Our office has used a supplement containing valerian root, passionflora and hops (cleverly named VHP by Biotics) to successfully help patients with anxiety and sleep problems, so I am very comfortable with its use.  This study uses a patented formula of valerian root and lemon balm (under the brand name Sandrin, which I was unable to find any additional information about).  Here are the details on this 7 week-long study on 169 primary school children:

  • The children had hyperactivity and concentration difficulties but not did not meet ADHS criteria.

  • There was an impressive reduction in children having strong/very strong symptoms of poor ability to focus from 75% to 14%.

  • Hyperactivity ratings dropped from 61% to 13%.

  • Measures of impulsiveness dropped from 59% to 22%.

  • Parent rated social behavior, sleep and symptom burden also showed definite improvements.

  • Only two children experienced mild temporary adverse drug reactions.

Granted, the children in this study would not have been considered full-blown ADHD kids, but we really need to view this in perspective.  The formulation clearly had an effect.  Since the lifestyle changes noted earlier in this article work in different mechanisms, it would make sense that this formulation (or something like it) would be a strong tool in the complete natural approach for ADHD in children.

Stressed Out? Problems Sleeping? Taking These May Kill You

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sleep hynotics increase risk of death
Photo courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/hopkinsii/

The typical answer for sleep problems or anxiety is medication. But in no way do these drugs actually fix anything.

Rather, the underlying brain damage that stress causes is allowed to run amok, unchecked. And make no mistake–stress destroys your brain. Shrinks it. Kills off healthy brain cells. Shortens memory. Accompanying the brain damage is damage to the rest of your body as well. Increased risks of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

In summary, not good.

In my opinion, stress is the leading cause of sleep problems. How is your body supposed to sleep when all the cortisol-based alarms in your head are screaming that there is a saber-toothed pacing in the hallway. Managing stress is key to anxiety and sleep problems. Exercise and eating right for your body. Meditation, self-hypnosis or biofeedback for your brain.

Using medication to cover this up is a recipe for disaster and is associated with over a half MILLION deaths per year. I’ve written about this in a previous blog article that can be found by clicking here. So, with this in mind, is nothing new and just reinforces this dangerous association and puts the damaging effects of stress on your health into perspective.

Here are the details of this study looking at 34,727 patients 16 years of age and older who were prescribed anxiolytic or hypnotic drugs and followed for an average of 7.6 years:

• Most common drugs were benzodiazepines (think diazepam) and the “Z” drugs (zaleplon, zolpidem, and zopiclone – think Ambien).
• Those taking one of these drugs had a 346% higher risk of dying in the study period.
• The higher the dose, the greater the risk.
• To put in more plainly, there were about four excess deaths for every 100 patients using one of drugs.

If this was not the first study to find an association between the use of these 2 types of drugs (for anxiety and sleep problems) we could maybe blow off the results. But we can no longer ignore the fact that taking a drug in this class WILL increase your risk of dying. Period. Maybe it’s the stress or maybe some aspect of the drugs themselves. Either way, it doesn’t change the outcome. Dead is dead regardless of how it happened.

Post Concussive Syndrome: 5 Tips to Protect Your Brain

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As a chiropractor, post concussive syndrome is not an unusual thing to see in our office following trauma such as a motor vehicle accident.

For the patients that develop post concussive syndrome, life can be pretty miserable.  Symptoms can include:

  • Headaches
  • Difficulty thinking clearly
  • Short term memory loss
  • Irritability
  • Anxiety
  • Problems sleeping
  • Dizziness

For most, the symptoms fade in a short period of time (usually within a month or so).  For others, problems can last as long as a year, although they seem to fade with time.  And then there is the small subset of patients with post concussive syndrome that develop long lasting, chronic complaints.  If the trauma is significant enough, seizures can result years down the line.

Car accidents are only one cause of post concussive syndrome.  Falls, workplace traumas and sports injuries like soccer and football collisions add sufferers to the list.

When the initial injury occurs, there is likely bruising in the soft tissues of the brain.  In a perfect world, the immune system comes in and cleans up the mess without any problems.  With the bruise, there are damaged red blood cells that have released iron.  Iron, when bound up with hemoglobin within the cell, is a good thing and helps us to transport oxygen and carbon dioxide.

The dark side of iron is released when it becomes free iron unbound to the hemoglobin molecule.  Now the iron is free to begin a cascade of damage to tissues in the area, setting up a feed forward cycle of oxidative stress.

Having written a book on migraines and epilepsy (which can be bought by clicking here) I can tell you that this oxidative damage is not a good thing in the brain.

At rest, the nervous system, which includes our brain, is the greatest utilizer of energy in the body.  Once we start moving, the muscles take over and have the greatest need.

Imagine that.  As you sit here reading this, your brain is requiring mass amounts of energy just to process the information.  So what does this mean?  It means that each cell of the nervous system requires thousands of mitochondria just to generate the energy needed for a brain cell just to perform its basic functions.  And each of these mitochondria are little factories churning out ATP for the brain cell to use at an enormous rate.

With this model, anything that harms the mitochondria and interferes with a brain cell’s ability to make energy will contribute to brain problems.  The oxidative stress caused by the free iron can start this damaging process.

This particular article suggests that this process may be the key to the difference between resolution of post concussive syndrome and the development of chronic problems.  If this relationship holds true (and there is no reason to think that it would not), then there may be some things you can do to protect your brain should this happen to you.

While my book goes into protecting the brain in detail, here are some supplements that can help:

  1. Magnesium, especially the threonate form, has the potentially to protect the brain.
  2. Vitamin D
  3. Antioxidants like coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) and
  4. Vitamin E (as mixed tocopherols, NOT just alpha tocopherol)
  5. Choline

So, while there are no guarantees in life, it might make sense that, in anyone suffering from post-concussive syndrome, protecting your brain with some or all of these supplements might be a good idea.

Hepatitis associated with Kava, a herbal remedy for anxiety – (01-22-01)

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Hepatitis associated with Kava, a herbal remedy for anxiety

Two points here. First of all, everything in moderation. High levels of any herb can be dangerous. Second, we’re talking about ONE case study here. Crack open a PDR and look for documented cases of liver damage among many of the common antianxiety drugs on the market.

bmj.com Escher et al. 322 (7279): 139

Read entire article here

Colon Irritable? Irritable Bowel Syndrome Diarrhea in the Head

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There are days when you’re a little grumpy. But, for some, every day finds their colon irritable. But is irritable bowel syndrome diarrhea all in your head?

Despite what some may think, irritable bowel syndrome (otherwise known as IBS) has been around virtually forever.  However, in 2002, a drug called Lotronex was approved for treatment of diarrhea predominate IBS.  And, as is wont to occur when big money gets involved, the direct to consumer advertising that ensued seemed to educate the world on IBS.

For a little background, IBS is a term that encompasses a variety of gut related symptoms that can include abdominal pain, bloating, gas or cramping with these characteristics:

  • Diarrhea or constipation, with the possibility of altering between the two
  • Mucus in the stool
  • The pain is relieved by having a bowel movement
  • The pain is linked to a change in how often you have a bowel movement
  • The pain is linked to a change in the appearance or consistency of your stool

The symptoms of IBS, of course, can be highly variable.  One thing that is consistent, however, is just how much this can impact the sufferers’ life.

It is also not uncommon to see IBS go hand in hand with fibromyalgia.

Spastic colon is referred to as a functional bowel disorder, meaning that there is something wrong with the way the gut is working.  Contrast this with a pathological bowel disease such as ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, diverticulitis or colorectal cancer.  Traditionally trained gastroenterologists are in general, quite frankly clueless about how to treat functional bowel disorders.  It is almost as if they have completely forgotten how the gut works and have no real tools to help restore healthy function of the gut.

Maybe this stems from the tools in the toolbox–there are few, if any, pharmaceutical drugs on the market that support normal function in the body.  In almost every case drugs interfere with the normal processes that occur.  They block, they speed up, they slow down.  But none are designed to normalize.  So if you have a problem that stems from poor function of the gut and you have no tools to fix the function, that condition will be almost impossible to treat.

If you’d like my take (and even if you don’t…) on IBS, here it is in a nutshell:

  1. Stress is a massive, massive player in IBS
  2. Supporting digestion with digestive enzymes and / or hydrochloric acid can be a powerful tool
  3. Probiotic supplementation is a must (so much so that, if a physician you are seeing for your IBS has not recommended them, you need to run the other way)
  4. A healthy diet is necessary for long term benefit
  5. Magnesium is an almost guaranteed fix for constipation-dominant IBS

For this particular study, we need to focus on #1 above.  Stress.

Stress destroys the gut.  But the gut has been considered the “second brain” because it contains massive levels of hormones that effect the nervous system.  So, with irritable bowel, does stress cause the IBS or does IBS lead to stress?

It’s the proverbial chicken-or-the-egg dilemma.

Researchers tried to answer the question by looking at how much anxiety increased the risk for irritable bowel as well as whether those with IBS were more likely to develop anxiety.

They found that it works both ways.  Anxiety increases the risk of developing irritable bowel.  But IRS also increases the risk of developing anxiety.

The bottom line is that every aspect of your body and health interact with every other system.  No single part of your body lives in a vacuum unaffected by its neighbors.

Since stress is such a strong player in the development of IBS as well as the management of irritable bowel syndrome, have you had success in using tools like biofeedback or meditation to help with your symptoms?

 

PRENATAL ANXIETY CREATES HEALTH DIFFERENCES – (09-06-05)

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Prenatal Anxiety Predicts Differences in Cortisol in Pre-Adolescent Children

The implications for this are staggering.  Consider a few scenarios:  pregnant mother told antidepressants are okay in the 3rd trimester, a pregnant mother under abnormal levels of stress, or an insulin resistant mother with abnormally high levels of cortisol.  All of these scenarios lead to differing levels of neurotransmitters in the bloodstream.  The developing fetus is bathed in these hormones.

So, take the antidepressants–the developing fetus becomes used to abnormally high effectiveness of serotonin.  Baby gets born, no more drugs and their brain now detects a serotonin deficiency, even though their is no true physiological deficit.  Run the same scenario for a stressed out mom with high cortisol levels.  Not a good situation for the child, and this is one of the reasons I am a little pessimistic about our future generations’ risk of chronic diseases.  I think we have yet to have scratched the surface of chronic diseases and shortened lifespans.

Read entire article here

WHAT IS THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF STRESS REDUCTION ON OUR HEALTH? – (05-16-05)

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Glucocorticoids, depression, mood disorders: structural remodeling in the brain

While we’re on the subject of stress, it is well known that chronic stress shrinks certain regions of the brain.

This study adds that, in chronic stress we see atrophy of the hippocampus, but also an enlargement of the amygdala, resulting in increased anxiety and aggression.  I know that stress reduction is important, but sometimes I forget just how much of a negative impact it has on our health.

Articles such as these two really slam home just how devastating chronic stress it.  So, take a deep breath.  Inhale slowly….

Read entire article here

HERBAL AND DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS FOR TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS – (02-25-08)

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Herbal and Dietary Supplements for Treatment of Anxiety Disorders

Wow. Can’t get much better than an “A” rating when it comes to the use of Kava for anxiety, especially when a meta analysis was done by the Cochrane group and the side effects in all the studies were minimal. Compared this with the use of pharmacological agents with their long list of side effects as well as potential for dependence.

Read entire article here