Are We Medicating Kids TOO Early? The Shocking Reality | Brooke Siem DSH #845

Summary

Digital Social Hour: Are We Medicating Kids TOO Early? The Shocking Reality | Brooke Siem DSH #845

Release Date: October 30, 2024

In episode #845 of "Digital Social Hour," host Sean Kelly engages in a profound and candid conversation with Brooke Seam, an advocate and former antidepressant user, about the alarming trend of prescribing psychiatric medications to children at increasingly young ages. The discussion delves deep into the ethical, medical, and societal implications of medicating youth, Brooke's personal struggles with antidepressants, and broader critiques of the healthcare system’s approach to mental health.

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1. Introduction to the Issue

Medication of Young Children: Brooke Seam raises significant concerns about the recent approval and administration of antidepressants to very young children. She questions the ethics and long-term consequences of prescribing drugs like Lexapro to children as young as seven years old.

• Brooke Seam (00:00): "If you have to put a seven-year-old on LexPro then maybe we should look at what's going on in the home before tossing them on a drug that we don't have any idea what the long-term effects are."

Sean acknowledges the gravity of this issue, expressing disbelief at the early onset of depression requiring such medications.

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2. Brooke's Personal Experience with Antidepressants

Early Prescription and Overmedication: Brooke shares her harrowing personal journey, detailing how she was prescribed multiple antidepressants at the age of fifteen following her father's sudden passing. She emphasizes the lack of proper oversight and the dangerous cocktail of medications she was subjected to.

• Brooke Seam (02:31): "I ended up on six different drugs and was on those for 15 years and then at 30, was pulled off all of them pretty recklessly."

Withdrawal and Its Impact: The abrupt discontinuation of her medications led to severe withdrawal symptoms, which lasted over a year. Brooke discusses the inadequacy of medical guidance during withdrawal and the long-term effects it had on her mental and physical health.

• Brooke Seam (03:52): "I got severe antidepressant withdrawal... And that led to a book like, it was so bad I got a book deal out of it."

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3. Critique of Prescription Practices

Systemic Issues in Healthcare: Brooke criticizes the fragmented nature of the healthcare system, where specialists focus narrowly on their fields without considering the holistic impact of medications. She points out the ethical concerns of prescribing potent drugs to individuals with limited agency, especially children.

• Brooke Seam (01:24): "There's a wealth of information on the Internet and with functional medicine doctors... because that's actually where I'm healing."

Incentives and Prescriptions: The conversation touches on the financial incentives for doctors within the insurance-driven system, leading to overprescription without adequate patient care.

• Brooke Seam (07:59): "It's a lot of things, they have a lot of function. So it’s not even just that. Yeah, they're cheap to process but we used grapeseed oil all the time in one of the French restaurants I worked in because it has a neutral flavor."

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4. Antidepressant Withdrawal and Tapering Off

Challenges of Withdrawal: Brooke explains the complexities of tapering off antidepressants, highlighting the insufficient support and knowledge among healthcare providers. She introduces the concept of hyperbolic tapering as a more effective method to reduce withdrawal symptoms.

• Brooke Seam (29:10): "Most doctors don’t know about this stuff anyway... There is a big problem here."

Hyperbolic Tapering: The guest discusses the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines and the importance of gradual dosage reduction to align with the brain's adaptation to medication presence and absence.

• Brooke Seam (33:18): "What can happen is... People think there's something wrong with them and they get scared of it."

Compounding Pharmacies: Brooke emphasizes the need for access to compound pharmacies that can provide smaller, more precise dosages necessary for effective tapering.

• Brooke Seam (35:40): "Someone's like, okay, I'm feeling, you know, okay, but I think I'm going to pull off my next, I'm going to stop the drug."

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5. Systemic Healthcare and Big Pharma Influence

Healthcare System Flaws: Brooke critiques the current healthcare infrastructure, which often prioritizes prescription volume over patient well-being. She highlights the lack of standardized protocols for deprescribing and the resultant patient suffering.

• Brooke Seam (38:26): "It's not recognized right now... because we've created a problem."

Big Pharma's Role: The discussion touches on the influence of pharmaceutical companies and their impact on prescribing practices, as well as the challenges in changing established medical norms.

• Brooke Seam (37:53): "Big Pharma has a lot of money and influence on social media platforms."

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6. Lifestyle, Diet, and Holistic Healing

Nutrition and Recovery: Brooke shares her transition from antidepressants to functional medicine and holistic healing, emphasizing the role of proper nutrition in mental and physical health. She advocates for a diet free from seed oils and processed foods, promoting whole, organic ingredients.

• Brooke Seam (22:20): "I have a strong background in athletics... It's insane."

Cooking as Therapy: She discusses her passion for cooking and how it serves as a therapeutic outlet, now working as a chef for pro athletes to promote better dietary practices.

• Brooke Seam (21:20): "I am still cooking. I actually am a chef to pro athletes."

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7. Personal Reflections and Advocacy

Advocacy for Change: Brooke calls for greater awareness and systemic changes in how psychiatric medications are prescribed and managed, especially for vulnerable populations like children.

• Brooke Seam (37:46): "There should be doctors from every major hospital talking about this."

Publishing and Sharing Her Story: She discusses her book, "May Cause Side Effects," detailing her experiences and advocating for informed decision-making regarding psychiatric medications.

• Brooke Seam (41:00): "My book is May Cause Side Effects. It's available wherever books are sold on audiobook."

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8. Conclusion and Resources

Brooke Seam concludes the episode by urging listeners to educate themselves about the potential risks of psychiatric medications and to seek informed medical advice when considering tapering off these drugs. She provides resources for further information, including her book and newsletter.

• Brooke Seam (41:00): "You can find me all over the Internet at brookseem. My book is May Cause Side Effects... and I have a newsletter that's on substack."

Sean Kelly wraps up the episode by appreciating Brooke's honesty and the crucial message she brings to the forefront of mental health discussions.

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Key Takeaways:

• The early prescription of antidepressants to children raises serious ethical and medical concerns.
• There is a significant lack of proper protocols for tapering off psychiatric medications, leading to prolonged and severe withdrawal symptoms.
• The healthcare system's fragmented approach and pharmaceutical influences contribute to the overprescription and mismanagement of mental health treatments.
• Holistic approaches, including proper nutrition and lifestyle changes, can play a vital role in mental health recovery.
• Advocacy and informed decision-making are crucial in addressing and rectifying the shortcomings in current mental health treatment practices.

For more insights and resources, listeners can reach out to Brooke Seam through her book "May Cause Side Effects" or subscribe to her newsletter on Substack at brookseem.substack.com.

Transcript

[Brooke Seam]

I think just what's going on in the world. If you have to put a seven year old on LexPro then maybe we should look at what's going on in the home before tossing them on a drug that we don't have any idea what the long term effects are. That's what I think.

[Sean]

Not a bad idea.

[Brooke Seam]

Right? It's not a bad idea.

[Sean]

So what is that? Is that an antidepressant?

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah, Lexpro is an antidepressant.

[Sean]

Geez, seven years old. I can't believe kids are getting depressed that early.

[Brooke Seam]

I mean, are they?

[Sean]

All right guys, got Brooke Seam here. We're going to talk depression and all these medications going on.

[Brooke Seam]

Depression, Sean.

[Sean]

Yeah, let's talk about it. Kids at 7 getting prescribed medication now.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. Last year Lexapro was approved for use in children and teens starting at 7 years old which I, I just find pretty disgusting. I mean the, the study that was used to pass that approval wasn't great. Showed a six time increase in suicidality within the group. The cohort that was being studied and they still added the approval and it doesn't really, I think just what's going on in the world. If you have to put a seven year old on Lex Pro, then maybe we should look at what's going on in the home.

[Sean]

Right.

[Brooke Seam]

Before tossing them on a drug that we don't have any idea what the long term effects are. That's what I.

[Sean]

Not a bad idea.

[Brooke Seam]

Right? It's not a bad idea.

[Sean]

So what is that? Is that an antidepressant?

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah, Lex Pro is an antidepressant.

[Sean]

Geez, seven years old. I can't believe kids are getting depressed that early.

[Brooke Seam]

I, I mean are they that. I, I think that's one of the big questions is you've got the criteria for. Yes, you have the dsm, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that lays out what the pro, what the criteria for depression is. But it's very loose. You can have 10 people diagnosed with MDD, major depressive disorder with 10 different sets of symptoms, 10 different manifestations of it and there's seven again, what's going on in the home.

[Sean]

Right.

[Brooke Seam]

At what point is the parent responsible here? I don't really think it's particularly ethical, especially given that a seven year old has no agency and no clue what it's even like, like what emotions even are. They have no emotional regulation already and yet here you're putting them on a potentially life altering drug that's definitely altering their brain and wondering why it's not going very well. Like, it's not a mystery why people can. Why we have not. It's not a mystery why we have not seen any improvement in mental health despite more and more people being medicated. This isn't working. Yeah, this isn't working.

[Sean]

It's definitely not working. And you were prescribed at 15, right, antidepressants. So you were in high school?

[Brooke Seam]

Yes, my father had suddenly passed away and so this was 2001. So we do have to look at the time and context being quite different. At the time, only Zoloft and Prozac were approved for use in children and teens. But I managed to walk out of a 15 minute appointment with a psychiatrist with a prescription for Effexor XR and Wellbutrin xl. And so they were both given off label, they were put in combination, and then I stayed on that same cocktail of drugs along with four others that were added on over the course of about one to two years.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Brooke Seam]

The other four drugs were actually to combat side effects that we didn't know were associated with the antidepressants. We thought they were something else. Because medicine is so segmented that, you know, if your stomach's upset, you go to a gastroenterologist, if your hormones are off, you go to a endocrinologist. No one ever stops and looks at the whole spectrum of a person and says, well, actually this drug can cause this effect. So maybe that's the issue. Not that you have a separate thyroid disorder, but I ended up on six different drugs and was on those for 15 years and then at 30, was pulled off all of them pretty recklessly. And that led to severe antidepressant withdrawal. That led to a book like, it was so bad I got a book deal out of it.

[Sean]

Holy crap. So you just cold turkey cut them all?

[Brooke Seam]

Well, I was actually cold turkey under the care of a psychiatrist, so don't recommend it. Find a different psychiatrist if they do what mine did. But at the time, I was on 37.5 milligrams of effects or XR. Jeez, that's the lowest dose on the market.

[Sean]

What? That sounds high.

[Brooke Seam]

That is the lowest dose on the market. So my psychiatrist decided that she couldn't taper me off in any way because she couldn't prescribe me a drug for 20 milligrams or whatever. So she just said to stop taking it. Now, that was 2016, the first systematic review of antidepressant withdrawal. Which means that the first time somebody sat down and looked at the landscape of the literature and just kind of looked to see what was going on in the world of antidepressant withdrawal that came out in 2015. So this was 2016. There just wasn't too much chatter about getting off of these drugs, about tapering off of them. And so she just told me to stop. And I was just the patient, so I followed her advice. Just stopped. And basically only opened a portal to hell, I bet. Yeah.

[Sean]

Panic attacks, right?

[Brooke Seam]

There was some of that. For me, the biggest issue, I mean, this lasted for well over a year, so it's difficult to encapsulate in a few sound bites, but they kind of tell you you might feel like you have the flu or that the last withdrawal effects might last a few days or a couple weeks, and they kind of just shoo you away. But what we're not told when we are first prescribed antidepressants. And this is especially true of children, which is why I'm so mostly against medicating kids, because their bodies are changing and they have no frame of reference for who they are. And I had no frame of reference for who I was as a fully formed adult because I was medicated at 15. So when these drugs started to get pulled away and my body started to go nuts in every. In every aspect, like physically, mentally, emotionally, visually, my. My vision changed. I. I literally saw colors brighten and the edges got sharper and this really. Yep. And the same thing happened with my hearing. Like, sounds got very, very, very, very intense. And so I realized if these drugs were affecting something as simple as my vision, what else in my whole world were they affecting that I wasn't told about? Because I just thought they were making me less sad. The bitter irony, of course, was that I was suicidal at the time, so it wasn't like they were doing anything to make me less sad. In fact, I think they were exacerbating it. But we're not told any of this when we go into a doctor's office. And that is a big problem. And that's why I'm here. And there are millions of people around the world suffering in psychiatric drug withdrawal or feel like they've effectively been duped.

[Sean]

It's so easy to get them to. I remember getting Xanax and clonazepam. First day I met the doctor. Within 10 minutes.

[Brooke Seam]

Within 10 minutes.

[Sean]

Just say it. Said I had anxiety.

[Brooke Seam]

Just say what you want. Yeah, my. My GP in New York. So I was on six drugs when I went to him. My very first appointment. I had just graduated college. I had been on the same cocktail for six years. I found him around the corner from my apartment, and he took my insurance. So I just walked in and I sat down, and he basically said, why are you here? I said, well, I just moved to New York. These are the drugs I'm on. And he said, okay. And he wrote me a new script for everything that I was on, called it into the pharmacy, and about four years later, I needed a refill. And I called him up for it. And he looks at my chart again, four years. And he goes, oh, I just realized we never did a physical. We should probably do that.

[Sean]

Oh, my gosh. Four years. So you kept it for a while. You weren't taking it daily?

[Brooke Seam]

Oh, no, no, no. It was just a standard refill. Like, I was taking everything daily.

[Sean]

Oh.

[Brooke Seam]

And, you know, sometimes you just. They give you 10 refills or whatever it is, and when you run out, you're supposed to go back to your doctor for a new script. But, yeah, we had never done a physical, but he was happy to prescribe me thousands of drugs for years.

[Sean]

You start wondering if they're. What their incentive is to this.

[Brooke Seam]

Oh, there's not much to wonder. I mean, they get paid through insurance.

[Sean]

That's what I think too.

[Brooke Seam]

It's not even what you think. It's what happens.

[Sean]

So they get a kickback on each prescription.

[Brooke Seam]

Oh, you mean kickbacks like the doctors? That's a little fuzzier. It used to be a lot more common back in the day. There has been some things that have come down legally that make it more difficult. Or at least you can't get direct kickbacks or it has to be public. Like there's some websites where you can go and search and see if your doctor or researcher has received any kickbacks. And sometimes that comes in the form of speaking fees more than a percentage of a drug sold. But you don't even really need that to see where the incentives are, because to be a doctor right now, I mean, my doctor was objectively bad. But even really good doctors who care about their patients are still stuck in a horrible insurance system where the only way they get paid, unless they're working out of network, is to get as many people through the door as possible. So it was every time I went to go see this guy, there were 20 people in the waiting room.

[Sean]

Geez.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. And you were in there for five to seven minutes, and he's just banging out codes, and that's how he's getting paid. He wasn't actually practicing medicine.

[Sean]

He didn't give a shit.

[Brooke Seam]

No, he was horrible. Though.

[Sean]

Damn.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Are you fully holistic now, though?

[Brooke Seam]

I fall on the spectrum of functional as opposed to holistic, and I would say that I've had to actively work to overcorrect to not overcorrect. I definitely overcorrected. And I'm trying to come back a little bit because I actually am recovering from ACL surgery. So, look, if I am acutely ill, if I'm in an accident, if I broke a bone, please take me straight to the nearest doctor, put me back together. But a chronic illness, I'm gonna look everywhere before I'm going to my gp, who's gonna see me for a minute and a half.

[Sean]

Same.

[Brooke Seam]

And I think that there's a wealth of information on the Internet and with functional medicine doctors. And I pay out of pocket, which. Which is unfortunate.

[Sean]

Oh, you don't have insurance?

[Brooke Seam]

Oh, I have insurance, but I have insurance for things like when I, you know, do something stupid and break my leg. But I still pay out of pocket for the doctors I want to go see and the functional practitioners that I want to see.

[Sean]

Got it.

[Brooke Seam]

Because that's actually where I'm healing.

[Sean]

And insurance doesn't cover that.

[Brooke Seam]

No.

[Sean]

Yeah. That's crazy to me.

[Brooke Seam]

No.

[Sean]

When. When you want to prevent something, they won't cover it.

[Brooke Seam]

No. It's so stupid.

[Sean]

But if you want to fix or temporary fix band aid it, then they'll cover that. Maybe.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Broken system.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. I had to. Once I got off all the antidepressants, I was in serious withdrawal for a year. And then about another year of, I was still in withdrawal, but I was starting to see that I was coming out of it, so it was easier to handle. And I was kind of just looking around the world saying, all right, who am I? What does life look like for me now? Because it definitely isn't what it was before. But once I got through all that, the biggest thing that I was left with was my gut was completely, completely wrecked, and I couldn't figure out what was going on. I had seen variety of doctors. You know, I'd gone to see the gastroenterologist, and then you say, well, we can do a colonoscopy. And I'm like, that's. No, that. Not helpful. But I ended up spending. You know, I probably spent ten grand just. I finally went to functional medicine and did dozens of tests, all within a month so we could see a whole picture of my health. And that's the first time I started to actually build this stuff back up.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Brooke Seam]

And it took five years to find the right people to do that. It took. That was in 2021. I just went through another round of blood tests. So it's an ongoing process. But I'm lucky that I was able to, you know, to do that and to help myself. But most people, a lot of people aren't in that position. And worse than that, they don't even know that it's an option.

[Sean]

No, they don't know at all. Yeah, I had some liver damage from. I personally think it was from Accutane.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

And I for years, like always had because I do blood tests every year, always some liver issues and I don't drink or eat fried food or anything. So I think it was from that, honestly.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. Well, I remember I was also on Accutane. That was one of the drugs I was on at some point. Which again, it just in combination with everything is nuts. But they make you get your liver enzymes tested every month.

[Sean]

It's poison.

[Brooke Seam]

It's all poison.

[Sean]

It's crazy.

[Brooke Seam]

It's just the risk. Are the risks worth the benefit of some of the poisons? And I think we've gotten it real wrong with antidepressants.

[Sean]

Yeah. Just to fix some facial acne. I mean, now what I know now you could treat that pretty naturally.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. I mean, change your diet first.

[Sean]

Yeah. And they don't tell you that far. So I was eating the same. But on Accutane.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

You know what I mean.

[Brooke Seam]

Yep.

[Sean]

Didn't help.

[Brooke Seam]

Yep.

[Sean]

Crazy. So crazy. Stat though. One in four teenage girls dealing with suicidal thoughts according to the CDC now. Yeah, that is super high.

[Brooke Seam]

Well, one in four women, specifically middle aged women, are on antidepressants, so I guess that tracks. I mean, look, it's. When I talk about antidepressants and medicating kids, I'm not trying to say that people aren't in pain, they are. But throwing a blanket chemical solution at them with no coping skills, leaving them in the same horrible environment that they're already in. No, of course now with, you know, the Internet and phones and everything, I mean, it doesn't surprise me that teenage girls are struggling so much. You know, there's a lot of things I'm grateful for in life, but not being in high school right now is one of them.

[Sean]

Yeah. Imagine comparing yourself because of Instagram and TikTok.

[Brooke Seam]

It's bad enough anyway, I'm looking at myself on, you know, this thing and I'm just like, God, I don't look like the 20 year old influencers. That sucks.

[Sean]

Yeah. No, it must be tough. I mean, I caught the tail end of it. Instagram came out when I was in high school and there was a lot of comparison and, you know, self identity issues from that.

[Brooke Seam]

I. I don't know how they're doing it. I mean, it's baffling to me that they haven't just banned phones in schools.

[Sean]

They tried.

[Brooke Seam]

I. Yeah. And then a couple parents about it. I. I like, have a backbone.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Brooke Seam]

Stand up for something.

[Sean]

3 second attention spans we have now.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. Well, I'm also not a parent, so I get to very conveniently just stand on my little pestle and be judgy. I'm sure it's very hard.

[Sean]

Are you the Karen on the block?

[Brooke Seam]

Oh, I'm not really the Karen on the block. I just sort of sit in my house and take stock of what's going on and just say, God, it seems hard out there. I'm kind of glad I just have my dog.

[Sean]

I feel that I love dogs.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah, I do too.

[Sean]

I'd rather dogs. Yeah, too. I want more.

[Brooke Seam]

Oh. How many?

[Sean]

I want. Honestly, 10.

[Brooke Seam]

I want to be one of those people who has like the senior dog.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Brooke Seam]

Compound.

[Sean]

Had many conversations about that.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

I just don't know if I could take the emotional damage from losing a dog a year or whatever.

[Brooke Seam]

So I usually. I've had a habit of res. Rescuing older dogs. Now all the dogs I've had are at least six or seven.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Brooke Seam]

And there's just something. You kind of, on the one hand, know you're signing up for heartbreak earlier, but I find it so fulfilling and rewarding. And then they're a little calmer too, so, you know, it's like you don't have to take care of a puppy.

[Sean]

Yeah, I could see that. You might have sold me on it. I might have to try.

[Brooke Seam]

I highly recommend giving it a shot. They love you so much. I mean, all dogs love you, but the older ones especially. And then I just see my little dog there and she's on a pillow and I know that she was on the street and just.

[Sean]

All right. You feel fulfilled, I bet. I love that. How many dogs you got?

[Brooke Seam]

Just one.

[Sean]

Oh, just one?

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Okay.

[Brooke Seam]

Four Seasons Creature. No, I can barely deal with one.

[Sean]

You're probably traveling a lot, right?

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Yeah, that's the tough part. Leaving them for a week.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. Leaving them for a week. She doesn't like it. I don't like it. But on the other hand, I like to leave, so one's good.

[Sean]

I feel that. You working on anything else? Another book or, you know, I'm not.

[Brooke Seam]

Working on any other books. I kind of got burned out. I got really burned out on writing. I. I am not someone who, you know, I have two books. I don't love writing. So that's a lot of work to put into something that doesn't fulfill you. I've transitioned into oil painting.

[Sean]

Oil painting, yes.

[Brooke Seam]

Which I love. It's. It's very. It gives me the same creative itch. It scratches that itch. But I don't feel like it yells at me. Like the words literally yell at me on the page when they're wrong. Whereas paint. Painting feels a bit more. This is art. Nobody cares.

[Sean]

Just, you know, more relaxing. Yeah. I've been offered a lot of book deals and I just. It seems like a lot of work.

[Brooke Seam]

It's a lot of work. I mean, you could hire a ghostwriter, I suppose, if you wanted to, but.

[Sean]

Then it won't feel authentic.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

So that's my battle with it.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. It's a lot of work and I think it's almost not worth it to have a medium book. You've got to write a great book or don't write a book.

[Sean]

Yeah. Because the money is only good if it does well.

[Brooke Seam]

And the money shit, even if he does do well. Like you could probably self publish it and do way better anyway at this point. So.

[Sean]

Yeah, it's really just for purpose if you're going to write one at this point.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. For a book like mine, you know, it's. It's nice to have. It's nice to have the backing of a publisher because it's on a tricky topic. It's very. Can very easily get lost in the realm of kind of crazy voices talking and not really having anything rooted. So for me it was really important to write it really well, have a traditional publisher do all the traditional stuff. But believe me, I'm not rich. Based on this book. I don't think I've. I think I've spent roughly 10 times more than I've ever made on it.

[Sean]

Wow. So it lost money.

[Brooke Seam]

Oh, of course, yeah. I mean there's the lost income from all the years I was working on it.

[Sean]

Right.

[Brooke Seam]

There's the fact that my advanced was, you know, roughly a couple months rent and then all the pr, all the travel, like some of that's paid for by your publisher and whatnot. But at the end of the day you're just hustling by yourself and selling it by yourself and then you get literal pennies on the dollar back every book.

[Sean]

Well, I love the honesty for Real people don't really talk about this side of publishing.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. That's because they're either a bestselling author.

[Sean]

How do you get that?

[Brooke Seam]

Or they're not.

[Sean]

Because I see it in everyone's Instagram bio. Is there a certain amount of copies you have to sell?

[Brooke Seam]

Oh, for God's sakes. It's. At this point, it's. You can. You can literally buy it in the sense that. Okay. I think there was. There was this article that went around the writing community a few years ago where when Amazon was really pushing hard. Still is. On self publishing it. He decided to write a best selling book. So he picked the most obscure topic he could, which I believe was foot health. He designed a cover in like two minutes. I don't think there was any words written in this book.

[Sean]

What?

[Brooke Seam]

But it was just. Because it was the only book being sold within this particular time in that category.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Brooke Seam]

He became a number one new release bestseller. Foot Health. So that's how people game Amazon and then they put bestseller.

[Sean]

So no words were in the book.

[Brooke Seam]

Just not this one. Yeah. Or maybe there was like one word or something. But it wasn't a book about foot health.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Brooke Seam]

And there's. There's no quality control. So you can game the Amazon system that way really easily. And people do that all the time. To the point where I don't even bother if I see bestseller in a title. It's just like. Yeah, this is just.

[Sean]

That used to mean something. But these days there's so many weird categories.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. And now even the New York Times list and those lists, they're not really about who has sold the most books. It's very. It's curated. Oh, it's curated and weighted.

[Sean]

Wow. See, that's why I like podcasting, because you can't fake that exactly. Like it's based off your downloads. So, like, you really can't be number one without having some data.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. So it actually means something.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

And there's 5 million podcasts.

[Brooke Seam]

Well, congratulations. You've done very well.

[Sean]

Yeah. Yeah, that was. That was a fun thing to hit any TV shows. I know you went on Chopped.

[Brooke Seam]

Yes, I am a Chopped champion.

[Sean]

Are you going on again or.

[Brooke Seam]

No, I have not been invited back. I would. I would go back. Occasionally people get brought back for a tournament of champions, but I was not. I was actually in antidepressant withdrawal when we filmed that, so.

[Sean]

Geez. They know.

[Brooke Seam]

No, they didn't. Well, they knew something was up because I was a mess. I was crying constantly.

[Sean]

Damn. How'd you win. In that state of mind.

[Brooke Seam]

I. I, like, I have no idea. I have no idea. I remember at one point the producer. So when you're on a show like Chopped, it's not like you just show up and no one's ever heard of you. And you just go like someone has been part of your journey for a little while because you do various rounds of interviews. I had the same producer the whole time.

[Sean]

Okay.

[Brooke Seam]

So I had kind of been in contact and met in person because I did an interview, an on camera interview with. With this producer. So we had a little bit of a rapport. She knew my personality. I knew her name. There was a group of people who came to my bakery that I owned and they did a little teaser. So when I showed up, it's like she kind of was assigned to me and me only. And so at one point she didn't know what was going on with me, but at one point I was just a complete emotional mess. And she just literally looked at me and she was like, you need to calm down. Okay. And so I just am so grateful to the editors of that show because they did not. They could have edited me into a complete mess, and they didn't.

[Sean]

Wow. That is shocking for reality TV to not have that in there.

[Brooke Seam]

I know. I don't know why they did that.

[Sean]

I probably prevent a lawsuit.

[Brooke Seam]

Extremely grateful. I don't even know if it was bad. I think, honestly, I think they. They knew something was going on with me.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Brooke Seam]

And they just didn't feel the need to exploit it. Feel, though, because I was kind of a mumbling mess anyway, so I was already a good character.

[Sean]

Do you still have the bakery?

[Brooke Seam]

I don't. The bakery got sold. I sold my half in 2017.

[Sean]

Nice.

[Brooke Seam]

We still have the book. It's called Prohibition Bakery, and it's still. Beautiful book. And it sells and it's boozy cupcakes and so you can learn to make them at home. But the whole thing has now been shut down for many years and.

[Sean]

Okay.

[Brooke Seam]

It's kind of a time in place.

[Sean]

You're still cooking, though, or you're done?

[Brooke Seam]

I am still cooking. I actually am a chef to pro athletes.

[Sean]

Whoa.

[Brooke Seam]

Yes.

[Sean]

That's cool.

[Brooke Seam]

It's very cool. So I get to talk about antidepressant withdrawal and then go make cookies, and it's pretty great.

[Sean]

What a balance.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Is. Is cooking like your de stressor?

[Brooke Seam]

It kind of is. Yeah. It. I've had a complicated relationship with it. When you. When you own your own food business, it's very Difficult not to grow to hate the thing you once loved. So I had to work my way back through that. But now what I've done is I, I spent a lot of years after the antidepressant situation getting my health back and really learning about the type of nutrition that is not, you know, part of the food pyramid and is not really, you know, government, what the government is telling us to eat. Right. And that's what people learn about nutrition, right? They're like, oh, the food pyramid. Grains, let's eat all those. And what I've learned is that is really not the way to go if you want true health and wellness dairy and yeah, eat some cheese, eat some good cheese, some raw cheese, organic grass.

[Sean]

I love rauchies.

[Brooke Seam]

Yes. But as I started healing myself and I've always had a really strong background in athletics, I, you know, through a little bit of luck, a little bit of knowing the right person, being in the right place, I got connected with some pro athletes and I started working with them one on one. So that's just evolved and now that's, that's my primary, primary day to day. And then I do the advocacy on the side. But it really is a nice balance to just go get to touch beautiful ingredients and work with them and cook them and I can literally create an energetic transfer between the work I do and the food I make and then go turn on the TV and watch my athlete, you know, on Sunday night crush it. It's a very cool thing.

[Sean]

It's so important for athletes dieting. When the Lakers won three years ago, they cut seed oils that year.

[Brooke Seam]

Oh, thank God.

[Sean]

Yeah. And that's, that's why everyone played like amazing.

[Brooke Seam]

It's, it's such low hanging fruit to do that.

[Sean]

But it's not common because all the inflammation it causes.

[Brooke Seam]

Oh yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, some of the players I worked were like, yeah, I will, you know, eat, eat some chicken wings and onion rings, then barfed before the game and it's just like, I can't help you.

[Sean]

They could be so much better. And it's crazy to me because in high school I ran a mile in 440 which was decent, but my diet was so bad, so, so bad. If I ate what I eat now, I could probably run a mile in 420.

[Brooke Seam]

It's insane. And not only that, the recovery and longevity, that's what really gets me. When you're young, you can get away with that stuff. But you know, when I work with my athletes very often it's usually not the 21 year olds who are coming to me because they still feel invincible. But I'm getting, I'm getting your people who are nearing or at the end of their careers. But no, they're not done. And you have to dial it in at that point. But if they had done done that.

[Sean]

10 years ago, they'd be dominating. Yeah. In your 20s you could get away with like eating fast food and food. But 30s, that's where it starts piling up. Right.

[Brooke Seam]

But you don't. But the thing is people think that, okay, it's just age. So they just attribute the fact that they feel like to age when it's not. It's a collection of choices that have been made. But the thing is you can reverse that. I feel better now than I've ever felt in my entire life.

[Sean]

Really?

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Wow. I mean, Brian Johnson is aging backwards. So it's, it's physically possible.

[Brooke Seam]

He's fascinating.

[Sean]

Yeah. He's coming on next week.

[Brooke Seam]

I'm. Oh man, I should have come a week later. I'd love to have met him. I am fascinated with what he's doing. I can say it's not for me.

[Sean]

I can't do the vegan.

[Brooke Seam]

I can't either.

[Sean]

I need, I need more calories.

[Brooke Seam]

I mean, yeah, I straight up need meat.

[Sean]

Yeah. I just do better grass fed. Grass finished meat.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. What meat are you using these days?

[Sean]

I like Snake River, I like Colorado craft beef and oh, Force of Nature.

[Brooke Seam]

I like force nature. I use force nature all the time.

[Sean]

Yeah, I love Force of nature.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah, they're great.

[Sean]

Yeah. I don't know how much that matters when it gets down to that little nitty gritty.

[Brooke Seam]

But I, yeah, I think it's more of just where you kind of where you like. My, my, I mean my, my dream would be to buy a cow. I would like to rent a dairy cow.

[Sean]

People do that. They spend like two grand. Get a whole cow.

[Brooke Seam]

No, I want to rent a live dairy cow.

[Sean]

A live.

[Brooke Seam]

Yes. So I can go get milk. This is in my fantasy. It's going to live near me in the farmland that I don't have where I can just go get the milk, you know, and other people can too. And then to just. I researched how to rent a cow. It was an amusing Google. And then yeah, I would love to just have a direct relationship with ranchers where I can get the beef I want. Doesn't. I don't really have the volume of storage space for that. But it, I feel so much better when I eat like that.

[Sean]

So much better.

[Brooke Seam]

So much Better.

[Sean]

Yeah. I even eat at restaurants now and I feel like shit. I feel like shit like cuz the meat is just injected with who knows what.

[Brooke Seam]

I pretty much stopped eating at restaurants which is.

[Sean]

I'm so picky.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah, me too.

[Sean]

It has to be like no seed oils which then you're that annoying person. So I don't really want to do that cuz I feel bad for the server.

[Brooke Seam]

Y I find it pretty easy to just ask them to make it in butter. They all have butter.

[Sean]

Oh yeah.

[Brooke Seam]

Back there. Yeah. Especially like your kind of more fast casual places. In some ways that's actually easier. I feel that like a high end restaurant they're like, I used to work in high end Michelin star restaurants. They'll do whatever you want most of the time but there's a lot of things that they've just already prepared ahead of time that you can't mess with or you're just not going to get the same experience.

[Sean]

But even the high end ones use seed oils I heard.

[Brooke Seam]

Oh yeah, we would use seed oils all the time because not only do seed oils, seed oils do a lot of things, they have a lot of function. So it's not even just that. Yeah, they're cheap to process but we used grapeseed oil all the time in one of the French restaurants I worked in because it has a neutral flavor so you can kind of impart anything into it. So if you want to make like a sorrel oil. Sorrel is this really lemony, bright green. We would just mix some grapeseed oil into the sorrel and it would, it was beautiful. And then we'd use that as a garnish on the plate. But you couldn't do that with olive oil because then you're tasting olive oil. Couldn't do it Butter because then it's cloudy. Can't do it with tallow because then it's going to taste like cow. So that's part of the reason in high end restaurants too you have different oils that have different purposes.

[Sean]

I bought Brian Johnson's olive oil.

[Brooke Seam]

His olive oil?

[Sean]

Yeah. He's selling a lot now. I, I will say his marketing leading up to his launch is brilliant.

[Brooke Seam]

Oh well, he's very good at what he's doing.

[Sean]

Yeah. And I heard he's doing millions a month.

[Brooke Seam]

I'm sure he is.

[Sean]

Yeah. That was a great marketing campaign.

[Brooke Seam]

I'm sure he is. God bless him for selling olive oil.

[Sean]

What don't, what don't you agree with him on?

[Brooke Seam]

You know, I just don't. I I guess what I. I think you just don't need to do that much to live well.

[Sean]

Okay, so you think he's too extreme.

[Brooke Seam]

I mean, he's definitely extreme. I don't think anybody can argue with that.

[Sean]

He would say the opposite, probably.

[Brooke Seam]

Well, we all have our biases, right? But I. I think for me, a better life has come through addition by subtraction. So I think that our bodies are designed to work most of the time and that we can. If we just give it what it needs, we can. We can really do that. But I'm glad he's out there doing it. It's a fascinating experiment. We'll see how it goes.

[Sean]

I tried the supplement stack. Oh, my gosh, my liver hurting. Because he takes 150 supplements a day.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah. That's what I don't understand is how his body's like.

[Sean]

Yeah, I only got up like 30, 40. And I felt physical pain in my organs. Like, it was bad.

[Brooke Seam]

It's just so hard to know because he's an N of one. Right. So he may have the ability to process all this stuff and move it through his system a lot faster than your average person. He's also built up to it.

[Sean]

Yeah, yeah. Shout out to him and Dave Asprey, man. 150 solid ones a day. Both of them.

[Brooke Seam]

Shout out to both of them. But I can barely manage to, like.

[Sean]

Remember to take for real. Going back to how we started. What. What's the best way to taper off? Let's say people watching this are on some sort of medication. Like, have you figured out a good system for leaning off it?

[Brooke Seam]

So I'm not a doctor. However, most doctors don't know about this stuff anyway, so, you know, I have to say that. But the traditional way of pulling people off psychiatric drugs isn't a linear taper or you just kind of step down based on the available. Based on the available dosages from the market. So we'll use Effexor as an example. If I'm correct, the available doses are, I think, 150, 75 and 37.5. So that's it. You can't find 80 milligrams or you can't find 5 milligrams. So traditionally, what's happened is psychiatrists or doctors have just said, okay, well, either go down to the next lowest dose, or sometimes they'll say, take it every other day. Sometimes they'll say, cut the pills in half. A lot of that stuff is you really gotta know the pharmacology of the drug because you cannot cut all pills in half. You cannot go every other day with some of them. It's just kind of a crapshoot. All doctors do it differently. And that's a problem. That's part of the problem here. We have spent so much time and money putting people on drugs, and yet no one knows how to take them off. And that's a big, big, big problem. So some research has evolved around this. The most prominent research is based on the work by Mark Horowitz, who's out of the University of College London. And so he just came out with a book co authored with another professor, another doctor, who actually, they've both been through antidepressant withdrawal. That in itself is really important because so many of these clinicians, they just don't believe their patients. They will misdiagnose withdrawal as relapse. And that's how you get put on something else. It's why there are so many people who get diagnosed as bipolar, ADHD or manic after they've been on a drug for a while and try and get off of it. It's because they're getting misdiagnosed, because people think it's withdrawal, not relapse. So the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines, it's a big book that came out just this year in February. There's the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines. So that's a big fat textbook about how to prescribe drugs that's been out for years. I mean, I wanna say probably decades. The Deprescribing Guidelines only just came out in February 2024. And. And this book, it outlines most of the most common psych drugs are still working on antipsychotics in a different volume. But it follows. The theory is it follows what's called a hyperbolic curve based on PET scans that show the serotonin, the cert system, it's basically the serotonin occupancy system in the brain. And so the idea is, and where people get a little mixed up, at least where we think the science is today, this could be different in five years. How science works, right? People think that I'm going to. I'm going to use Prozac and like 100 milligram dose as. Because it'll be easier with the math. So let's say you're on 100 milligrams of Prozac. People think that if you drop down to 50 milligrams then you have 50% less Prozac in your body, right?

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Brooke Seam]

They think the brain will also respond 50% like that, it will have a 50% reduced response to the Prozac because there's less of it in the brain. Right. And then same, so on and so forth. If you have 25 milligrams in, in the body and in the brain, you'd think that you should be having a quarter of the response as you would at 100 milligrams. Yeah, but that's really not how it's been how we think it works. Because what happens is when these drugs go into the body, they change the way the receptors work. They downregulate the receptors, there's more of the synthetic drug floating around. And so the brain basically changes. It adapts to having more drugs in its system and it does not adapt as quickly to having the drugs out of the system as we've been led to think. So what can happen is if you look at these curves, it's called a hyperbolic curve because it kind of goes flat and then they usually kind of drop off a cliff a little bit. And so it's that cliff drop off that's really important for people to understand because that's usually the period of time when people are more likely to have severe withdrawal symptoms.

[Sean]

Right.

[Brooke Seam]

But what's very, very frustrating about this is that if you look at the Prozac curve specifically, so you're going around, you've got your 100, you've got your 80, 70 or whatever, then you kind of go down to the point where you're going to go get 10 milligrams of Prozac, which is the lowest amount on the market. That curve is still very high. You're the cert occupancy is far higher than 10%. I, I want to say it's around 60%. I might be a little wrong in my number there, but it's significantly higher than 10%. And so what happens then, right? Someone's like, okay, I'm feeling, you know, okay, but I think I'm going to pull off my next, I'm going to stop the drug. They go from 10 milligrams to zero because they have no way to get the right dose. And then they have, but they have the 60, whatever, plus or minus 60% occupancy rate in their brain. And then suddenly the drugs out of their system and the system just goes haywire. Because, because what they needed to do is step down on this hyperbolic curve. So that's where we think withdrawal happens. It's basically the, the, the disconnect between what the brain is doing and what the brain has been conditioned to do based on having these synthetic drugs in the system and. And also the amount of drugs that are actually in the system.

[Sean]

Wow, that's fascinating.

[Brooke Seam]

It's fascinating. So the way around this, Right. How do we get around it? The only way we can really get around it without having more smaller doses on the market is to go to a compound pharmacy and to understand hyperbolic tapering. So if you're someone who's aware of this and you go to your doctor and your doctor is also aware of this and willing to help you, which unfortunately not all of them are, but assuming you got a good one, they can write a prescription for a compound pharmacy so you can have a smaller dose. So the. The model deprescribing guidelines Recommend Roughly a 10% cut per time. So again, when we think about the way this works, if you're on a hundred milligrams and you cut down 10%, we're going to 90 milligrams. So we hang out on 90 for a while. 10% of 90 is 9. So now we go down to 81 milligrams. And you can see how the. The dosage cut gets smaller and smaller every time, and also how it gets more and more tedious. It takes longer. The longer to go off, the closer you get to the curve. Because you're making smaller and smaller cuts.

[Sean]

Right. Cause a hundred milligrams, that would take.

[Brooke Seam]

A year, plus it could take a really long time. And not everybody has to go that slow. It tends to become more important to make smaller cuts the closer you get to falling off that curve and towards dropping down to zero. Some people can kind of go linearly and then start going down a curve. It depends on the drug. It ends up being very much an experiment of one. People have to go at the speed of their own body. The loose guidelines of 10% are just kind of where they've found where there seems to be less likelihood of having severe withdrawal. That doesn't mean some people don't still have severe withdrawal at 10%. And it doesn't mean that some people can't go faster. But it's definitely a different strategy than going linear. Yeah, but of course, then there's the additional problem of cannot everybody has a compound pharmacy.

[Sean]

I've never even heard of that, actually.

[Brooke Seam]

Yeah, well, if you don't have a compound pharmacy, then you've got people literally being their own drug lords in their home with gram scales, with razor blades. They're counting beads and capsules. They're shaving off the edges and pills, they are making solutions and titrating it through eyedroppers. It's insane. But in. The problem is, is that people have to do this because of a drug that they were told was safe and non addictive. And that's what pisses me off. And that's why it pisses me off when we're giving this stuff to kids and we're, we don't know what they're signing them up for. Actually, we do know what they're signing them up for. We're signing them up to be, to, to view themselves as broken, to have to manage a lifetime of medication, to never have their brain and body develop in the way it should. And then one day when they decide to maybe get off of these drugs, they have no knowledge of how to do it. None of the doctors know how to do it. They don't know who they are. So when they start having different feelings and emotions, they think there's something wrong with them and they get scared of it. Then there's like sexual side effects, there's gross side effects, like everything. And, and no one's talking about it. I mean, Sean, I'm on your podcast. I'm a chef. Why am I the one here talking about this? That's so frustrating to me. There should be doctors from every major hospital talking about this. There should be lawmakers talking about this.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Brooke Seam]

Not patient advocates who have been having to sound the bell in order to get the attention on something that should have happened a long time ago.

[Sean]

Big Pharma has a lot of money and influence on social media platforms.

[Brooke Seam]

But the thing is, they could also make more money. Just like I don't see how this isn't effectively a win win. Right?

[Sean]

Well, in their eyes, if they get people off the medication, they lose money.

[Brooke Seam]

Yes. But the amount of time and the amount of different drugs, like things they could make. Because right now if you go to a compound pharmacy, the compound pharmacy is taking that money. If they just provided smaller doses, that would be huge. If there was a code for antidepressant withdrawal, insurance companies could start making money and also the condition would become recognized.

[Sean]

Oh, is it not recognized right now?

[Brooke Seam]

No. Well, I mean, it's, you know, it's not. You can't find it in like the, like the dsm. You can't code for it.

[Sean]

Is that because it's new though, or is it because they don't want it?

[Brooke Seam]

Probably a little column. A little column B. I mean, this is definitely fairly new discourse.

[Sean]

Yeah. Not enough Research yet. You said the first research came out in 2015, right?

[Brooke Seam]

Well, there's been some research on it, but the first systematic review. So the first time someone sat down and looked at the landscape and kind of said, what's going on here? Was 2015.

[Sean]

Yeah. Which is pretty recent.

[Brooke Seam]

Right. But most of the research that has been done on antidepressants and all psychiatric drugs has not considered withdrawal. So you gotta think about how that impacts the whole landscape of psychiatry, mental health. Right. Because if you've had 60 years of giving people psychiatric drugs of all kinds. All kinds, starting, you know, valium in the 60s, all the way up to Adderall, whatever it is, and none of the research. Because the research is gonna look at, okay, we give people these drugs, what happens? And then sometimes it looks at, well, do they relapse if they stop it? Right. And if none of the research looks at withdrawal and considers that withdrawal was part of the problem or that people were experiencing withdrawal, then you have all this science that just says, oh, all these people relapsed. The drug must be effective. Not all these people are having withdrawal effects from the drug. They're actually fine. And we can't untangle that from history. But we know now, because it's been so long that you have people who've been on these drugs for decades, and they're not getting better and they're getting worse, and you have more and more people crying to get off of them and no way to get off of them. Now we know we've created a problem, so it's a matter of. I don't know if we're necessarily rolling back the clock on any of this, that's for sure. But the individual can certainly be empowered to take charge of their own health and in a lot of cases, to help educate their doctor. And then the two people together can actually go forth and help them get off these drugs if that's what they want.

[Sean]

Scary times. Yeah. Isn't the average elderly person on, like, eight different medications?

[Brooke Seam]

I don't know how many the average is, but polypharmacy and amongst the elderly population is very common.

[Sean]

Scary. Yeah. And I know you were on Michaela's show. She dealt with this. Her dad dealt with this.

[Brooke Seam]

Yep.

[Sean]

So it's.

[Brooke Seam]

You said you dealt with it.

[Sean]

I dealt with this. Yeah. I almost died from it. It's. It's everywhere.

[Brooke Seam]

It's everywhere. And if you don't know what's happening, you really run the risk of being misdiagnosed and put on more drugs. And your system's already compromised at that point.

[Sean]

Yeah. I love your message. I think it's really important. Brooke, where can people find you and learn more about you?

[Brooke Seam]

Well, my name is Brooke Seam. That's B R O O K E S I E m. You can find me all over the Internet at brookseem. My book is May Cause Side Effects. It's available wherever books are sold on audiobook. And I have a newsletter that's on substack, so that's Brooksium substack.com.

[Sean]

Awesome. We'll link below. Thanks for coming on.

[Brooke Seam]

Thank you, Sean.

[Sean]

Yep. Thanks for watching guys, as always. See you tomorrow.