Rethinking ADHD: Root Causes, Real Healing, and the Power of Functional Medicine

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Dr. Hyman Show – "Rethinking ADHD: Root Causes, Real Healing, and the Power of Functional Medicine"

Introduction

In the July 28, 2025 episode of The Dr. Hyman Show, host Dr. Mark Hyman delves deep into the complex landscape of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Challenging conventional perspectives, Dr. Hyman explores ADHD as part of a broader category of inflammatory brain disorders, offering insights into root causes and advocating for a functional medicine approach to healing. Joining him is George, a seasoned expert in the field, who shares invaluable perspectives and real-life case studies that underscore the transformative potential of addressing ADHD beyond mere symptom management.

ADHD as an Inflammatory Brain Disorder

Dr. Hyman sets the stage by framing ADHD within the context of inflammatory diseases affecting the brain. He states:

“We now know that ADD, autism, depression, dementia, Parkinson's, these are inflammatory diseases of the brain. Even schizophrenia, bipolar disease, all these are inflammatory brain disorders.” ([00:00])

This perspective shifts the focus from treating ADHD as a standalone behavioral issue to understanding it as part of systemic inflammation affecting neurological function. Dr. Hyman emphasizes the pervasive nature of inflammation in various brain disorders, highlighting the interconnectedness of mental and physical health.

The Magnesium Connection

Early in the discussion, Dr. Hyman touches upon the critical role of magnesium in maintaining brain health:

“If you're living on caffeine, constantly tired, and feel like your stress is stuck on high, there's a good chance you're low in magnesium... Up to 80% of us aren't getting enough.” ([00:00])

He underscores magnesium's importance in energy metabolism, nervous system regulation, sleep quality, and mood stabilization. This deficiency is presented as a common yet often overlooked factor contributing to symptoms like burnout, tension, irritability, and fatigue that cannot be remedied by caffeine alone.

Functional Medicine vs. Traditional Psychiatry

George elaborates on the limitations of the traditional psychiatric model in addressing ADHD:

“It's a medical model. It's a brain disease... More and more adults are being diagnosed... as life piles up and their compensatory mechanisms become overwhelmed.” ([02:02] - [02:03]; [03:59])

Dr. Hyman concurs, critiquing the conventional approach that often relies heavily on medication without addressing underlying causes:

“We're using psychiatric drugs like stimulants, like Ritalin to help people focus. But it's just like pouring water on a fire with somebody else pouring gasoline on it at the same time. You have to get to the root causes, right?” ([05:32] - [05:39])

This analogy underscores the futility of symptom management without tackling the foundational issues driving ADHD.

The Impact of Diet and Environment

A significant portion of the discussion centers on how diet and environmental factors contribute to ADHD. George explains:

“It's the nutrition... they're eating a lot of processed food... high fructose corn syrup, the GMOs, the hormones, the pesticides, the additives.” ([11:21] - [11:33])

Dr. Hyman highlights the link between an inflammatory diet and brain inflammation:

“They're eating foods that are inflammatory... removing food sensitivities... that's not something that you get when you go to the psychiatrist.” ([16:13] - [16:14])

The conversation emphasizes the gut-brain axis, noting that:

“70% of our serotonin resides in the gastrointestinal tract... 30% of our dopamine resides in the intestinal tract.” ([14:21])

This connection illustrates how a disrupted gut microbiome can lead to neurotransmitter imbalances, exacerbating ADHD symptoms.

Heavy Metals and Toxin Exposure

The presence of heavy metals like lead, mercury, and arsenic is identified as a significant contributor to ADHD:

“These are three very common heavy metals... they can block the energy-producing pathways in cells... directly neurotoxic.” ([19:05] - [19:20])

Dr. Hyman shares a poignant case:

“He was kicked out of class... His school was across the street from a cement plant... he had very high levels of heavy metals. And we detoxified him, we fixed his metabolic pathways and this kid got better.” ([20:44] - [20:54])

This example underscores the profound impact of environmental toxins on neurological health and behavior.

Case Study: Clayton's Transformation

Dr. Hyman recounts the remarkable recovery of a 12-year-old boy named Clayton, who was grappling with severe ADHD symptoms alongside multiple physical ailments. Initially diagnosed and treated by seven different specialists, Clayton saw minimal improvement. His comprehensive functional medicine treatment involved:

1. Nutritional Overhaul: Eliminating processed foods and those triggering inflammation, like gluten and dairy.
2. Nutrient Replenishment: Addressing deficiencies in omega-3 fats, B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, and vitamin D.
3. Detoxification: Reducing heavy metal burdens and addressing mold exposure.
4. Gut Health Restoration: Healing leaky gut and balancing the microbiome.

Dr. Hyman illustrates the dramatic turnaround:

“His handwriting totally normalized in two months.” ([29:00] - [29:05])

This case exemplifies how addressing root causes through a holistic approach can lead to significant improvements in both mental and physical health.

Neuroinflammation and Social Behavior

A compelling segment explores the broader societal implications of neuroinflammation. Dr. Hyman theorizes that increasing rates of aggression, divisiveness, and social discord may be rooted in widespread brain inflammation:

“A lot of our social disruption right now is really related to some level of neuroinflammation.” ([27:16] - [27:35])

Suzanne Goes adds:

“Technology's impact on dopamine... constantly needing to push out dopamine for everything with technology.” ([32:44] - [33:00])

The discussion connects neuroinflammation with behaviors leading to societal issues like increased violence, reduced social cohesion, and mental health crises.

Testing and Comprehensive Assessment

Both experts advocate for comprehensive testing to uncover hidden factors contributing to ADHD and other mental health disorders. Dr. Hyman mentions:

“We do an organic acid urine test... one of the most important tests that I do.” ([24:41] - [24:49])

Suzanne Goes emphasizes personalized treatment plans based on detailed laboratory assessments:

“I'm going to look at environmental factors... heavy metals... metabolic testing.” ([40:59] - [41:17])

This approach contrasts sharply with traditional methods, highlighting the importance of personalized and thorough assessments.

Conclusion: A Call for Holistic Healing

The episode concludes with a powerful message advocating for a paradigm shift in how ADHD and related disorders are approached. Dr. Hyman and George urge listeners to move beyond symptom management and seek out root causes through functional medicine. They emphasize the interconnectedness of diet, environment, genetics, and lifestyle in shaping neurological health.

Dr. Hyman encapsulates the essence of the discussion:

“Functional medicine is about causes. So what are the causes?... It's our lifestyle and our nutritional, exercise, sleep, relationships.” ([36:45] - [37:08])

George adds a final note on the importance of meeting patients where they are and guiding them through incremental changes for sustainable health improvements.

Notable Quotes

• Dr. Mark Hyman on ADHD as inflammation: “We now know that ADD, autism, depression, dementia, Parkinson's, these are inflammatory diseases of the brain.” ([00:00])
• George on the limitations of traditional psychiatry: “We see specialists after specialists... pill after pill... treating each one separately.” ([36:44] - [36:45])
• Dr. Hyman on the interconnectedness of health: “Genes load the gun, but the environment pulls the trigger.” ([10:14])

Key Takeaways

1. ADHD and Inflammation: ADHD is part of a spectrum of inflammatory brain disorders, necessitating a broader approach to treatment.
2. Nutritional Deficiencies: Common deficiencies in magnesium, B vitamins, omega-3 fats, and others play a crucial role in ADHD symptoms.
3. Environmental Toxins: Exposure to heavy metals and other toxins significantly contributes to ADHD and other mental health issues.
4. Functional Medicine: A holistic approach focusing on root causes—diet, detoxification, gut health, and personalized treatment—offers more effective solutions than traditional symptom-based treatments.
5. Societal Impact: Neuroinflammation may be underlying the increasing social discord and mental health crises observed in modern society.
6. Comprehensive Testing: Detailed laboratory assessments are essential in uncovering hidden contributors to ADHD and tailoring personalized treatments.

Final Thoughts

This episode of The Dr. Hyman Show serves as a compelling call to reevaluate how ADHD and related disorders are understood and treated. By highlighting the intricate connections between diet, environment, and neurological health, Dr. Hyman and George advocate for a transformative approach rooted in functional medicine. Listeners are encouraged to consider comprehensive lifestyle changes and seek out holistic healthcare interventions to achieve lasting mental and physical well-being.

Transcript

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman show, what we now know is that ADD, autism, depression, dementia, Parkinson's, these are inflammatory diseases of the brain. Even schizophrenia, bipolar disease, all these are inflammatory brain disorders. If you're living on caffeine, constantly tired, and feel like your stress is stuck on high, there's a good chance you're low in magnesium. Magnesium is critical for turning food into energy, calming your nervous system, helping you sleep, and regulating your mood. And here's the kicker. Up to 80% of us aren't getting enough. That kind of chronic deficiency may contribute to feelings of burnout, occasional tension, irritability, and the kind of fatigue that coffee can't fix. That's why I recommend Magnesium Breakthrough by Bioptimizers. It's the only formula that combines all seven essential forms of magnesium, including glycinate for calm and citrate for digestion. Most magnesium supplements only offer one or two forms. Magnesium Breakthrough covers them all for deeper sleep, better focus, less tension, and real support during stressful times. If your body's feeling off, this might be the missing link. Try it risk [e-mail] HYMAN and get 10% off your order. Before we jump into today's episode, I want to share a few ways you can go deeper on your health journey. While I wish I could work with everyone one on one, there just isn't enough time in the day. So I've built several tools to help you take control of your health. If you're looking for guidance, education and community, check out my private membership, the Hyman Hive for live Q&As, exclusive content and direct connection. For real time lab testing and personalized insights into your biology, visit Function Health. You can also Explore my curated doctor trusted supplements and health products@doctor hyman.com and if you prefer to listen without any breaks, don't forget you can enjoy every episode of this podcast ad free with Hyman. Just open Apple Podcasts and tap. Try free to start your seven day free trial.

[George]

The thing with adhd, first off and foremost, is it's primarily been looked at as a medical model in the psychiatric world. It's a medical model. It's a. That's a. Sometimes it's seen more as a behavioral issue and it's treated with medication.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's a brain disease.

[George]

It's a brain disease. And as you said before, the brain, it's a. It's really. It's a. It's a body disease that affects the brain. Yeah, okay. And you've. You said that now, in adhd, there are some. Some issues around the brain itself that make adults and children more susceptible to this inattention or their ability to fail at executive functioning. And the other piece is the self regulation piece. And so you have this combination ADHD where you have self regulation as an issue and you have the executive functions of an issue. And now it's been given this label attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. And that's just a cluster of symptoms that everybody experiences to some degree in their lifetime. Now there's one kid in kindergarten that maybe he didn't pay attention once in his lifetime. Right. You know, he's, he's. He's a spy. I don't know what he's doing, but he's doing something. He's doing something like, where you have to pay attention all the time. And then there's, you know, the other person who. They're so disabled by their adhd, it's hard for them to work. It's hard for them to maintain relationship and even marriages, and then everybody else falls somewhere in between. And I think it's important to understand that piece, that it's a medical model and that when we see kids and adults, the other piece is, is that more and more adults are being diagnosed, and at least 4% of adults are found to have ADHD and maybe even more. You know, I think we'll find out there's more as we go on that they carry on the traits of the adhd, they go undiagnosed, and then as they're adults, it becomes more prevalent as life piles up and their compensatory mechanisms become overwhelmed. All of a sudden, they're getting older and they're not eating right and they're not exercising. Their ADHD becomes more prominent, and then they come seeking help.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And on top of that, we live in an ADHD culture where we're all driven to consume huge amounts of information by the addictive nature of social media and the Internet. And it literally is taking people who are not even ADHD and making them like that, where they're hooked on their phones and they're constantly distracted and they're constantly getting the dopamine hit and it's magnifying it. And if you have adhd, it's just even worse.

[George]

Yeah, and. And here's, and here's how they come to us. They come to us as families, as a mom or dad bringing a kid in, and they're discouraged, they're. They're frustrated. The child is feeling left out, he's feeling alone. Because he's being labeled as a behavior disorder. He is unable to keep up in the regular curriculum in the school where you have to sit and get. And he can't sit and get. Right. He has to move around, he has to see pictures, he has to have creative illustrations or she, you know, and it's. And that's how they come to us and they've heard, oh, Johnny's so smart. If you'd only work harder, you know, Susie, if she would just, you know, apply herself. You know, I. Sometimes I think she's a little bit lazy. Right. And they start to hear that language and then they start to inculcate that as their own identity. And. And that becomes a negative self talk, that becomes discouragement, that becomes hopelessness for some people as time goes on.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I mean, it's seen as a psychiatric disorder treated by psychiatrists.

[George]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And maybe it isn't really a psychiatric disorder.

[George]

It's not.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Right. And in fact, most psychiatric disorders are not psychiatric disorders. That's why I wrote the book Ultra Mind Solution, which is.

[George]

You even said it in that book. Right, right.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Because it's body affects the brain and the brain affects the body. The mind affects the body, but the body affects the mind. And I think the cure for brain disorders is often outside the brain. And I think that's what we're talking about here now. It's actually becoming part of conventional medicine. I recently interviewed for our podcast expert in nutritional psychiatry and the microbiome and psychiatry from Harvard, and another one who was in Stanford studying metabolic psychiatry. So we now know that there are so many factors influencing our brain function that have been ignored by psychiatrists, and they're using psychiatric drugs like stimulants, like Ritalin to help people focus. But it's just like pouring water on a fire with somebody else pouring gasoline on it at the same time. You have to get to the root causes, right?

[George]

Yeah. And I know we're getting to the root causes, but one of the things I just really wanted to mention is in that discouragement that parents come and they say, you know, they're worried about their child's performance. And even adults who now have piled up failure after failure after failure because of their inability to really deal with their adhd, and they didn't even know they had it. Right. I had a patient, she was 40 years old, she came to me because she saw one of my nurse practitioners, and my nurse practitioner said she wants a refill on her Ativan. But she, you know, I'm uncomfortable giving it to her. Because she was a new nurse practitioner. I said, well, let me see the case. I saw the name of the patient. I saw that they were coming to get their Ativan again, and they had a gap of using it. So I said, you know what? Schedule her with me. And she said, you know, I use it because I get overwhelmed. I said, what do you mean, overwhelmed?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's an anxiety medication.

[George]

She takes it because she gets anxious and overwhelmed. I said, well, what do you mean, well, I get anxious. Well, what do you mean by anxious? I get overwhelmed. What does overwhelm mean? And she started to describe all the symptoms of ADHD. Right. And she's a teacher. She was 40 years old. I took her through the DSM 4 classification, and then she went on to get a diagnosis.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Psychiatric manual for how we label people, how we label different mental illness.

[George]

I used it.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Symptoms.

[George]

I did use it. I'm sorry, but I had to.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's good to sort of get a label. But I always say, just because you have a label doesn't mean you know what's wrong with you. You don't know the cause of your depression or ADD or whatever is going on.

[George]

So I told her, you know, we did it. I said, you have adhd? She was devastated. She was truly devastated. And, you know, she came back in tears because one all the regrets, like, why didn't I get diagnosed sooner? And then the denial, maybe I don't really have it. Maybe there's something else wrong that can be fixed easier. Anyhow, it's like now, eight years later, and I run into her because we're friends, and she got an ADHD coach. She did take Adderall for a short period of time. I got her to work on her nutrition, so forth. And so she's doing amazingly well. Amazingly well. But the point I want to make is that ADHD can be a really devastating experience. And one of the things that I like to do when I'm working with my patients, it's the first thing we do. We've got to normalize it. We got to let you know everything's going to be okay.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Well, that's right. There's a stigma, George, around mental illness.

[George]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And that's really why I wrote the book ultramind Solution, because it was very clear to me, seeing patients who I would treat, their biology and their psychology would get better. And I wasn't treating their brain, I was treating their body. And I would notice the side effects of their ADD going away, their autism getting better, their depression going away, their panic attacks going away. I'm like, what is going on here? So that really, through the lens of functional medicine, what we do here at the Ultra Wellness center in Lenox, Massachusetts where we practice is we go deep into these root causes.

[George]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So with adhd, what are the things that are the most common drivers? Because it's not a Ritalin deficiency, as we said. Right. It's something else.

[George]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

What are we seeing in these patients that we find that then we can treat and help them get better?

[George]

I start with the understanding that there are some structural differences in the brains of a person with a predisposition. It's, it's genetic, it's physiologic. And so you can't ignore that starting point. Now that's not the first, you know, so that's my first line of thinking. And I know that I'm going to, I'm going to find out what that is.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

But it's important to remember, people, that genes load the gun, but the environment pulls the trigger.

[George]

Exactly.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So you might have a predisposition. It doesn't mean you're predestined.

[George]

Exactly. And then. And that's exactly right, Mark is the point, and that's where I go next is I know the predisposition is there and I have tests that I can figure out what some of those predispositions are actually expressing themselves in that child or adult, and I will address them. But I also, as you just pointed out, is I go back to the environmental pieces first because those I can start working on at the very first visit. You can modify, modify at the very first visit without having to do any tests. And that is to go through lifestyle. And where's the first lifestyle piece I go to? It's nutrition. Right. And because the nutrition does a couple things. There's the nutrition, the actual macro and micronutrients and minerals and phytonutrients that the child needs that they might not be getting. And then there's the impact that that diet he's on is having on his body, particularly on the gut microbiome.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

On the bad diet.

[George]

The bad diet, which is filled with all the things that you talk about all the time. The high fructose corn syrup, the GMOs, the hormones, the pesticides, the additives and.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

The colors and dyes. Those chemicals have been linked in research to ADHD issues.

[George]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Really clearly, yeah.

[George]

And there's a diet, the fine gold diet is based on removing those from the diet. So I can modify that right off the get go and I can get them to start to think about how to change that child's diet and simply remove some things. Right. And add some things in their place to start moving them in the right direction.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And the diet you're talking about that they're getting usually is an inflammatory diet.

[George]

Yes.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And what's fascinating to me as we start to look at the research on all these brain issues, whether it's autism or ADHD or Alzheimer's or depression, their inflammation in the brain.

[George]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And we never knew that before.

[George]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So do you take an Advil if you have depression or if you have add? No. You have to figure out why there's inflammation in the brain. And that's what functional medicine does. It's a methodology to get to the root cause of whatever it is. And in this case, it's inflammation in the brain. And all these kids often have other inflammatory issues too. And you have a case, and I want to share a case where we talk about this, but how do we sort of begin to tease apart what aspects of the diet are the most important in these kids?

[George]

First, I interview, like I ask I, you know, to tease it apart, you have to ask like, okay, what are you eating, mom? What are you feeding? You know, and I'll ask them. Right. And as soon as I, as soon as I asked a child what they eat, here's what happens. I'm gonna just pick this up. Mom's mom's holding a folder or newspaper or something. And as I asked a child what they're gonna eat, I see this. Okay. I usually see she's gonna hide because she knows what's gonna come out. All right, we're gonna hear about, we're gonna hear about Lucky Charms and we're gonna hear about Hot Pockets and we're gonna hear about, you know, the, and Flaming Hot Chips. And she, she's, she's, doesn't she feeds the child that because that's what the child wants to eat. And because they, they can't self regulate, she knows that there's going to be, you know, there's, there's hell to pay when you're not giving them what they want. So. Yeah. So first off, you tease it out by find doing a three day diet history, talking to the mom, talking to the child. And once you begin to tease that out, then you can get an understanding of what you need to add back in. And most of the time it's like everything.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[George]

You know, and we also do food.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Sensitivity testing and checking for gluten and dairy, which often causes inflammation in the brain. For these kids.

[George]

Right? Yeah. You know, I don't know when you want to, when you want me to talk about the testing piece, but the thing I want to say about the gut microbiome in your diet is that inflammatory diet, remember? And you don't have to remember, but for the, our listeners, that the gut microbiome does things for us. It's like another organ. And so 70% of our serotonin resides in the gastrointestinal tract.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Like a second brain.

[George]

Right? It's a second brain. 30% of our dopamine resides in the intestinal tract. When you're eating a bad diet and you're shifting the microbiome, you're shifting the balance of good bacteria and bad bacteria. You're now going to create an environment where a child cannot produce some of those neurotransmitters. You're going to create an environment where they're not breaking down their food completely because of the inflammation. You could be getting something called leaky gut. And that dysbiosis, that leaky gut, that leads to a lack of absorbed absorption of some really important nutrients, and that begins to have a big effect. So now they're not absorbing their magnesium. Now they're, they're letting too much copper in and not enough zinc. Now you're not getting enough iron. And we know that if you're anemic and you don't have enough iron, you're going to not be able to concentrate. Well, that's the real important impact of your diet. It's not just, oh, sugar's bad for them. Well, what's it doing to. You know, you may notice that the microbiome, we got to fix that. And that's why I said, I know what the predisposition is. But the first place we're going to go is to the lifestyle. And what. Because that lifestyle is affecting the most important thing and that's the gut.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. Nutrition is so huge. We see this with these kids. They have poor quality nutrition. They're eating a lot of processed food. They're not getting the good nutrients they need. They're eating foods that are inflammatory. They're having gluten and dairy often, which can be very neurotoxic for some kids. They're eating additives and chemicals in their food that can trigger hyperactivity. And so there's this whole range of food interventions that have been shown to be very effective for these kids, even removing food sensitivities. That's one study published in the uk. So there's a lot of literature on this, but it's not something that you get when you go to the psychiatrist.

[George]

It's not mainstream.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

No, they don't talk about this. So. So we're looking at the role of nutrition.

[George]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Nutritional deficiencies, food sensitivities, and lack of the right nutrients.

[George]

Yes.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

What are the other things we should think about? The gut. You said the gut plays a huge role, right?

[George]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So you have leaky gut.

[George]

Yeah, everything I just mentioned, you know, with the leaky gut, the alterations in the microbiome, you're going to have less serotonin made, less dopamine made. You're not going to get the nutrients that we just talked about. And so that we look there and we can do tests to determine. We have, you know, very sensitive tests that can look at. We look. Do organic acid tests that can look at amino acid levels, which are the precursors for making your neurotransmitters, so that if you're not, you know, eating enough protein, which kids don't eat enough protein, you're not eating enough protein. And then you have already disordered your microbiome, which includes your gastric acids, which includes your pancreatic acids. Those are very important for breaking down your proteins, your carbohydrates and your fats. You get all the nutrients you need. So we need to make sure that they're, you know, if that's not happening, they're not getting their amino acids, then they're not gonna be able make these neurotransmitters. We can measure that using organic acids. We can look at carbohydrate metabolism. That's important in energy production. Energy that's needed for the body to work, particularly the brain.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[George]

Since it has the most mitochondria in the. In the entire body because it needs the most energy. And if that brain's not making energy because you're not getting the appropriate amounts and types of carbohydrates, that child's not going to do well.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[George]

And we can. We can determine that on the organic acids or an ion profile.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So these are kind of tests you don't normally get at a regular doctor. And these. These tests tell us about things like mitochondria. You mentioned mitochondria. I just want to sort of loop back on this because there's a woman named Suzanne Goes, a pediatric neurologist, went to Harvard, Oxford and studies autism. And she's found in these autistic kids as a subset of these kids that have impaired mitochondrial function in their brain. And it's an energy deficit which can cause these neurologic symptoms. And so she provides the substrates or the basic building blocks for making energy in these kids that are supplements like CoQ10 and Carnitine and other nutrients that are so important for building energy in the system. So we sometimes find this in these kids. They have energy issues.

[George]

Absolutely. You know, we've seen that with our autistic kids that we, when we give them, you know, those, we give them amino acids when we, when we give them methylcobalamin, which is a basic nutrient. Yeah. You see changes, Dramatic changes. Dramatic. When you address the mitochondria, you're going to see those dramatic changes.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And they also have issues around toxins, these kids sometimes. Right. So talk about toxins and mental health and particularly adhd.

[George]

Right. So the toxins that we look for the most and they're tested for, you know, in schools as part of your lead. There you go. Got lead. So we have lead. We also have mercury and we have arsenic.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[George]

Those are three very common heavy metals that you're going to find in your environment. So those, each one of them are going to be able to block the, the energy producing pathways in cells. They're also going to limit the, the neurotransmitter metabol, the metabolism. Neurotransmitters in the brain directly, they're directly neurotoxic and they also have effects on the body's ability to make energy in their mitochondria. So we test for heavy metals in kids all the time. And, and why do kids have it and why do we find that? Because I tell people it's not a matter of whether you're toxic. You know, it's not a matter of whether you have heavy metals. It's how many do you have? Yeah, yeah, right. And how much. And, and that's going to be, that's going to be a product of several things. One, we go back to genetics. You just may not be a good detoxer. Right. You may have, you know, SNPs, which are single nucleotide polymorphisms. Those are like one single nucleotide change in the blueprint that makes the protein. And if that is off, then that protein's not going to work correctly. Well, if your detox proteins and enzymes are not working, you just don't detox that well. And we can determine that. And then we can determine what your lead levels are and then we have ways that we can bring those down.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And it's so common. You know, I remember this kid I had who was like 10, 11 years old, just a terror add getting kicked out of class, disruptive behavior issues. And the mother was just desperate.

[George]

I wasn't in your class.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

She was, she was a young mother, but she was very smart. And she kind of came to us. And it turned out he school was across the street from a cement plant. And the cement plant burns coal and coal releases mercury and lead. And every day they go in the parking lot at the end of the day, the cars were just dusted with this ash from the cement plant. And the kids were playing in the playground with this cement plant. And I tested him and he had very high levels of heavy metals. And we detoxified him, we fixed his metabolic pathways and this kid got better. So it's not that every kid with ADD has lead or mercury. It's just one of the things to think about. And just like I always say with functional medicine, just because you know the name of the disease doesn't mean you know what's wrong with you, right? ADD can be many, many things and many, many factors. Can be gluten, could be metals, can be nutritional deficiency, can be magnesium issues, can be, you know, your gut microbiome can be gluten. You don't need more caffeine or another stress supplement. You might just need more magnesium. Magnesium supports sleep, mood, energy and focus. But most of us are missing it. That's why I recommend Magnesium Breakthrough by Bioptimizers. It combines seven forms of magnesium for results you can feel in your mood, sleep, focus and more. Try it now for [e-mail] Hyman your body will feel the difference when this state of inflammation is going on in the brain. What's actually happening? How, how do neurotransmitters get affected? You know what's happening with, with the, the brain that causes all these psychiatric symptoms.

[Suzanne Goes]

So you'll actually see altering of for example, NMDA receptors being impacted, which can cause that issue with glutamate. And then there's this altered, you should have an altered balance of, for example, gaba, which is more relaxing, an inhibitory neurotransmitter versus glutamate, which is triggering. So if you're having those ratios change, you're going more into a state that's excitatory, which is going to cause anxiety, depression. You'll also see some of those protective cytokines like IL10, which are going to help with inflammation, will go down because you're going to have more of the pro inflammation. And that is actually one of the big Factors feeding into things like dopamine, which make you feel good. And dopamine is one of the ones that can go lower for somebody that's depressed.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And when you're inflamed, your dopamine goes lower.

[Suzanne Goes]

Exactly. It'll go lower as those inflammatory markers increase up. So it kind of, it shifts the, the whole balance. So we need, we need a little bit of each one. So it's not, I always tell people, it's like we do want a little bit, you know, we do want some glutamate. We want, we want those things. But it's, it's what that balance is. And what happens is with inflammation, it changes, not only causing the direct damage to the area of the body, but also changing that the neurotransmitter, the ratios, which will put you more in a state that is going to be more imbalanced.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. And I think, you know, we end up causing trouble with the overproduction of excitatory neurotransmitters that stimulate pathways like you mentioned ND or the lack of neurotransmitters that help us with mood like dopamine or serotonin. Right. And you know, one of the tests we do in functional medicine is called an organic acid urine test, which seems like a crazy thing to do, is check your urine if you're having psychiatric issues. But in my patients is one of the most important tests that I do. And it's something we used to do only for people with inherited metabolic disorders. And you can get it at a lab, but it's really about the more subtle changes that occur in the biomarkers that relate to what's going on in your body. And one of the things we see is an increase in kynuric acid, which is just sort of a marker of.

[Suzanne Goes]

Pathway that increases up in terms of inflammation and is also marker looked at when we're looking at neuroinflammation. And it changes tryptophan. And these are all precursors for things like serotonin. So karinin pathway is also a marker of concern when it comes to neuroinflammation.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's sort of a sign of B6 functional deficiency. And that is B6 is required to convert tryptophan from your diet into 5 hydroxytryptophan in serotonin. And then when that's not working or when there's inflammation, it also blocks an enzyme. Can you talk about that enzyme? The ideal enzyme?

[Suzanne Goes]

Yeah, so. So it blocks the enzyme that's going to help with, it's causing more of the increased metabolism to like you said in terms of the five hia in terms of serotonin. So it's going to impact that pathway directly which is going to be increasing up inflammation. But then again, the ones that are helping with things like anxiety are now getting blunted or impacted negatively where it's actually interfering with the production of it.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And one of the biomarkers we see on the organic acids is quinolinic acid. A lot of big words I know out there, but this is a biomarker you can check in your urine that indicates that the serotonin is getting shunted down a different pathway which then leads to more anxiety, more depression. And you're getting this byproduct which is highly inflammatory in of itself and it's a toxic kind of metabolite in the brain and you can see it in the urine. And I can tell when my patients brains are inflamed, they have high levels of this, whether it's a neurodegenerative disease, whether it's ADD or autism or depression. And so we can start to understand the biochemistry of this and the neurobiology of this in ways that allow us to actually directly intervene with therapies that can fix these problems.

[Suzanne Goes]

Exactly. And the kyrenin pathway is kind of the precursor to all of those ones that you just discussed. And so also the great thing with like the OAT test which you mentioned, there's also a section that tests for catecholamines and those are all connected with norepinephrine, epinephrine, it checks for like HVA and all of those pieces in terms of your dopamine. And also even like fatty acid metabolism, because we know fatty acids help to drop down crp, which we're talking about with inflammation. And so if you don't have a good balance of omega 3, omega 6, omega 9, you're going to be again more pro inflammatory, pro inflamed, which also is going to negatively impact your mental state. So and your physical body obviously. But there's been tons of studies on just omegas as well, just for the mental health. And part of it is that down regulation of decreasing of the CRP levels.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So you know, one of the things that I have been reading about which I find fascinating and it sort of kind of, kind of comports with what we're seeing in our society, which is just this increase in dysregulated social behavior, right? Aggression, divisiveness, friends can't talk to each other anymore. Families are breaking up over political issues. There's just whatever's going on, there's just something happening where our social cohesion is breaking down. I mean, I think most Americans are pretty middle of the road and are not on the extremes, but the extremes are what we see and hear about. But there is still a level of real divisiveness in our society and a real level of like increased in aggression and school shootings and violence. And now, I mean, we see it every day. And I become almost immune to these stories, which, you know, if you ever had had one, it would have been a big deal. And we didn't have this when I was growing up. It wasn't like every day or every week there's, there's a new shooting in some school and the level of, of just sort of oppositional behavior and anger and hostility. And I mean, it's, it's like I, you know, I have a social media account. I just like some of them put stuff up that's sort of benign and you get like a litany of hatred. And I'm like, what is going on out there and why are people acting like this? And part of it's, you know, they can hide behind their social media handle or whatever, But I do think there's something fundamental happening to the brain. And I've mentioned this before in the podcast, but, you know, when I was writing my book about the food system and the way our food was affecting us, I wrote a lot about the social aspects of it, and particularly so studies that I came across around prisoners who when fed a healthy diet would decrease their violent crime in prisons by 56% and adding a multivitamin reduced it by 80%. And in juvenile detention centers, when kids were fed healthy diets versus the crap that they were eating, the violent crime went down by 97%. The research restraints went down by 75%. Suicide, which you mentioned, went down the way all 100% in an age group of teenage boys, which is the third leading cause of death. And that's just simply cleaning up the diet, which is moving them from an inflammatory to an anti inflammatory diet. So I have this theory which is that a lot of our social disruption right now is really related to some level of neuroinflammation. And when I was sort of reviewing your work, you were talking a lot about what happens to the adult in the room, which is sort of the person, you know, knows we shouldn't go punch somebody in the nose. Right? Adults in charge, the adult in the Room gets disconnected from the ancient limbic reptile brain and there's this weird disconnection that happens for the adult is gone. And so the, it's like we call it the amygdala hijack, which is the hijack of our, of our behavior and our thoughts by this ancient part of our brain which is all about survival, fight or flight. Right. So can you talk about the science around this phenomena that we're seeing around neuroinflammation affecting the connection between the kind of grown up mature person who's supposed to know how to conduct themselves socially and in life with the ancient part of our brain that just, you know, would kill anybody or do a stupid shit. So what is the science behind that? Can you unpack that?

[Suzanne Goes]

And also the trauma, like when you look at kids, what they said have shown the trauma from all these events like that you were talking about, there's just long term, we don't even know yet longer term issues with things like anxiety and depression as a result of the trauma that's, that's happening during that time. Exactly. There's, there's, there's complete changes. So we have what's called the prefrontal cortex that develops for kids up until, you know, 26 years of age. We have what's called the amygdala.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So they don't rent, that's why the car rental companies don't rent cars to anybody over under 25 because of that reason, because they know their brain is not fully developed. The grown up in the room is not in the car.

[Suzanne Goes]

He's not actually going to be the one driving. Right. So we have the hippocampus which is like for memory and those actually both take a hit for anxiety and depression. Which makes sense because you look when somebody has like significant depression or anxiety, you'll see like a lot of memory issues like flightiness for people. Anxiety, brain fog, forgetfulness.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. They'll even call it pseudo dementia.

[Suzanne Goes]

People get older, they get pseudo dementia. Exactly. And actually even the risk of dementia is up higher for people with mental health issues as well because likely because of the neuroinflammation. So you'll see like those areas, amygdala is more connected with like anxiety and that's what controls emotions. And that piece with like the nine year old driving the bus versus you know, the adult driving the bus. And so if you're constantly getting taxed with that in everyday day to day trauma, that is going to be more dysregulated. I mean they've had studies that show women passing like in terms of being anxious during pregnancy, having an impact on their, their, their babies that are born of the baby, the child having more anxiety and things like that. So the development of the prefrontal cortex, which is like impulse impulses can develop up until 26 years of age. Other areas of the brain that get affected, amygdala, like I mentioned, hippocampus and other centers that help to regulate like our emotions. So if there's constant inflammation on, on those areas or constant stress, which causes a dysregulation of cortisol levels, those will all will could potentially impact, impact those, those long term too as well.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So do you think, do you think, like, my theory is right, that a lot of the social discord is happening as a result of brain inflammation is caused by all the factors we talked about?

[Suzanne Goes]

Yeah, I mean they have tons of studies on technology's impact on dopamine and that every time you have like a hit, like even a ring on your cell phone or, you know, did it, like when you get your text, you get a dopamine hit for that. So one of the pieces is the more and more you have it, the more of a reserve, like you're having less your body's constantly needing to push out dopamine for everything with technology. One example I had, it was great because I did a urinary test and I was trying to get the person I was actually working with, someone that I didn't know was a big gamer. And so we did the test and at the evening, the cortisol was like, was the same that you would have in the morning to wake up, because your cortisol should be higher in the morning to wake up and low at night. And then I said, what were you? And I knew right away, I'm like, were you playing like video games? And she looked and was like, how did, how did you know? I'm like this number. There's just a lot of like hyperactivity. Her dopamine levels were high. Norepinephrine, epinephrine, cortisol was through the roof. So of course she's going to have sleep issues, which she was having. So you'll see that too. I mean, a lot of young people that are also on technology, they're staying up till late at night, as you know, and it interrupts their sleep. And if they're not getting good quality sleep, of course they're not going to be able to focus in class. Of course they're not going to be able to emotionally regulate as well. So all of those things have these kind of added effects that can cause cause issues. But definitely technology with dopamine. And as much as the parent can work with reducing it in small bits, I don't try to say stop completely. I say, let's cut 15 minutes at a time. So it doesn't seem as significant. But that's what the great thing about tests are, because you can actually see and show and demonstrate, and then it's easier to get people to say, oh, okay, this is why.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And so, I mean, I had a nephew who was a super addicted gamer and, you know, just didn't have a life other than gaming. And long story short, he lived with me for a while, and I took it all away. I literally just hit it. And it was literally like watching someone go through heroin withdrawal. Like, he went ballistic. And I was like, wow, this is like a highly addictive thing. So I think that. And he had adhd, and it just made it worse. You know, it made it a lot worse. Worse. And I think we have this incredible moment happening in the field of psychiatry where we're beginning to understand the brain in mental health, not just the mind. And talk therapy can be helpful sometimes. Psychiatric medication should be helpful, but it's a pretty limited tool set, and now we have a whole new set of tools. So when you see sort of someone come in and they could have anything, anything from schizophrenia to bipolar disease to depression, there's a process you go through to try to figure things out, you know, like. Like, you know, because depression is not a Prozac deficiency. Right, Exactly. And. And, you know, it's kind of how we treat it. Right? We. I call it the naming, blaming and taming game. This came from my mentor, Sid Baker. He says we. We name the disease by the symptoms, and then we blame the name for the cause, and then we tame it with a drug. So we say, oh, the reason you're hopeless and helpless and have no interest in life and can't sleep and have no interest in sex and don't have an appetite and you feel sad and you want to cry all the time, it's because you're depressed. That's what's causing your symptoms? Well, no, that's just a name that we give to people who share those symptoms. The cause could be you're eating gluten and that's causing brain inflammation, or you had a. Been having a bad diet and had reflux because you eat too many fried foods and end up on an acid blocker for 10 years, which depletes your B12 and zinc and magnesium, or because you maybe have no vitamin D and that causes depression.

[Suzanne Goes]

And you're looking to see, like, where does it land? I always say that for autoimmune conditions. It's like, to me, it's all the same thing. There's different names.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Right.

[Suzanne Goes]

You know, but it's like, where does it. I say, like, land. And that's why people have, like, three autoimmune conditions. And I'm like, is it really three different ones, or is their. Their system just attacking itself and it's finding their weakness? Yeah, right.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Like, it's like aspen trees, you know, like they all look like separate trees, but they're all one underneath.

[Suzanne Goes]

Exactly. Still the same.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And so that's kind of how most diseases are. They're not comorbidities or not things that just happen to be randomly showing up. I'm like, you know, this kid that I was mentioning before had ADD, had like, 12 different diagnoses and was on seven different medications and was seeing five or six or different specialists, and no one asked, how are all these things connected?

[Suzanne Goes]

Like, when did it start and how did it start? And things like that.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

The beauty is, then we can start to actually think differently about how to approach these problems and start to think about the common things, the common root causes, and how to, one, do the diagnostic evaluation, which can pick a lot of these things up, and also the treatment strategies. And it can be something simple. Like, you know, like I mentioned with depression, I mean, it can be a B vitamin deficiency. And I was writing my book, and I think I was talking to somebody on the phone about it, whatever, and he heard me were talking. I was fixing my TV and my office, and I happen to be working when he was there. He's like, oh, yeah, I was listening to what you're saying, and, you know, I was really severely depressed, and. And then I took, you know, these B vitamins, like B6, fully B12, and it went away. And actually methylfolate, or diplin, is actually a prescription drug, quote drug, which is an activated form of folate that psychiatrists use for treating depression.

[Suzanne Goes]

Yes.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

But it's all like, kind of this, like, one thing at a time. It's like, still the drug model. It's not really a holistic view of the body as a system. So. So what, Doctor, When. When someone comes to you, see you and they're suffering from whether it's depression or whether it's more PTSD or maybe they're having some psychotic kind of borderline issues or bipolar, where do you start? And then how do you kind of find the things that are driving the problem? And then what, what are the sort of steps you take to help resolve that?

[Suzanne Goes]

I think my most important thing is to also meet people like where they're at. So initially I'm trying to.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I just want people to do what I want to do. I know how to get you better. That would be what I say. You don't get to choose.

[Suzanne Goes]

That would make life a lot easier.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Right? I'm pretty, I'm pretty, I'm pretty actually convincing because I said, look, let's try this for 10 days.

[Suzanne Goes]

That's, that's what I say. I'm like, let's try removing this food for a week and see how you feel. And then people come back and they're like, oh yeah, it worked. So I think the one thing when people see like naturopathic doctors, functional medicine doctors, they're going to get tons of lab work done initially. That's always really important to me in the assessment because I'm going to look at environmental factors like I mentioned, like metal lead. You mentioned when you were saying about juvenile delinquency of like changing food. There are studies that even show there's a higher rates of schizophrenia after the age of 14 being actually juvenile and delinquency and schizophrenia if they've drank from like private well water and poor water. So even when you go talking about food, it's like, what is the quality of their water? What is their environment by way of pollution? I've had children that we've had parasites who. Exactly. Even parasites where they've had adhd. And then they found that there was a lot of mold in their bedroom and they removed that and all the kids symptoms were gone. Or I've had even adults that were exhausted. And then when I did the assessment, I find out they drink 4 ounces of water. And I'm like, okay, if you try to drink water and they come back, they're like, I feel completely new. Like, how is your body eliminating toxins? So that's what I said meeting people were at. Because there could be just basic things that people aren't even aware of. But typically with assessment it's going to include like their metals. It's going to include things like you said, like O tests. I'm going to look at other infections, organic acid tests. I'm going to look at. Especially if someone's like that rule of like, ever since, of like I got sick at this time and then ever since Then this happen for women a lot of times hormones. So like after they have a baby, after they have a kid, you'll see those hormones drop down. Which hormones actually are like estrogen can be, if it's in a high amount more pro inflammatory and testosterone more anti inflammatory. So you'll see when there's a shift of that or the cycle or perimenopause autoimmune conditions will go up too. So I'm looking to see like what that pattern is of like when it actually became dysregulated and getting as much like laboratory assessment but like really having deep in depth conversations of their story because you can.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Oh yeah, I was fine until I moved in that house.

[Suzanne Goes]

Exactly.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Tell me about that house. Well, you know, it was okay, but it was a little damp basement or it had like, I think we had mold in the bathroom, something. And you get, you get these clues and I think, you know, in traditional medicine we sort of ignore most of those clues. Like, you know, your psychiatrist didn't ask about mold or how much tuna you.

[Suzanne Goes]

Ate or were you inflamed or.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

No, it's true. And I think you mentioned lab testing. I co founded a company called Function Health and we do a full panel of lab testing and we look at a lot of things that do affect psychiatric health from your nutritional levels of vitamin D, of evaluation of the B vitamins through homocysteine and methylmatic acid, which are ways of looking at B12 folate and B6. We look at red cell magnesium. We look at zinc. We look at also other factors like metabolic health, insulin resistance, which can affect depression. Look at sex hormones, can affect mood. We look at heavy metals. So we, we got a really. And we look at inflammation. You know, I don't know if it's mind blowing to me, but in our population we've done 5 million biomarkers on over 40,000 people and 46% have high CRPs, 30% have high ANA, 67% have a nutritional deficiency. Whether it's iron like you mentioned, or homocysteine problems or magnesium or omega 3s. We look at all these things as part of a fundamental panel to see what's going on. And it's amazing. If you start to fix these things, people get better. And sometimes you have to go deeper. Right. It's not just, always just cleaning up your diet and eliminating inflammatory foods and adding a number of nutrients that may be helpful for your brain or nutrient deficient in. It may also be like, okay, well I got to deal with the heavy metals Or I got to deal with Lyme disease, I got to deal with Babesia, I got to deal with mold. And those are things that we don't really deal with well with traditional medicine. But if you're seeing a functional medicine doctor, they can see you in your practice in Connecticut. They can come to our center in Lenox, Massachusetts, the Ultra Wellness center. And we deal with all these kind of complex issues, and we deal with the crises in mental health. And I did a documentary series years ago called the Broken Brain, and it's really about how most of our brains are not working properly. And we don't really have a great way to deal with brain disorders because our whole thinking has been completely wrong.

[Suzanne Goes]

And focus. And I mean, I have so many. Like, I feel like over half my patients, you asked about brain fog or focus, it's like more than half of them have an issue. It's this like, of the activity with their brain and managing everything that they're doing and rates of what, ADHD going up and anxiety. Is it truly that or is it, you know, we're just doing too much as, you know, as a society. Part of what I talked about in the presentation, giving for IFM too, were the other things outside of like, even diet is like, the. The benefits of, like, sauna and how that showed to decrease CRP levels. And also in studies that they did in Europe for men, that there was like, decreased chance of, like, things like schizophrenia, forest bathing.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's crazy. They just want to stop there. You just said, take a second, Sonic, and help you reduce psychiatric symptoms and even schizophrenia.

[Suzanne Goes]

Exactly. Schizophrenia. Yeah. And this, this was a study of men at large for, like, decades. Yeah. And they showed that there were lower rates of things like schizophrenia. If you look at. Also it decreases CRP levels, which we keep talking about, with inflammation. You also look at like, forest bathing. There was a study in Japan to show that the CRP levels went down significantly with more forest bathing and lasted for. For a period of time. So these are all the things that you can get people to do in small steps. That just shows there's that lack of connection. Like loneliness, I think is a huge factor. And that's one of the biggest things we're always trying to work at in our office. Even with anxiety, they've shown the most effective is doing that with group therapy, like treatment plus therapy. I think it takes a community, but it's like you doing things to detach yourself from technology, like ground grounding, sauna, those things. But then also your community of people around you to be able to support you as well.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

When you look at ADD and adhd, it's, it's, you know, it's basically described as a set of symptoms. The way we diagnose in medicine is, is based on, based, basically I think a very outdated model which is describe the symptoms and if somebody fits those symptoms, they have the disease. We say, oh, you have trouble focusing or pay attention, paying attention, you're inattentive, you're hyperactive. I know what's wrong with you. You have adhd? No, that's just the name of the disease, it's not the cause of the disease. And so we describe every disease, including particularly mental diseases, mental disorders, through this lens of describing symptoms, not causes. Functional medicine is about causes. So what are the causes? Well, I'm going to take you through a case because I think it'll be a very interesting way to think about this story. And this is a case that really blew my mind. So the mother brought in her kid to see me who was 12 years old and then two months later brought him back and the transformation was remarkable. But she brought his homework and we're going to put it in the show notes. So you can actually see graphically changes in brain function in just two months with a kid who had severe brain disorder. He had a broken brain and he could not write legibly to save his life. It was like chicken scratch or a 3 year old writing versus a 12 year old. And then within 2 months his handwriting totally normalized. And the question is, what happened? So I'm going to take you through what happened, I'm going to explain you a story and I'm going to, I'm going to actually help you understand how we need to start approaching these disorders and very different way. So basically one day this woman walks my office, professional woman, businesswoman, with her 12 year old son who had multiple psychological and physical diagnoses who were seen by many doctors, seven different doctors, right? He had, you know, a psychiatrist, he had a GI doctor, he had an allergist, he had a pulmonologist. I mean the list goes on. So nobody was talking to each other and always treated, they were all treating different things. So he, he was diagnosed with ADD and no one seemed to sort of say, how does this one kid have all these problems, right? Is it just bad luck or are they connected? And so functional medicine is about looking for the patterns in the connections that give rise to the clues about the cause. So basically he was, he was diagnosed with ADD when he was a little kid. He couldn't focus in school, he was zoned out, he was disruptive. I mean, he was kicked out of kindergarten. I mean, who's kicked out of kindergarten, right? He had terrible writing, we call it dysgraphia. He was pretty good math, but basically was a disaster. You know, behaviorally, academically, socially was just not thriving. And physically he had all these issues, right? He had asthma, he had environmental allergies, he had sinus problems, he had post nasal drip, he had sore throats, he got skin issues, eczema, nausea, stomach aches, diarrhea, headaches, anal itching, which we'll get to why that is. He had canker sores, which are immune things, right? All his immune inflammation, muscle aches, muscle cramps. He was hypersensitive to loud noises, to smells, he was sneezing a lot. He had hives, itchy skin, bumps, frequent infections. He couldn't sleep well. He had trouble breathing when he slept. He had like anxiety, he was fearful all the time and he had tons of sugar cravings. Now that is a long list of problems. My joke is I take care of patients and I'm a holistic doctor because I take care of people with a whole list of problems. And he had a whole list of problems. And nobody says, how are all these connected? They're all inflammation. And what we now know is that add, autism, depression, dementia, Parkinson's, these are inflammatory diseases of the brain, even schizophrenia, bipolar disease, all these are inflammatory brain disorders. So doctors were treating and all these specialists treating all the symptoms with seven different medications from five different doctors. Ritalin for add, allergy medicine, inhalers versus asthma, acid blocking medicine for his stomach, painkillers for his headaches. I mean, it's quite a drug cocktail for a 12 year old kid. And he didn't really get that much relief anyway on any of his symptoms. And no one said, you know, how is this connected, right? How is this connective and why is this kid suffering from all this? And so really this is just how medicine is. We see specialists after specialists, we get pill after pill, we get a pill for every ill. And it was just kind of a mess. So most, most psychiatrists are trained about the brain or really the mind, right? They don't really learn much about the brain. They don't, they think, you know, it's basically, you know, their job is from the neck up and it's all emotional, psychological. But we often misappropriate psychological or psychiatric diagnoses to physical things, right? If you have mercury poisoning, it can cause depression, right? If you have huge amounts of inflammation from an altered microbiome. You can have add. So you need to figure out what the root causes and not just be slapping on different drugs for different diseases. So, you know, it's important to understand what the physical things are, but not to get stopped there and not to just say, let's treat each one separately. We have to see how they're connected. So the medications he was on were kind of nuts and they weren't helping much. But he's not alone. Most kids on tons of medications, from allergy medication to antidepressants to stimulants. And we're seeing kids with mental, behavioral, emotional problems like Clayton had. And they're now getting drugs like antipsychotic medications they give to schizophrenics like Risperdal or anti seizure medications, Trileptal or antidepressants, like I said, like Prozac or all the stimulants like Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall or Vyvanse. Now, when we dug below the surface with Clayton, we found all sorts of stuff. Now, in functional medicine, I don't actually treat disease. I don't really care that much about the name of your disease, but I care about what is going on in the systems in your body that is out of balance. And how do I figure that out? And what are the basic categories of things that matter? Right. It's our lifestyle and our nutritional, exercise, sleep, relationships. It's various factors that cause us to get out of balance. Toxins, allergens, microbes, poor diet, stress, all these things wash over these systems and create imbalance. So my job is a detective to figure out where this particular child's imbalances were and fix them and see what happens. Right. I just kind of put things back in balance, like tuning up a car, and then you kind of hope, crush fingers. And usually it works. Sometimes you kind of get stuck or there's something else you missed, but. But it's actually quite effective. So first step was nutrition. I mean, Clayton had, which was his name, had the worst diet. All he ate was junk food, processed food. He, I don't think he ever saw a vegetable in his life. And it's typical of a lot of these kids who are on the spectrum of autism or add. They typically have very finicky dietary habits. They typically eat tons of carbs. They love gluten and dairy. But he wasn't just eating, you know, whole wheat bread and, you know, sheep cheese. He was eating junk food. Trans fats, food coloring, additives, tons of Sugar and all these things have been associated with add. Now when we looked at his lab testing, we found some really interesting things. And I think most people do not dig below the surface to look at labs. And we did a deep dive. We found he had omega 3 fat deficiency, EPA and DHA, which are incredibly important for brain function. 60% of your brain is DHA and if you have low levels, it's associated with ADD as well as eczema immune deficiency. A lot of the things that he had, we looked at his vitamin levels. We saw low levels of amino acids like tryptophan. We saw metabolic pathways that were indicating he had a deficiency of B6, which is important for making serotonin from tryptophan and helping his mood. Right. His mood was unstable, he had sleep issues. And so that, you know, B6 was a big factor. And it's often with kids with ADD or autism. And we see, you know, also vitamin A deficiency, which is important for immunity. And the omega 3 deficiency and vitamin A deficiency led to little things like bumps on his backs. We call these hyperkeratosis pilaris. I could touch his skin, I could see little bumpy things. That was because of these nutritional deficiencies. He was low in vitamin D, he was low in vitamin E and beta carotene because he ate vegetables. Right. So it's a diet very high in junk food, which is nutrient poor and very low in nutrient dense food. He had low levels of zinc and link. Zinc, we know is important for immune function, regulates hundreds of enzymes, it's important for getting rid of heavy metals, it's important for ADD and autism. And it was really consistent with his symptoms of infrequent infections of eczema, allergies, hyperactivity. Also had low magnesium. Magnesium deficiency is really common and it led to, you know, headaches, anxiety, insomnia, muscle cramps, spasms, aches, hypersensitivity to loud noises. All these are signs of magnesium deficiency. And we do testing and you know, I recently started a co founded a company called Function Health to help people get access to their own labs and to be able to look at some of these deep nutritional testing as well as metabolic testing and many things we're going to talk about with Clayton, things that are often missed by a traditional doctor or not checked. When was the last time your doctor checked your omega 3 level or vitamin A or magnesium or vitamin D? These are all part of our standard function health panels. And I think it's really important for you to think about. So go check out Function Health. You can Sign up for the wait list and it gives you really great guidance on how to optimize your health using personalized recommendations. So the next thing we looked at besides nutrition was his immune system because he had so many inflammatory things, right? He had, you know, infections, he had asthma, he had sore throats, he had allergies, he had all these inflammatory things. So it was like flashing red light. Inflammation, inflammation. Inflammation is at the root of so many problems, including brain diseases. So we looked at the factors that cause actually inflammation, such as food allergies, environmental allergies, molds, toxins, chronic low grade infections, maybe he had a whole bunch of these things. We found some testing, we looked at food sensitivity testing, and he had a lot of foods. He was reacting about 18 different foods, including dairy, peanuts, yeast, citrus foods, gluten, especially gluten. And he had gluten antibodies, which again, are not checked by most doctors, but actually were elevated. And so we found he really was sensitive to gluten. So gluten basically is a huge factor for these kids, often with ADD or autism. It triggers this low grade chronic inflammation in the brain, an immune response, and makes leaky gut worse, causes canker sores. So when he had canker sores, I was clued in that he might have a gluten issue. It can be celiac disease or gluten sensitivity. And he had elevated anti glidin antibodies, which is basically an autoimmune reaction to the proteins found in gluten and that and that are found in wheat, rye, barley, spelt and oats. Now, so massive inflammation. And we knew we had gluten issues, we knew we had food sensitivities and some other things that were causing it. And he also had tons of gut symptoms, right? So we looked at his digestive system, nausea, diarrhea, stomach aches, anal itching. He had a sensitive stomach. He led lots of antibiotics for sore throats, and he had then yeast overgrowth because of all the antibiotics and abnormal gut flora. We looked at his stool test. He had leaky gut, which basically creates the damage in the gut that allows food, proteins and bacteria to leak in. And his immune system was just so pissed off. And it wasn't just affecting his asthma and allergies, it was also affecting his brain. The next thing we looked at were toxins, because we take a look at nutrition, we take a look at gut, we at take a look look at immune issues, we look at the causes. And so we started to look at whether or not he had any environmental toxins, which we know can Cause ADD and even autism. And heavy metals were an issue for him. He had high levels of lead and mercury and he had similar problem exposure to other kids, but they're often not looked at and not treated. They might check up blood lead level, they don't ever look at a challenge test. And genetically, nutritionally, he couldn't really detoxify these. And we know mercury and lead are associated with GI symptoms, autoimmune issues, cognitive problems that lead has been actually very well linked to add, and behavioral issues, cognitive problems. And there's no doubt about the data on this. You don't believe me, just go to PubMed and put lead and ADHD and you'll come up with plenty of scientific papers to explain how this actually is all working. So basically, maybe, you know, the world is polluted, right? We have so many cement factories, coal burning factories, all of which spew out lead, mercury, it goes into the soil, kids are playing in the dirt, or maybe there's toys made from China that are coated lead paint, or maybe the people have leaded paint in their house or eating from lead covered glasses or I mean, crystal glasses or, or fancy plates. But basically he was exposed to all these dangers of the industrial revolution. And he also had a little bit of mold in his house and he had food additives that, you know, we can't measure those things, but I'm sure they were causing a problem. So basically his problem wasn't Ritalin deficiency or bad parenting, right? The cause was in his diet, it was environmental toxins, it was in his microbiome. And so we basically constructed a very simple treatment. So we think, oh my God, there's so many things, you know, he's got 25 different diseases, right? What do you do? So it was quite simple. We basically looked at the causes. So we basically looked at the nutritional deficiencies, the toxic environmental toxins he was exposed to, the food sensitivities, all the processed food. We got rid of the gluten, all the yeast overgrowth, and we found out what sort of was causing him to be out of balance, right? So basically the body is a system of equilibrium and either you have too much of something that's causing you to be out of balance or not enough of something that's causing you that you need to be in balance, right? He had all these deficiencies of nutritional stuff, but all these other things like yeast overgrowth and heavy metals and gluten, they were irritating his system. So he can't just do one thing. And I think in medicine they go, well, let's do one thing and see what happens. Well, we won't know unless you do a randomized controlled trial with one intervention and one outcome. Well, that's just BS because, you know, if you want to grow a plant, you know, well, I'm just going to give it water but no soil and sun and see what happens. Or I'm going to give it soil but no, you know, water. Or I'll give it sun but no soil and water. You know, it's just the whole thing is an insane, backwards, antiquated framework for thinking about disease. And it's why we are in this really powerful transformation in medicine right now and hasn't quite caught up to the clinic in most cases, but it really is where we're all going. When it comes to supplements, you only want the best for your body. The kind with the highest quality, cleanest and most potent ingredients you can get. That's exactly what you'll find at my supplement store where I've hand selected each and every product to meet the most rigorous standards for safety, purity and effectiveness. These are the only supplements I recommend to my patients, and they're also what I use myself. Whether you want to optimize longevity or reduce your disease risk, or you're looking to improve your sleep, blood sugar, metabolism, gut health, you name it, doctorhyman.com has the world's best selection of top quality premium supplements, all backed by science and expertly vetted by me, Dr. Mark Hyman. So check out Dr.hyman.com because when it comes to your health, nothing less than the very best will do. That's Dr. Hyman.com D R H Y M A N if you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the Dr. Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness center, my work at Cleveland Clinic and Function Health where I am Chief Medical Officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness Center@Ultra Wellness Center.com and request to become a patient. 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