Latest / Radically Genuine / 130. Naturopathic Insights into Mental Health Conditions w/ Dr. Julia Britz, ND

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130. Naturopathic Insights into Mental Health Conditions w/ Dr. Julia Britz, ND · Radically Genuine

• Welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast. I am Dr. Roger McFillin. In the mental health field, one that demonstrates such poor outcomes, we're often confronted with some harsh realities. And in those harsh realities are, you know, a lot of the people who are struggling go into the allopathic medical system and don't make improvements. In fact, we have just so much data that suggests they worsen. I think what's concerning for me, is there's often many silenced voices in mental health and the deliberate silencing of like alternative health information and the voices of functional medicine, doctors, naturopaths, other medical professionals, um, you know, tends to negatively influence our own perception about all the reasons why we may struggle from anxiety to mood, to eating disorders. I just feel like there's so much information that's just withheld from the corporate media. And if you're just not on the algorithm, you're just not going to be exposed to all the different lifestyle factors that can lead to common symptoms like anxiety, depression, even eating problems. We're kind of relying on physicians, naturopathic doctors, functional medicine doctors who kind of broke free from the conditioning, from the brainwashing, to send information like via the social media platforms. And I think that opens our eyes. And that's where I found today's guests. I think there's just countless people who are suffering in silence, their struggles ignored, brushed aside in a system that prioritized profit over healing. There's a wealth of knowledge and expertise within the alternative medical community. Um, and I think what's really important for us is to try to understand some of the wisdom from those who have been through the system and struggled and then had have healed from alternative methods. I want our podcast to be able to highlight these voices and understand how people improve outside of just psychotherapy and drugs, which is kind of the standard treatment. And that leads us to today's guests. Sean (02:24.132) I'm really excited to have Dr. Julia Britz, who is a licensed naturopathic doctor who specializes in supporting people who are struggling with mental health issues such as OCD, eating disorders, and psychiatric medication tapering. Her passion for working with individuals suffering from these lonely conditions is that she too once was a hopeless case, you know, according to the system, but she did find a way to get better. And so, trying to pick her brain and everything that she had to do to create a life of value purpose and to feel so much better is kind of like the goal of today's interview. She was dismissed by doctors. She was told over and over there was nothing else she could try other than psychopharmacology. And she was inspired to create myocddiary .com, a site dedicated to documenting the daily life of OCD and related disorders. Through this project and holistic therapy, she found new levels of wellness. And in 2014 did a Ted talk called my OCD diary and imperfect story. She utilizes natural and integrative modalities, including targeted amino acid therapy, peptide therapy, micro micronutrient therapy, bio resonance, botanical medicine, and epigenetic analysis. So this is fascinating areas for us to dive into. Most recently, she was a director of naturopathic medicine at alternative to med center in Arizona. And she now practices telemedicine. Dr. Britt, welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast. Julia Britz (03:52.501) Thank you, Roger. I'm really happy to be here. Sean (03:55.876) So Julia, I think we have to start off with just kind of understanding what a naturopathic doctor is, how a naturopathic doctor is trained and credentialed before we kind of get into the nitty gritty of what it might look like in clinical practice. Julia Britz (04:09.877) And you know, it was really interesting to me when I first saw an atropathic doctor because I didn't know what one was and it was on my journey to, okay, I'll try anything, I'll see anybody, I don't care, I'm desperate, you know, that's where most people are before they find one. But I do think it's an important question because for so many people there's questions on like, well, what's the difference between an atropathic doctor and a functional medicine doctor? Is holistic the same as homeopathic? And... What about licensing? You know, there's all these questions. And I did a talk recently at a med school and they said, well, how do I know if a naturopathic doctor is really good? And I thought, how do you know if an MD is really good? Dumb question. But the meat of it really is that there is a licensing board, you know, for most, well, a great deal of states, not all states. So like I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sean (04:51.14) Yeah. Julia Britz (05:04.213) and this is an unlicensed state, so I can still practice here, but I'm limited in what I can do in certain areas. But essentially, it's a four -year medical program. There's eight different schools in North America, and it's a very similar curriculum to the medical curriculum. We put a higher focus on prevention and nutrition. We still are taught the same credited hours for pharmacology and things like that, just because we're still getting all these people that are on polypharmacy, so we have to. know exactly what we're doing safely, because mixing herbs and meds can be really tricky. And then of course, we have to pass our boards. There are some people that will graduate naturopathic medical school and go right into practice. Some will do sort of a residency kind of program. So we don't have the same afterschool requirements as MDs do, but we also have, I would say, a lesser, I don't want to say invasive, but we're doing safer therapies. And also we're trained to recognize when someone is outside of our scope. Like, hey, this is not safe. You actually maybe do want to be on the med. Like we got to say that sometimes. It's not my favorite thing to say, but we are trained to make sure that people are going to be safe under our care. So when people do functional medicine, that program is meant for people that have a medical background, like being a registered nurse. or being an MD and they want to sort of get a little more acquainted with naturopathic support. So then they'll do like a year long or less program so that it can be kind of familiar with supplements and herbs and that kind of thing. So those are also, I mean, it's a good program as well. But yeah, anyway, so there's too many professionals out there, which is great. There's so many different people that are helping and everyone has their own philosophy. So. When people graduate or leave medical school, a lot of people go on to general practice. I went into mental health because that's kind of what a lot of us do when we struggle with our own thing. We're sort of on this mission to help other people that dealt with what we helped or struggled with. So yeah, I hope that makes sense. Sean (07:04.964) Yeah, so let me ask you a question. What is kind of the underlying theory that drives naturopathic work? Is it that disease arises in the body when the body is at a state of dis -ease, meaning like there could be stress or nutritional deficiencies or exposure to toxins? Like, why does the body become diseased according to the naturopath? Julia Britz (07:29.717) I mean, that's a great way to look at it. And the vitalists of naturopathic medicine would say exactly that. When the body's out of balance, when our toxic burden is too high, then our body will give us symptoms to let us know that it's just too much. And so the foundations of naturopathic medicine start at get rid of the obstacle to cure. Get rid of the problem best you can before you do anything additive. So before you get people supplements or you do surgery, take out the problem first. So we like to start from the foundations, meaning what are you eating? What are you drinking? Are you sleeping? And that sounds really basic. And I would say it is really stressful when you're dealing with something very serious and your doctor says, well, are you sleeping right? Like it's almost insulting, you know, because it's like, I would sleep, I can't sleep, that's why I'm here. But I think the difference, you know, with naturopathic medicine is we're going, okay, well, if you can't sleep, then let's talk about your diet a little bit more in detail versus just eat right. Sean (08:10.788) Hehehehehe Julia Britz (08:25.717) because that's an impossible thing to do. Who knows what that means? Eat right, that's insane. So yes, we're trying to start from the very beginning and then move into more advanced therapies as we go to make sure we can help get the person back into balance. Because ideally in Rachel, I don't know, I think her name was Rachel, Rachel Gerson, Charlotte Gerson. Charlotte Gerson had said, you know, we can't heal alone. It's only when we heal together that we truly heal. And I believe what she meant by that was we can't just... cherry pick areas of health. We can't try to heal everybody in California and everyone around it won't heal. We can't just cherry pick areas of our life. Like, we just get rid of the sleep problems, everything else is fine. We kind of have to help the whole body heal, meaning get the garbage out of the way, and then let the body do what it wants to do, which is heal. And it knows how to do that if we let it. Sean (09:16.228) I'm sitting here in the podcast room, Sean, and I'm looking at Dr. Ben Rall's book, Design to Heal. Yeah. Yep. And which speaks to that, like that our body is naturally designed to heal. And we often we get in the way of that, right? Our lifestyles get in the way with that our modern medical system in the way we think about disease gets in the way of that. And we've become really disconnected, I think, in a lot of ways from our kind of natural evolution and how we have adapted to be so incredibly resilient. But that disconnection, I think, from nature and that disconnection from each other has put us in a state of disease. And our modern living is so toxic when we think about so many things we don't even know about. The degree of exposure to EMFs, the degree of toxicity, pesticides, the number of things that are in our environment. It's almost, Julie, it's like, I feel somewhat hopeless. It's almost feels like it's impossible to live. a life where we can really get our bodies back in balance in modern living, especially with the exposure to supercomputers that exist in our pockets and the way that we live. I mean, is there hope? Is there a path for us to be able to find health? Julia Britz (10:32.437) I mean, I don't think you're wrong. I think the reason why it feels that way and it does to millions of people, and it's the same reason why everyone's on a stimulant for the most part, is because you can't. You cannot do your morning routine and your affirmations and your exercise and meal prep and work and all the Julian things we have to do without being on a stimulant. It's impossible. And get eight hours of sleep. Good luck. So. I think there has to be a massive overhaul. There has to be in terms of how we prioritize our time and forgive ourselves for not being able to do everything. Like everything, because that's the biggest thing I hear when I'm helping people taper off of stimulants. Like, I just can't be tired. I'm just so scared of being tired. And it's like, of course you are, because you're going to have to give up a lot to do that. So it's a hustle culture we're in right now. And I think it's really interesting because we're seeing five times the amount of children, preschool children on psychotropic drugs. They're all off label, of course, because what's a preschool going to do about a psychotropic drug? But it's starting earlier and earlier and earlier. So there has to be a bigger change, I believe, for us to maintain a sense of hope that we can all actually have a life that we want to have, because we do. We want to have. you know, eat good food and have time with their friends and not work all the time, you know? Sean (12:02.468) Yeah, so how, let's compare a naturopathic doctor with an allopathic doctor. How would the allopathic doctor conceptualize disease? Julia Britz (12:13.973) So I think most allopathic doctors are looking for potentially a cause and if it is it's usually something you can isolate like a germ and most of most naturopathic doctors are going to be looking at the terrain and they're gonna go okay well why is the body gonna you know and they're gonna kind of wonder what's the root cause and there may not even just be one there might be a few things going on that created you know whatever picture of health we have. So a lot of times when I'm looking at labs, they're like, whoa, my blood sugar's off, my cholesterol's all over the place, my blood pressure's not manageable or stable, and it sounds like they have a thousand things wrong with them. And it's not that you have a thousand different diseases, which you might get diagnosed with if you were in the medical model. But in reality, most of the time it's one problem. There's like one disease. There's one issue. It's probably inflammation. What caused it? We gotta find that part. But I think that's a huge, huge difference. The other thing I would say is there's a huge emphasis in Western medicine to suppress symptoms, which is valuable, especially with pain. But naturopathic doctors were not entirely interested in just that because for us those are clues. For us it's considered a good thing. Like, oh good, you got a symptom? That's helpful information because some people will, for example, my ex -sister -in -law, she said, you know, I had zero symptoms. or knew anything was wrong besides infertility. She had like three miscarriages and she said, that's the only clue I had that something was going on in my body. And it turned out that she had celiac disease. So for her, she gave up gluten and then boom, body was better. But she thought, I don't need to eat this again because even though I'm not getting symptoms, my body still doesn't want it. Even though it's quiet to let me know it doesn't have a, you know what I'm saying? So. we do look at that part a little differently as well, which I think is essential and it's a longer thing. If you guys see an ND, prepare to put in a lot more work and take a lot more time to turn things around because we don't have magic pills. And people always ask me and they say like, what supplements good for blank? Nothing, they're not pills. It's not Western medicine. I can't give you anything that's gonna magically change anything. So it's gonna be a lot more of a. Julia Britz (14:29.109) process and more teamwork as well. You know, I do like that. Like usually the doctor's the one up, the patient's the one down. In Western medicine at least, but with naturopathic, we try to have it be more like team care because there's this idea of like, oh, well now we've created this organism, like you and I, like we heal together now. And so we have to work together to see about getting you feeling better because then I learn at the same time. So it's a growth for both of us. Sean (14:56.356) Okay, so you have a personal story. And so you took your path down to specialize in mental health. So how did you go down the direction to become a naturopath? How did your own experience in the medical system kind of inform this new direction for you? Julia Britz (15:13.589) I had very severe OCD symptoms for a long time and I don't even really like to say OCD because I don't actually believe it's a disorder. I think they're symptoms usually based on physiology, but I'll get to that. And so for me, I had a lot of obsessive compulsive symptoms. And so when I went to Western doctors, it was always, oh, you could try Zoloft, you could try medication and I was horrified. I read that they could cause some weight gain and sexual dysfunction. I thought, well, if I'm already depressed, do I really want to add those to the mix? That might make me more depressed. That just seemed a little scary. So I didn't really want to do therapy either because everything I was thinking was incredibly embarrassing. And I thought, I don't want to tell anybody the thoughts up here. And I was thinking about I was a nanny and I was like, I just kept thinking about obsessing about throwing the kids out the window. And I would never do that. But I mean, it's scary to tell that to somebody. You think they're gonna lock me up if they know what I'm thinking, you know? So it seemed like my two options were pretty terrible, at least to me. And I'll be fair, I think I was a little resistant to feeling better because I knew it would be scary. So eventually did do therapy, which helped a lot, but it was really revolutionary when I saw a holistic doctor because she said, no, this is more physiological. This is more hormone for you. There's a parasite. There's a bunch of stuff going on. So let's work on that. And then we'll just see if you still have some symptoms. Let's see if we've gotten it. And then I took a, I think I must have left with like 500 bucks worth of supplements that day. And I thought, oh my gosh, is this what I'm doing? So I took all these supplements and I stopped eating the foods she told me to stop eating. And within a month, my OCD and it was, you know, nine or 10 showers a day, my knuckles would be bloody from hand washing, I'd just like walk in circles up staircases. You know, my life was jam -packed with rituals. And then all of a sudden, 90 % of it was gone. I had all the time in the world. And it was the most amazing and startling thing because I thought, well, now what I'm gonna do with who I am, what's going on, it was kind of a identity. Julia Britz (17:25.717) crisis is a transformation. It was amazing. And because of that, I said, what do I do? How do I do this? And she says, you just go to an athletic school. And so that's what I'm going to do. Because I felt like if I was so severe and I was told that I was told you're too severe, you have to do meds. But I thought if I was so severe and I got better, then it's, it felt like it was my responsibility to show people that there's a way to do this that didn't involve some lame genetic theory about. oh, there's probably some mysterious cert gene that's involved in your serotonin regulation and that's why you have OCD, have a medication. To me, that's garbage. You know, it is, it's total garbage. So if we could help people just do something different without these symptoms, then it just seemed like there was nothing else I wanted to do. Sean (18:11.684) So then what was the underlying mechanism that led to your OCD? Like what did the supplements or the changes in diet actually correct that was problematic or deficient previously? Julia Britz (18:24.213) Good question. I had, at the time, very low progesterone, and it was probably exacerbated because I had some disordered eating stuff going on. I really wasn't getting enough calories. So that, no calories, no cholesterol, no breakdown alone, no progesterone. That probably had a trauma history, I'm sure, you know, looking back. The other thing I would say is that some people just genetically just don't make quite enough GABA. You know, and I'm probably one of those people, mine always tends to be on the lower side. And so for me, going in, she's like, okay, progesterone, we can do that part. Started taking different supplements to help support my GABA system. And because I wasn't eating enough, your digestion turns off. You don't use it, you lose it. So my digestion was really bad and my absorption was poor because I really wasn't eating very much. And the intestines being like little muscles pushing foods through. If we don't eat enough, then your intestines get weak and then you get more gas and bloating and food kind of gets more rancid sitting there too long. So once we improve my digestion, then all of a sudden it seemed like my brain kind of turned on a little bit more. And if you're too hungry, you won't sleep. So then my sleep got better because my digestion got better. And then I started sleeping, started healing. So for me, I was always probably a little bit low in certain areas. And then I think there's usually a trauma component when it comes to mental health at some point in there. kind of mixing it up. And actually I've been reading Matthew Perry's book and it's amazing, have you read that? Oh my gosh, okay, so I won't spoil it, but he talks about getting phenobarbital as an infant for 60 days because he had colic. And so for those that don't know, phenobarbital is extremely potent, barbiturate. It's meant for seizure, it'll knock you out, it'll just knock you out. Sean (19:51.684) No. Julia Britz (20:11.573) So I thought, of course, Matthew Perry has had a lifetime of addiction because he was probably chronically deficient in opiates because he was set up for it. You know, if you're taking that much of a medication so early on, like the body's going to think, oh, I need to get, that's my new normal. So I do think the formative years matter a lot in terms of what happens to our brain and what we're teaching our brain that we need or don't need. And that could be anything like whether it's barbiturate trauma. or whatever health issues going on. And that isn't to say it's like a destiny, but it is to say it's an area we kind of look for. So for me, when I'm stressed out, I kind of have to encourage my GABA system to give a little more support more because that's where I go with my stress. Sean (21:00.036) Yes, I do want to follow up on that because I specialize in the treatment of eating disorders and I've worked with anorexia for decades now. And as you probably well know, there is a strong comorbidity with obsessive compulsive symptoms. It's almost always around food, but it also extends to a lot of other areas that you were referring to. So, like, how do you distinguish between like how you treated yourself and viewed yourself outside the lens of being like nutritionally deprived and a starving brain that then would become very obsessive, probably as some evolutionary adaptation that, you know, we would experience probably historically in response to famine and a number of other things, it makes sense to be very obsessive and compulsive to stay alive and to also like prevent yourself from overeating food when it becomes available to be able to, you know, share with the group. There's some really interesting. evolutionary kind of thinking around the development of eating disorders. Am I hearing you correctly that like, once you started to kind of heal your body from starvation, that the OCD symptoms started to decrease or are you looking at it differently? Julia Britz (22:13.909) No, I am looking at it like that. You know, I think most disease does stem from that inflammation. So absolutely. And most people tell you like if they're anxious, a lot of them aren't eating enough. Sean (22:16.228) Okay. Sean (22:25.732) Actually, this, I'm glad you started talking Roger, because I was more interested in maybe how a traditional cognitive behavioral therapist who was meeting with somebody for OCD may approach the situation. We've discussed how the physical and mental health are so connected. This is an example of that reality. How would you approach it? Or how do other clinicians approach it? So I'm a little bit different, because I kind of exposed myself to the world that Julia is involved in. And I have a background in the treatment of eating disorders and highly focused on nutrition and food and know what the symptoms are for people who are nutritionally deprived or, you know, just have a starved brain. What I think happens in the general mental health world is they view psychiatric conditions as diseases. So they treat OCD with exposure and response prevention, right? Maybe not even aware of all the other medical issues that could influence that. symptomatology. I mean, we've been like forms of like strep, for example, like strep throat. Certain bacteria can also create OCD symptoms. And we, we had Dr. Kristin Ryman on here and there's like a lot of conditions, probably, you know, parasites, as she mentioned, and in our area, Lyme's disease, you know, create these psychiatric symptoms. And that's one of my biggest concerns with the psychiatric industrial complex is The idea is that anything that they don't understand, they just look at as a series as symptoms and then without investigation, they just label it as psychiatric and then treat it as psychiatric. So what would be the standard course of treatment for someone who is experiencing OCD? It would be like Zoloft and exposure and response prevention. But what about a psychologist who's not prescribing? Well, psychologists still would potentially refer. for that SSRI if they're following guidelines like they're supposed to. And then it would be exposure and response prevention, right? Which is a pretty effective treatment in the manner in which psychological treatments are deemed effective. Although like maybe half of the people still won't get better. But you know, half of people making improvements in those areas is pretty successful in the field of psychiatry and psychology. Sean (24:44.228) And they're probably a component to that, right? Like our brains can get hijacked by fear for many different reasons. And Julie's kind of referring to our own learning history, maybe our own genetics. If we believe in epigenetics, which I'm sure we'll get into, that there's probably some evolutionary function to having OCD, right? And when that gets provoked in a certain environmental context, that gene probably gets expressed in some way. And then there's a learning, like you behave in this certain way as a way of kind of suppressing fear or feeling in control. So I think there's multiple components to it. But I want to, I do think that the foundational treatment, which Julie was referring to is you have to do investigation and make sure that medically speaking, that there's not other issues that can be more adequately, you know, targeted with lifestyle, nutrition, or the identification of bacteria or other things. So Julie, are there other medical conditions that arise that would lead someone to have obsessive -compulsive symptoms? Julia Britz (25:53.141) I think I haven't seen maybe two cases alike, to be honest, in terms of causation. I've had people with thyroid issues, as soon as we correct it, something so simple, you know, as soon as we just a little correction, T3, OCD went away. And I've seen a lot of hormonal shifts during pregnancy, results in obsessive couples of symptoms, parasites are a big one. It's common with Lyme, it's common with most, a lot of bacteria, a lot of viruses. especially the ones that get in the nervous system that can cause that. I think also food sensitivities I've seen cause that. I think really anything that's going to cause inflammation, if someone, this is my theory, but if someone has a background where there was some kind of trauma that demanded perfectionism, then you mix that along with whatever is going on and the body will express that inflammation in terms of trying to get control again. you know, because if the body can't get control physiologically, it's gonna try to do it mentally. And that's really what anxiety is. It's like, how do I get control? How do I get control? So I get that question a lot. And I think just the short is it could really be anything. And that's why you do kind of have to do a workup of what's going on. I've even seen vitamin E deficiency cause it, which I never thought would. But you know, we ran some tests and it was vitamin E deficiency. So I said, look, I don't know. My ego says that's not gonna change anything, but let's do it because... It's not about me. So we tried really high doses of vitamin E and OCD went away. So we can't, that's why I don't like the whole like, oh, low dopamine means this and serotonin means that. I've had people with OCD that you think would do better with serotonin support, did terrible and did better with high dopamine support. So I don't think the rules are that hard with it. Sean (27:26.948) Fascinating. Sean (27:42.34) That's one of the things that's really hard for me as a human being, because I always want to know what the answer is. And sometimes it's not so cut and dry, which makes it really hard when you're in pursuit of some type of improvement is that investigation process to try and root out whatever that issue is. It's, it's just, it's difficult for me. And maybe it's just a man thing where problem solvers, uh, where, like my wife is, she always pursues like naturopath first. And it's just part of like her lifestyle. Well, I am interested in the investigative process. So I guess in a lot of ways, Julia, you are kind of like a detective and you're trying to determine like these underlying medical problems that could be influencing the symptoms. So if someone comes to see you and let's say they are struggling with anxiety and mood, maybe obsessive thinking, maybe sleep, and they've been failed by the allopathic medical system because most are going to be failed. You know, you're gonna put on a pharmaceutical that's toxic. Let's face it, I mean, it is absolutely toxic to the body. So she comes to see you helpless, you know, and hopeless, similar to kind of where you were at at one point in your life. What is the series of tests that you undergo to try to determine some underlying root causes? Julia Britz (29:00.757) Right. Well, I've kind of noticed that, and it depends on age and sex and all these things too, because there's certain things that I see more commonly with different groups. But in general, I do, I see people for about an hour, an hour and a half, the first appointment. And that's where I'm going through every body system and I'm trying to look for patterns. And then once I kind of get a sense of that, we go heavily into, okay, what have you been eating the last three days? And you know, how much do you drink? Do you smoke? You know, let's talk about your drug history, that kind of stuff. And then once we get a sense of like, are there any patterns? And then it's really just, what's the lowest hanging fruit? You know, let's run some labs based on that and see what comes up. And I don't read them based on the ranges provided because those are really old parameters. And we were, you know, a lot shorter and thinner when those were created and we didn't, you know, eat the way we eat now. And so we now read them, well, I do, I read them functionally, meaning what... yeah, disease markers are important, but what's the optimum range? So like that one case I told you about where it was just thyroid issues, for him, his T3 was actually perfectly in range. It was just a hair below where I would like it, just a hair. But for him, you know, and we have to remember these are averages, you know, so like for him, just that little bit was enough for his body to be like, I don't like this, you know. So once we run some labs, and for some people, we'll just run some basics through LabCorp. Other times we need some more functional tests, like we might do a food sensitivity panel or some more advanced hormone work or whatever we're looking at, or maybe a solvent panel to look for toxins. Or I'll do bio resonance, which is a type of bio energetic testing, and then we can get a very different look at what's going on in the body. And sometimes I do both, just to get a sense. Because I do love the information, the more we get, the better, because that's the difference too. In psychiatry, you could go in and say, hey, I've got and I have low confidence and I just can't function and I wake up every 3 a .m. with a panic attack and that guy might get funneled into psychiatry when in all reality it was low testosterone, which would be the worst thing ever. It's like we pathologize that into a mental health condition when maybe they have psych symptoms but that's the entire problem I think when the DSM came out. It was the severing of the brain and the mind and they said, oh, Sean (31:03.62) All right. Julia Britz (31:18.805) Psychiatrists, you guys can treat us like chemical bags. Good luck, have fun with the pills. And psychologists, you guys can look at this in like the hippie -dippy kind of way about feelings. And then, pshh, and now we see the problem with that. It's exactly what's wrong now. Sean (31:34.372) So when you say that you specialize in epigenetic analysis, what does that actually entail? What does that mean? Julia Britz (31:43.605) So that means that there are some genes, there's actually quite a lot. There's genes, DNA, RNA, all kinds of different things that can influence everything about our lives. And the ones that are sort of, as you might say, flipped on and off, which is a really bad way to put it, that's all lifestyle stuff. So when somebody is going through severe stress or not eating right, then yeah, we may be predisposed to certain symptoms because genes may get more or less expressed during that time. So... is really important because that means that we can actually change how someone's feeling and we can change their genes a little. So we can run different tests to look at different single nucleotide polymorphisms or SMPs. We can take a look at those. So I tell people all the time, yes, it's good you did your MTHFR test, but it doesn't tell us very much. That's because it's only one enzyme involves its entire sequence of enzyme functions. So if we don't know exactly what everything else is doing, we don't know if there's compensation. We don't know if it's sort of like a train wreck where it's getting worse down the line. So it's no way for us to know based on that one. We have to kind of look at as many as we can and then we can get a better sense. And I always tell people when it comes to genes, it can be, I don't look at it first ever, you know, because for a lot of people they kind of see it as diagnostic, but genes are not. They're just sort of indicators of risk. So that's good. But I don't take it as the end all be all, especially in the beginning. It's more something I do if we've done everything else and we're still kind of getting some weird areas, then that's something we look at. Sean (33:22.436) Um, I want to go back, uh, you brought up, was it bio energy testing or you had mentioned bio energy. What is that? I, I, I'm not familiar with that. Julia Britz (33:28.181) Mm -hmm. Julia Britz (33:33.429) So there's something I do called bio -energetic testing, and it's been around probably since maybe the 50s, I don't know. The type I use is created by Dr. Vo, who's a German physician. And I'm kind of like, y 'all, you know, he's like, we can't separate the body parts. We have to look at everything together. So he uses an ohmmeter. And an ohmmeter is, this is basically a giant ohmmeter, what I have. but it's looking at, it measures the amount of ohms in something, which is the amount of resistance. So it's kind of like what Royal Reif did too. So Royal Reif said, hey, we notice that certain frequencies when there's certain amounts of ohms, if you will, that's where we'll see certain disease states. So he kind of mapped it out based on the frequency. So Dr. Vo did something similar, but he combined it with acupuncture and homeopathy. So different energy theories to see if he could map it on the body. where different frequencies would be and what it would mean if they were not correct. So what we can do is have people, I can have people either hold different, they can hold the cathodes which are attached to the ohmmeter. And it will scan the body, much like a radio would. So when you're kind of tuning a radio and you're kind of going through it, you're gonna get to static, right? So imagine, if you will, that it's hitting static in the liver. Then we go, okay, there's a problem there. So it's a different way to look at the body. So a lot of people say, well, can we just test? Like, can we just look at what the liver enzymes are or testosterone? And we can't, because it's not quantitative testing. So quantitative means you can go to a lab and just say, I want to look at my iron right now and see what it is. This is it. So again, it's like kind of scanning and whatever area has the most static, that's the area it's going to focus on and say, this we got to address first, because this is the most severe thing. So it's not really up to me. or the client to kind of guide where we're going with it. It's just, we're gonna see whatever the innate intelligence of the body deems to be the biggest problem. That information goes back to a computer and then we can read that together and get a sense of, okay, like what do we think's going on? And that's, so it's another way we can get information on how someone's doing. Sean (35:47.044) So it's a tool to identify an area that may be struggling or suffering at that moment. Okay, got it. Yeah, so this is fascinating because I love that stuff too. Yeah, well, I mean, we're talking more about traditional Eastern medicine. It's like your chi has to be flowing at all times. And if it's blocked in a certain area, then you need to remove that blockage. Julia Britz (35:53.077) correct. Julia Britz (35:58.997) It's the coolest thing. Sean (36:14.884) Yeah, and it seems like a lot of lack of a better word. Well, there's some modern quantum physics kind of supports a lot of this, like we are all energy. Like even when you get an MRI, right? That's like magnetic resonance imaging, right? That's kind of using like we are all energy and frequency and frequency. So if the body is out of balance and the body is at dis -ease, that can be observed energetically. Julia Britz (36:42.645) Yes, which is amazing because you're right, like we are energy, we're frequency, and we have like vitality. So if something's wrong, like we may not know where that is, you know? And so I get a lot of people that they would say like, hey, I'm really complex and they've got a stack of medical history like that. That's when I'm like, let's not do any more labs, you've done them all. Especially if those other people that are like, hey, I've done all the labs, everything looks normal. Okay, so your body is compensating really well. but we're only looking at the end result. So we need to look at something else, something a little bit more, something just different, which I love, because recently I had a patient, she had really bad OCD, and she said, I don't understand, because I've tried supplements, I've tried all that kind of stuff in therapy, nothing's touching it. So anyways, I ran her, and it looked like her cerebral spinal fluid was not flowing very well to her brain. So I said, look, this looks to me like you need a chiropractic adjustment. I need you to go in and ask for C1 adjustment. That's what I want. Like just the one right up in your skull. Like just have them gently move that. And then we're going to do some lymphagogic herbs just to get them to help drain things. And that for her, that's what helped. So it's again, it's kind of like what I said before when I'm like, there's a jillion causes because we don't know what's gonna kind of make the body get all upset. And I can never always predict it, but that's why I like this tool so much, because we can just see things a little differently. Sean (38:15.844) Yeah. I mean, you, in a lot of ways, you really just become humbled by maybe what we don't know. Like maybe just human consciousness and human intelligence just has not fully evolved yet to the point where we understand optimal health. Or to go back to Dr. Leland Stillman, the intelligence has always be there has always been there. We're just have to keep going back to history to relearn the things that we've lost along the way. Well, Julie, you mentioned this idea of innate intelligence and I'm being exposed to that word a lot more. I mean, you can use a lot of different words to describe innate intelligence. It could be Christ consciousness, could be God, could be the universe. You know, that's kind of the same word to describe the same thing. And when you, when you get exposed to these, these words, these names, these concepts, the idea that we are ultimately designed to heal, but we live in a sick world with a sick mind. So how do you integrate the idea of the mind? Because the mind is its own entity, right? Like the soul, the mind, those kinds of concepts in healing and wellbeing. Julia Britz (39:33.461) I have no idea if this is what you're asking, but this is where my mind says to go. I, for a long time, so I struggled with alcoholism for a while, and you know, which for me, was probably trying to regulate my blood sugar, because that gets to your brain real quick. But I remember going to AA and getting really angry, because I think seven of the 12 steps mention God, and I was like, no! You know, and because to me, you know, I was just prioritizing alcohol so much. that I had no ability to experience what that felt like, in terms of my own innate intelligence or higher power or whatever, like you said, whatever word. And then I kind of noticed that, fast forward now, that when people do tell me those things, like I feel disconnected from myself, I feel like my brain's trying to beat me up, I feel like my body's not my home anymore. Like when I hear those things, that just tell me there's some kind of disconnect where the person just feels like they have to escape in some way because it's too unsafe to be here. That's where I'm like, okay, how do we bring the connection back? Because we can't just heal just the mind or just the brain or just the body. We have to do it all together. It's a huge reason why everyone I patients, they leave usually when I do my resins with an affirmation. We gotta do something to help. create that because a lot of people will tell me like I'm not safe in my body. Okay, then let's try. It's safe to be safe. Let's try that first. Because some people can't say I'm safe, like it's just too triggering, you know. So we have to kind of remind people what it's like to come back. And I think that was probably the squirreliest answer ever. But Sean (41:19.908) Yeah, because I think about what is the role then of like meditation and mindfulness. If the mind itself can create threat, it can create fear, stress, then lead you to, you know, your brain to release cortisol and stress related hormones that affect your immune system and so forth. Then how do we integrate the mind into the body? Like what, what strategies, what interventions are kind of considered? within a naturopathic model for managing stress in that way. Julia Britz (41:55.253) I go very, very gently. So sort of like with anxiety, people feel like, oh, I'm anxious. I have to feel better quickly because anxiety feels fast. But it's the opposite. You have to go slow. So I find that's true as well. When someone has this like overwhelming, you know, limbic inflammation, which I'm convinced that's where suicidal ideation comes from. Like when the body feels so under threat and the limbic system can't, cause really that's the scent, there's a little portion of the brain back there. where we can feel hope and the more inflamed it gets, the less hope we feel. And that's really the extension of what suicidal thinking is. So that's why I think we see so many people struggling with this, like, it's not my voice, it's not my voice telling me to do these awful things. It's because I think it's the brain inflammation. So meditation, even though I love it, I find it can be so triggering for a lot of people because that quietness can kind of... leave too much room in the brain for people to have too many thoughts or dissociate, especially if they're constantly trying to fill the void. So it can be a little too much for a lot of people, especially if they do have that limbic overload because it feels unsafe to rest. So what I, and same with supplements, if we go too hard with the relaxing supplements, they feel, they'll just probably have a panic attack. So I like to go really, really, really slowly. And so mindfulness practices, I do think they're a little bit gentler. So we start there first, just getting people a sense of being in the moment slowly. And then I do love yoga, if people can handle that. It's a little more grounded than meditation. Because a lot of people, especially if they're not eating or if that component's there, they're already kind of floaty, you know? Not super grounded. So I don't like people to float off more. So I like people to come back down. So exercise, I do think, is probably the best thing ever. Especially, we do see that more dopamine gets released with the bigger muscle movements, so squats. So I'm very specific with the kind of exercise I have people do, especially if they're like, oh, I get dizzy, I'm more prone to feeling anxious when I'm dizzy. Okay, we're gonna do certain brain exercises to make sure that you can work on your balance. That should help a little bit. So in short, it does depend on the person, and I do like to go as gently as possible because like, Julia Britz (44:13.333) If most people are experiencing that somewhat of a trauma thing come up for them, it's too scary. So I have to go very carefully, very, very carefully. At least that's my experience. Sean (44:24.388) Yeah, and fits with dialectical behavior therapy, for instance, which is a treatment for those who are experiencing fairly severe mood dysregulation that can lend itself into many different problems. Marshall Linehan, who was a developer of the treatment, introduced mindfulness as a core component for a foundation for developing skills to regulate mood and tolerate distress because her findings were very similar to what you just said, Dr. Britz. was that people with severe mood dysregulation, potentially trauma -based histories and might have PTSD related symptoms have a very difficult time tolerating that experience of introduction to meditation. But mindfulness is that initial step into learning how to kind of ground yourself and become more connected in the present moment. Because an overactive mind obviously can, you know, really play a number on your ability to be able to feel at peace. and to feel some sense of calm. And then obviously that's going to impact your ability to sleep and a number of other things. You can see why people turn to substances, food, cutting, uh, as a way of just trying to calm the body down, even if it's for a temporary period of time. So like when, you know, we treat non suicidal self injury, I mean, what's the reason why people cut themselves or burn themselves to feel better? Like, cause internally they feel so dysregulated and that pain in that moment. everything that happens within that pain from a distraction from what's going on internally to probably releasing, you know, various opioids or things that you're released in your brain, you know, you at least get a moment of like, sense of relief from the pain that they're experiencing. So yeah, I think one of the things that you're, you're definitely advocating for is a much more holistic understanding of the mind body connection. from the lifestyle we live to the food that we're eating to the inner workings of the mind, to what we're exposed to in our culture, to one's learning history, to what we don't even really fully understand yet, and that we are all beings of energy with potentially like a divine consciousness that we can tap into towards healing. And so I think for a lot of people who have been raised in the United States between Sean (46:47.492) the years of 1970 and 2024, you know, we're not really taught culturally to think about health with any of these, you know, any of these kind of paradigms. We're thought to think about health as I go to the doctor, the doctor labels me with something and he sends me home with a pill. Even if that pill is not really effective, we search for it, like we want it. Like how many people go to the doctors with a cold and they just want the sinus infection so they can you know, go with an antibiotic, right? It's like the idea that I have to give myself a pill, something external to fix what is internally broken within me. It's very hard for people to get outside of that mindset. Julia Britz (47:30.261) Hmm. Sean (47:31.652) Yeah, I would say that's probably more our generation, even the generation before us. I think those, um, those family practice doctors didn't take that approach of just giving a pill. Like I think of that movie doc Hollywood when he gave him a Coca -Cola, you know, for the kid that had like indigestion, like that was the approach back then was like, you don't do an intervention unless you truly know what the issue is. And then you're treating that problem. Um, Dr. Pritz, I'm kind of curious and I want to throw this out to you. So if you suspect like inflammation in the limbic system and. pointed towards the front of your of your head. What would your approach be in that situation? Do you go diet first or are there certain tests that you look at? Julia Britz (48:11.669) typically do by resonance. And the reason being is that there's so many different things that are quote unquote good for the limbic system. But I find that there's so many phases. So what happens is that when somebody goes through trauma or stress, there's going to be a little bit of over or like a hyperactivity in the limbic system. And it's just a way for your brain to deal with the threat response. That's what's supposed to happen. But the more stress response you deal with, the more your brain will stop prioritizing memory formation. And so what happens is that people will start to notice that they've been in that stress for too long. They're like, oh, I feel like I got brain fog and I'm stressed and I don't know why. But that's like after the trauma part of it. And that can last for a really long time. And that's when the limbic system starts to sort of crash. And now it's not working at all. And it's hard to get it back on. So we don't want to over -stimulate it. We don't want to leave it where it is. So we have to gently encourage the sense of safety. So that's where we'll do some positive affirmation work. And... you know, try to portulize sleep, whatever we need to make that happen. But it will do by resonance to see, hey, do we need to add any supplements here? Can the brain handle it right now? And if I'm doing labs, I'd probably do an amino acid plasma test. And that test, oh my God, it's a great test. I learned how to read that through a lot of Eric Braverman's work, but I'm not kidding. I probably spent two years. really looking at labs trying to read that correctly because there's so many different ratios on there about what it can mean and look like. So, but that can be helpful to see if the brain thinks there's still a concussion. I see that all the time, you know, where they're like, no, no, no, I had a concussion three years ago. Like, well, your body still thinks it's happening. So, till we fix that, you know, you're still gonna have some of these symptoms. Sean (49:52.836) Mmm. Sean (49:59.012) No, go ahead, Raj. Julie, it's only recently that I, during the evaluation process, I've asked my clients to pull out their phone and tell me their average screen time. And what I've been observing is anywhere between eight to 10 hours, generally, sometimes eight to 12 hours. What role do you think this is playing in people's health? And is this in any way examined in your practice? Julia Britz (50:25.365) I think it's directly related to the increase we're seeing in ADHD diagnosis. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why that diagnosis is climbing, but there's been some research pointing to increased screen time related to more dental caries, overexposure to pornography or early exposure to pornography, increased exposure to online bullying, blood sugar dysregulation, because you don't lose focus on when you're really hungry, kind of minds eating a little bit. So we're seeing some problems come with it. I've been studying hard to see, there's just very little information out there on social media and mental health. They've done a really good job making sure those studies aren't happening, but there's a lot of research on screen time. And there are some good studies that show that if we get at least 15 minutes outside, then we can reduce our attention deficit situation as well as the anxiety. So they did a study with, it wasn't that huge, it was like 49 people, and they just had the parents do a puzzle with their kids for about 10 minutes just to create like a baseline of activity prior to the walk. Then they would have their kids go on a 15 minute walk, and they all reported significant reduction in attention, hyperactivity, anxiety, and there was another, I forget what the other one was, but that was sort of the magic number, was if you can get outside for at least 15 minutes. And they did encourage people to go to somewhere green, like a park, or to see trees of some kind, just the color was really important. But I do love that, and I always encourage our patients to do that, green time over screen time, if you can. And if you are going for a walk, transferring your phone with you is a big one. Because you are so right, like it's, I think the phone is one of those things where even I feel bad because I use it all the time. You know, I do, like I'm using GPS and I'm on social media because that's a huge way I meet people business -wise, but I feel bad. I can tell it affects my mental health. And I'm like, I'm an adult. Like, I see little kids that are glued to the phone. And it's a big deal. I had a patient who was 11. He was on two different psychiatric medications. And the parents had told me they had to... Julia Britz (52:43.829) turn off all internet in the house because even when they took his phone away, he was still getting other phones to get on and experiencing self harm because he was getting bullied online. So, you know, we did interventions immediately to deal with the suicidal thinking. So I did different supplements for that just to calm him down really fast. And then at the same time, you know, I was like, just keep going with what you're doing with eliminating the social media and screen time. And then we worked on diet stuff and it's like, you... you have to get him a counselor, like has to do therapy as well. I like both. And now he's doing it two years later, he's doing phenomenal. He's doing great. You know, he's not dealing with any of those issues at all anymore. No more self harming, happy kid, doing fine. But it is absolutely a drug and you will see that when you take your phone away from a kid who's addicted to it, like they will act like they're on withdrawal. So there's no denying that this is absolutely horrific for mental health. Sean (53:32.772) Yeah. Yes. Sean (53:39.908) Yeah, I mean, I knew we were going to run into problems when I started seeing, you know, toddlers pacified with a iPad, you know, even when my kids were young, um, you just knew that that was going to impact their attentional processes and their ability to self -regulate. And what we're seeing right now is absolutely horrific. It is, has all the addictive qualities of, of a drug, right? As soon as you try to. work with parents to try to limit screen time, like not even taking it away, just limiting it. You see tantrums and you see violent behavior. By the time they're a teenager, the police have been called. I mean, that's another conversation. Like what local authorities, like police now have to go to people's homes because teenagers are violent at the idea that their phone is going to be taken away because it is their social life line for one. And they're just so addicted to everything that comes on. And we don't talk enough about what that is. We see, again, this was our conversation earlier about rising rates of stimulant use. I mean, we're prescribing stimulants for this type of behavior. It's absolutely insane. I was, um, go ahead, Dr. Brits. No, you please go. Julia Britz (54:46.037) Yeah, it's, yeah, go ahead, sorry. No, you go. Okay. Yeah, it's tough because I don't have children. So I want to be very careful when I talk about it because I don't want to ignore how challenging this is and the fact that we can't eliminate this problem because even if you take the phone away from a kid, they're going to have access to their friends' phones. They're going to have access to schools that are also encouraging them to get on their iPad or... Like I, for example, didn't have Facebook or any of that, but in med school it was a requirement as one of my classes because that was how we were sharing communication for certain group meetups. So it's absolutely encouraged. And so it's hard to be the parent saying no when everyone else in the world is saying yes. And so it's really, really hard. And so I tell a lot of parents, like, if you're going to work on this, I see you have to replace it with nature. It is the best way to do it. Like take the phone away. and go on a camping trip. And I know that sounds weird, but that will work because you've got to get everyone away from it where there's no option to get it out of the cupboard. Like it just has to be gone. And there has to be the sense of there's nothing else we can do besides be here, you know, and take away all the other stimulants that make it worse. Like lights that affect the circadian rhythm and TV that affects our circadian rhythm. And a lot of, a lot of parents will tell me like the first two days were terrible. And then after that, It gets better. It does get better. Kids will learn to like nature if they're in it enough. Sean (56:18.5) make sense. And I was listening to, I was catching up on some podcasts this weekend while I was getting some things done around the house and M Night Shyamalan was speaking to Malcolm Gladwell about a movie that never got made. And he was calling it a period piece set in the mid 1990s, like 1994 95, which now is 30 years. And he said, it's a time where we'll never get to experience again, the way that Before the internet before information would be shared if something were to happen the way it would spread Across the United States in a very slow way that would get people excited About what was happening and I think his story was around a man who was trying to prove to his wife that he loved her after she passed away by walking across the United States and then people become aware that he's walking across the United States for that reason and that Information grows and people get excited about it nowadays something like that would happen and everybody would know about it immediately and for about 24 hours be interested in it and then it would go away and move on to the next distraction. But it's so important to take those damn phones out of the kids hands and go outside. And I see a noticeable difference in my son. And I think he wants to be outside more. The only thing that's preventing him from going outside are parents who are saying, hold on, I need to do this first. Hold on, I need to do that first. We need to get dinner ready. you need to clean this up first. We put all these barriers on our children from going to do the things that we want them to be doing. Yeah. I feel like you and I have a unique perspective because that was our time period growing up. Like, I remember my high school graduation was the night of the OJ car chase. Oh, I remember that night. Yeah. And so nobody knew anything about it. I was at a party that night. Nobody knew anything about it because we were in this, you know, Julia Britz (58:00.757) Oh my gosh! Sean (58:09.38) at in the football stadium and the stands and everything that goes on with your high school graduation. And I think I stopped at home before I went out to some graduation parties that night. And everyone's glued to the television like our grandparents were there from California and white Ford Bronco and they're just watching the white Ford Bronco like everyone's just glued. And that's what you get from that. And you go off into your party and you kind of read about in the news the next day. But nowadays everyone would be distracted into that phone to follow every moment. You go on the Twitter then and you say, Oh, what people are talking about it. And you scroll to this and everyone would be in here focused in that screen. It was a shared experience before. Now it's an individual experience. Good point. Yeah. And we saw this transition. It wasn't until when I was in college where, you know, you'd start getting a, uh, like a little flip phone. Julia Britz (58:50.773) Mm -hmm. Such a good point. Sean (59:02.5) that you couldn't use as a computer. It was just like for your phone or you'd have to get on email. And I remember just like pushing that stuff off as long as I can until I had to be on email until I had to get a cell phone. And I feel like it's just ruined our health and ruined our society, you know, to such an extent that it's almost you're measurable at this point. Like we can't really quantify it. And now like we're all trying to figure out why are we all so sick, right? And there's like, you have all these conversations all the time. Julia, we've had so many people come on here and they share their perspectives about why we're sick and why we're ill. And it's just a multitude of factors, right? You can't just highlight one thing. So if it's inflammation, well, why is there inflammation? Isn't that the presence of something that's a disease state underneath it? Isn't inflammation like a natural body's response to some form of toxin? Is it in the food that we're eating? What happens to our brains when we're consumed by social media? How does that affect our attentional processes? How does that affect our mood, the foods that we're eating? So I'm going to ask you a question I ask everyone, because I'm pretty much obsessed about this topic. And I tend to get a lot of different answers depending on the person's background in training and even their own upbringing and their own belief systems. But I kind of push this narrative around optimal diet and nutrition often based on what I think I know. but I can't say that it's right for every single person because we all have our unique genetic makeups and our own, you know, our own backgrounds and where our ancestors evolved from and what was available to them. So I do think like our ancestors really do influence maybe what the optimal diet is for each individual, but do you believe that there's an optimal human diet? And if so, like what is missing in our modern agriculture, our modern way of eating that is creating psychiatric symptoms. Julia Britz (01:00:58.741) Well, oh, such a good, okay, I guess in a way, I do think that there's elements of a diet that's optimal for everybody, but I don't believe in one diet for everyone. And the reason is because the diet I would put somebody on who's tapering a psych med is not the diet I would put a mother on who just gave birth, which is not the diet I would put a toddler on or a man on trying to build up his testosterone or someone who's dealing with a major burn. So I think of nutrition as more, of a way to facilitate your health goals depending on what they are at the time. And I think we can all go back to our baseline nutrition, which is gonna be anti -inflammatory. I think sugar should not be in any diet. Most of the time it's not a good thing. I do think that there's a genetic part of that. For example, like I am mostly European, like German, English. Like I don't do well on a vegan vegetarian diet, but my ancestor didn't eat that stuff. They eat a lot of meat. So for me, I do kind of feel like that resonates and I have noticed a lot of my patients as well when I ask them, like, okay, what did your parents and their parents and their parents eat? We do see like if there's a huge deviation, sometimes there's health issues with that. I have seen more often than not, and I hate to say this, but it's without my opinion and the matters just what I see, the vegan diet is challenging for mental health. I see, and there's a little research on that showing that we do see more anxiety, depression, almost twice the number of psychotic episodes on a vegan diet. So that one is really, really tricky. And that's because again, if the brain's starving and then we switch over to a low protein diet and more fiber moving things, and there's just certain things you can't get out of the vegan diet, which that's a hard thing because I know there's a lot of people that feel strongly ethically about that. You know, and that's the hard part, right? Because nutrition is not just this mechanical thing that like, oh, if I eat this, then this will happen. Because we also have to respect someone's spirituality and their cultural beliefs and their mental health regarding what they eat. Because even if it's the best thing in the world for them to eat something a certain way, if it doesn't align with their cultural beliefs, that may not actually be the best diet, even though it's good for them physically. Julia Britz (01:03:20.533) So we have to find a way to eat that respects all of those different layers for that person to feel like they can get more nourishment, not just nutrition. Sean (01:03:30.98) Yeah, the struggle that I have is that some young people who, you know, struggle with an eating disorder will transition into a vegetarian diet or a vegan diet as a way of restricting calories. And I find it near impossible for them to restore their health eating that way. I mean, first of all, I don't think you can get enough calories, but you're not getting enough saturated fat, you're not getting enough protein. It's just so problematic. There's nutrient deficiencies. So like my belief system, I'm just clear to say this with parents, if it's a young, if it's like a teenager who's struggling with anorexia is that the diet really matters in being able to restore their health or you're going to be stuck in the same symptoms. And yeah, I can respect that people may have ethical approaches to like what they choose to eat. And everyone does have their own right to live in the way that you want to, but we can also then be clear about like, All right, here's what you can expect by living that way. My challenge is always with minors. So where does a minor who is sick with an eating disorder, nutritionally deprived, underweight, and is dying, they're literally dying unless we reverse course, when do they get to make the decision? Who gets to make the decision on what they're going to consume? You know, eventually they just end up in a hospital because you're not going to be able to... to live that way. So I think we do have to be open and honest about the nutrient deficiencies and all the challenges with vegan and vegetarian diets. And as much as I can respect people's own rights ethically around animals, I mean, we're animal lovers here and being able to treat them in a way that's respectful, as humanely as possible with regenerative farming practices is optimal, of course. Um, so like two things can exist at the same time, but we have to be aware of like, what is going to happen to the brain and the body when someone is missing out on those key nutrients. Julia Britz (01:05:31.637) right because you know ultimately we can't get carnitine enough, we don't get enough omega -3s, we don't get enough taurine on the vegan diet. At the same time, eating a solely meat -based diet you're not going to get enough fiber. So you know I think going from one side of the other if it's slightly more specific or restrictive like we're going to miss out on certain things you get from a more broad diet. And ultimately too I like to ask people why? just so I can learn more and see if that's an area we can get more on the same page about because, for example, zinc deficiency looks a lot like anorexia nervosa, because you need zinc to make enzymes to break down meat. And so you'll see people with zinc deficiency say, I just can't eat meat, just gross, because their body doesn't want it, because they can't break it down. We see loss of sense of smell, we see more anxiety, we see depression, weak nails. All that is very common with both conditions. So sometimes if there is that aversion to me, you know, we need to look at, okay, maybe their body can't digest it and it's a healthy mechanism to say, I don't want that versus, you know, more like a, you know, cognitive discussion. So we do, I do like to look for that as well. Sean (01:06:46.724) Yeah, that's fascinating. I haven't heard that a zinc deficiency could lead to like an aversion to meat, but I have some cases that are very difficult to restore their health because of anorexia that have a strong aversion to me. Like they're open to eating it. Like they've put aside their own kind of beliefs and they care about their health. They want to get better. They're adults and they just struggle to even just keep it down because they just have such an aversion. And I don't know if that's ever been assessed or evaluated. Do you have any other nuggets like that? I love fascinating connections of what could be contributing to other issues. Aside from saying, what about like magnesium? We all know magnesium deficiency is a problem. How could that manifest even further? Julia Britz (01:07:28.277) I do too. Julia Britz (01:07:35.029) Well, if it's a child, you know, we might see things like night terrors or we might see, you know, bad dreams or more of the parasomnias because the body can't relax enough. Whereas in adult, we might see something a little different where it's more just like tight muscles and maybe some anxiety. And I think it can because involved in hundreds of functions, it can look so many different ways. But. Magnesium, I believe, is number three on the common most deficiencies that we see for minerals. Number one is iron, number two is zinc. And so we're more actually mineral deficient as a culture than we are vitamin deficient, which I think is a huge reason why we're all struggling, because you don't get enough minerals, it's hard to regulate heart functions. The people that are more sensitive and they feel like more flutters or palpitations when they're anxious, you know, or they're they're headachy, they can't sleep. That to me is more of a mineral issue. So that's definitely an area that I like to look at. And magnesium is a huge one. People always ask, what's the best kind and that sort of thing. But ultimately, magnesium is magnesium. Just get it in. Some are slightly different in what they're going to do. And some people are sensitive to certain forms of it. And some people also just can't digest it a lot. So one thing I like is I love magnesium cream because it doesn't itch the way that magnesium oil does. because the chloride gets real itchy. But the magnesium creams are so great because then you can still get some of that magnesium without having to irritate your gut if you can't handle it that way. Sean (01:09:08.068) Yeah, our depleted soil is really has a, you know, impact on our health. Cause even our vegetables that we used to get packed with minerals because of our depleted soils. I mean, it's, it's really led to this mineral depletion that exists. That's another thing about the vegetarian diet, right? Like just eating a lot of vegetables and it's so much pushed in our society, fruits and vegetables, fruits and vegetables. But we don't look about how the content of nutrients and minerals have. declined dramatically each decade because of our depleted soil from industrial agriculture. Dr. Britz, I was started taking magnesium. I put it in my smoothie, but I do the powdered form like magnesium glycinate. I believe it is and in terms of the body's ability to actually absorb that I'm always curious about with supplements how beneficial it is versus trying to get it in some type of whole food form. What are your thoughts? Julia Britz (01:09:46.037) Yeah. Julia Britz (01:10:07.797) Whole Foods is better, like supplements are definitely meant to supplement. So for example, I do find, like one of the trends right now was banana PLT. Like a lot of my patients saw that on social media and they're like, does it help? And there is, yeah, it is. I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna try, so I tried it. You know, I tried it and it did help me sleep. I was like, okay, why has this helped me sleep? So. Sean (01:10:22.372) Is that a tick tock joke? Is it a real thing? Julia Britz (01:10:33.269) Researching what's in a banana peel. I found a few studies on banana peel because other cultures use them more than we do So I was like, okay and what's interesting about it is that it does have a lot of the neurotransmitter supportive? Aminos that you would need to sleep like serotonin stuff and tyrosine and all that good delicious stuff But in very low amounts, but it feels stronger in a food -based Submitted fuel because all the the co -factors are in there to help you absorb it. So The moral of the story is if we can get it in food, even if it's a smaller amount, it will probably feel a little bit more pronounced. With that being said, I absolutely love supplements. I use them all the time. I take like 20 in the morning and 20 in the night. I use a lot. But I do find that for a lot of people, it depends on absorption. So like for example, you can't absorb minerals without acid. So if your stomach acid production is low, because you're so stressed out, you can't make acids, then you're not going to absorb the minerals. Also, fat soluble vitamins have to break down the fat to get the fat soluble vitamins out. So we need enzymes for that. So we don't have acid. We can't stimulate enzyme production, which means our blood sugar is going to do this, cortisol is going to do this, and your doctor is going to be like, why are you stressed? And then you might find someone's like, oh, your cortisol is high. It's working on the cortisol. It's not the cortisol. It's your acid. So if we can work on the root cause, then everything else falls after that. So yeah. Sean (01:11:59.364) Julie, this gets me thinking about child psychiatry. Because as we start talking about the complexity of human behavior, right? All the different factors that could lead to somebody struggling with their behavior or their emotions. I mean, we addressed a lot of them from diet to trauma to screen time addiction and everything that's happened culturally to exposure to toxins and so forth. Is there anyone more dangerous today in the American healthcare system? than a child psychiatrist because they're not going to do any of that investigation. And instead they're going to write a prescription for a made up disease to families. And it's going to be toxic on a developing brain with the worst of consequences. Should they all just be, I mean, part of me thinks that in a just society, many of them should be in jail right now. Am I extreme on this thinking? Julia Britz (01:12:53.877) I don't think so. I mean, it's hard because I want to empathize with the fact that most doctors I truly believe are very good people and really want to help. And at the same time, it doesn't excuse someone not doing critical thinking and really questioning what they're doing. And giving a psychotropic medication to a preschooler, is the most insane thing I've ever heard, you know? And it's all off label, which is crazy to me. And to me, it's not that a child is like, ooh, an early developing psychopath, you know, or a child that has early onset, whatever. Sure, maybe. But our food is more deficient than it's ever been. And so let's just say we've got a little girl, for example, and, you know, she's just not eating quite enough. She's stressed out at home from normal things, like she's got social anxiety at school. So maybe... She's got worse anxiety because she just has low B6 and low magnesium. But goes to see a psychiatrist. They put her on like a low dose benzo, which could happen. And all of a sudden she feels better because now she has this nice GAVA stuff flooding around and she feels pretty good. But now she can't remember anything because she's having blackouts because it is basically alcohol and a pill. And then once they decide to take it, now the other problem with this drug is it's going to wipe out your magnesium B6. So it's gonna worsen the original problem, but you're not gonna know because you're just gonna think, I just need more of this benzo. That's the problem, I've developed tolerance. So then they take away the pill because they decide, you know what, you've been on it for a long time and maybe it's affecting your memory, let's get it out. But now she has this roaring magnesium B6 deficiency state, which is going to cause surprisingly all the same symptoms that benzo tapering can also show. So anxiety, insomnia, nightmares, muscle pain, heavy limbs, you name it. But that's still gonna go unrecognized. So then she's gonna go back on the, it's gonna be a lifelong problem with that, you know? And it can start so early. So imagine if little kids have these problems and it was something so simple, like just give the kid a multivitamin. Maybe that'll be fine. Sean (01:15:06.884) Yeah, it's absolutely fascinating to me that someone who is bright enough to get into medical school can abandon all critical thought and a lot of their medical training once you enter into the psychiatric cult. And that's exactly what it is at this point. It is, it is a cult because there's no science that supports it. And so when you don't have the science that support it and you abandon critical thinking and you just follow some dogma that is cult like. So a kid can come in and be hyperactive and have attentional problems. They're ADHD to them. Like that's it. They're ADHD and you're going to have to be on a stimulant for life. That's absolutely criminal behavior. It makes no reasonable or logical sense that you see only a behavior, a symptom and you make up a disorder for it. And so people think I'm crazy when I talk about the fact that there's no such thing as ADHD. There's a symptomatology around attentional deficits and hyperactivity that could have a multitude of causes. None of them are because you have ADHD. And I'll still to this day get so many DMs and comments about the legitimacy of ADHD. Just speak to a developmental psychiatrist and medical professional and they'll show you the outcomes of treating someone with ADHD to prevent long -term problems. What did you do to diagnose ADHD? Put them through a brain scan? I mean, what are the organic tests you're using? You're just saying they have attentional problems. Okay, yes. People have attentional problems. I agree with you. Kids can be hyperactive. I agree with you. That's not because of a disease. That's because of potentially a lot of problems, including poor parenting. You ever see a kid who has no discipline at home? Yeah. Every day. They'll meet every sign and symptom of ADHD. You know, but what's the real problem? And that's the concern I have for our, you know, allopathic medical system where they're all completely off the rails. I think it's worse now than ever because the system has transformed itself in a way that it is a fast food style. Like, I don't think it was this bad before the Affordable Care Act. I don't think it was this bad in the 80s, in the 90s. I think you could go into your family doctor that's independent, that's not affiliated with a large hospital network, and you're not rushed out of there in eight minutes. Julia Britz (01:17:06.581) Yeah. Sean (01:17:31.748) And you are actually given the time to explore and someone is actually connected to you because they live in your community, and they're the local pediatrician. And so their connection to those families and the responsibility to those families is much greater. But the system we have now is you just got this cycle of new people coming in and out when you go into our medical system, and they're they're doing things really, really quickly. Can I I'm going to share something my experience? going to a medical doctor that's part of the hospital network. There was a process before where you would take notes and you would write up those notes and probably I would assume occasionally by writing those notes, you would think of something that maybe you didn't bring up when you were meeting with that client that you then can approach them and say, Hey, you know what? I'm sorry. I didn't think about this, but what's going on here, here in there. Now, when you go in, they're actually recording and those recordings are transcribing those notes for them so they don't have to do it. Yeah. So it's automatically going into the system. It's so profit driven. It is. And that's so, it could be eight minutes instead of 30 minutes with each individual family. And that's a shame because then you're missing out on those opportunities for those unforeseen moments of learning and recognition that something was overlooked and there's an opportunity to make an improvement. And here's how the system is rigged, right? You'll spend all this money on health insurance for your family for a year, right? That funnels you into that system. that is covered by those doctors. And if you wanted to really get health care, and you wanted to visit someone like Julia or any type of doctor that might be more functional and investigative and actually consider the fact that your symptoms have an underlying root cause to them, you're gonna have to pay out of pocket for the most part from what I understand Julia, right? Like these, these commercial insurance companies are not paying for this type of work. Am I right? Julia Britz (01:19:28.949) Oh, absolutely. I think Washington and these can take insurance. But no, most states don't for an act of private care. And I mean, it's such a confusing issue because part of me is like, oh, I want more people to have access. Like that's the dream. At the same time, I can't think of anything I'd rather do less than network with an insurance company. Like it sounds like the literally worst thing ever. Sean (01:19:51.876) Yeah agreed Sean (01:19:57.924) Now that's a topic. Julia Britz (01:19:58.005) And you know, it's kind of what you were saying too about ADHD, it drives me crazy because I've heard psychiatrists tell me like, well, you know, you don't have to worry about that. They can just take the meds when they're in school and then give them a summer break. I'm like, oh, let me get this straight. So they have a disease during school, but the disease goes away magically during summer. In Cambridge, they did a study in 2018, a six year study, and they were looking at two groups, like ADHD kids, ADHD kids. and one got a stimulant and one didn't. And then they watched them for a while and then followed them for six years. After the stimulant kids got off the medication, they went through the washout period. They found that there was literally no difference in their symptoms. So they found that actually just growing up helped resolve some of the symptoms, like just frankly time. And number two, like the med didn't do anything to cure it. So let's play it out. If it is a disease, you know, with a cause like, There's just no, it's the most ridiculous thing to me to give someone really what's G -rated math, you know, to help them study better in a classroom that looks identical to how it looked in 1950. Like, it's not reasonable to expect a kid to listen to someone talk for eight hours. I don't have ADHD and I can't do that. Sean (01:21:03.652) Yeah. Sean (01:21:08.9) Yeah. Sean (01:21:16.26) Yeah. I mean, you're being drugged. It's not medicine. You know, you are being drugged. And that drug would be effective for any of us, right? In the short term, you know, you and I start taking some Adderall, you know, we're going to have a nice little boost in focus, attention, maybe even elevated mood for a little bit. Doesn't mean we have ADHD. You know, and yeah, you look, you dive into the research, you find things like kids who had the same symptoms of someone who was diagnosed with ADHD, but didn't go on the stimulant, have better. educational outcomes perform better. Because the that ADHD drug is almost a gateway into the mental health system. Because there's a lot of side effects that mimic more psychiatric problems. And that's part of the industry, they'll give you a drug that's going to create a side effect that's going to lead them down the path to giving you another disorder. Because the drugs have so many adverse consequences with a person's mental health. So for for example, when someone takes Adderall, People don't know that it increases the likelihood that you're gonna be diagnosed depressed. You're going to become dependent on that drug. What happens when you become dependent on that drug? You're gonna need more and more of it to be able to experience the same kind of results. So you're gonna go into withdrawal apparently, right? At some point you're going to go into withdrawal, which you're gonna have anxiety and you're gonna have behavioral problems. And then that's going to be labeled in the mental health system and they're gonna give you another drug for that. It's just this endless cycle of poor care that creates misery. Julie, we've kept you a long time. So I did want to wrap it up. I always like to have some kind of takeaways when a guest like yourself comes on the podcast, like pillars of health, right? So if you were going to, you know, recommend certain ways of living in order to protect yourself from mental health problems down the line, like things that are just like necessary for you to incorporate in your lifestyle in order to live optimally and feel good. Like what would be those pillars for you? Julia Britz (01:23:12.853) For me, I live by a harm reduction model for sure. So I stay far away from perfectionism because it can make me obsessive and I'm already a very passionate person. And what is the difference really between passion and obsession? I don't know, but I would say for me, I definitely prioritize my sleep so I will always have a good quality mattress. Always, because that makes a humongous difference for me. I will probably always be on supplements because I don't... don't see our food situation getting better, I see it getting worse. So for me supplements will always be a big part of my life. And... Sean (01:23:50.66) Are there some supplements that you would recommend because we're just not going to get it in the American food system? Julia Britz (01:23:57.653) A multi -mineral, absolutely. And I mean, if you want the basics, I'd say multi -mineral, multi -vitamin, some kind of fat. Like whatever that fat is. It could be flaxseed oil, fish oil, algae oil. Doesn't matter, just like something, some good quality fat. I always encourage people to, whatever brand they're looking at, call the company and ask them what solvent they use to get the fat out of the plant or the fish or whatever it is. If they won't tell you, pick another brand. If they tell you hexine or benzene, pick another brand. So we want really clean, water soluble kind of solvent. It's gonna be better. We don't wanna add neurotoxins into our life. That's not good. So those would be the basics. And then in terms of nutrition, I will always have a low sugar diet. Sugar to me is poison. It's a neuro stimulant. It's inflammatory. It hijacks the cortisol system. There's literally nothing good about it. So I see it as a drug more than a food. Long conversation. to have like is it a food or drug it's absolutely a drug to me. So I would keep that out. I would let's see lastly I would say I will always try to make time for nature so I go on these big trips with my siblings every year and we get out do something pretty big like we go on a big we did the Black Forest last year in Germany did like a hike through there that's pretty amazing. So for me nature is always going to be huge and I live in a city right now. I live in Las Vegas. So there's concrete all around me. So it's a challenge to really find like a nice soft beach to walk on or a forest to walk. Those don't exist here. But I still go outside and because we have parks all over and I just do my best. And again, when I say harm reduction, I mean it's not about perfection or eliminating all possible risk. It's just doing the best we can. So for me that means some weeks I get a lot of nature and exercise and some weeks I don't. And I forgive myself and I move on and that actually is the last one Self -forgiveness is a big practice of mine and I think it's one of the most healing things I could ever do for myself No matter what I'm going through in life whether I get cancer one day or whether I you know have Obsessive symptoms come back. I will always strive to remember that I can practice forgiveness of myself and others Which I know it's a tricky topic for a lot of people, but I do love it. So Sean (01:26:18.436) Well said. Yeah, definitely well said. Before we close out here, how can people find you be exposed to your work if they're interested in working with you? Where can they go? Julia Britz (01:26:30.869) If they'd like to work with me one -on -one, then through my website, which is drjuliabritz .com, so D -R -J -U -L -A -B -R -I -T -Z .com. I'm pretty active on Instagram as well, and so that's Dr. Julia Britz, and you can DM me there if you'd like to. I have a blog on my website where I write about a lot of stuff that I get passionate about, like, akathisia is a big one I write about, or, you know, different tests that I think are stupid, or things like that. Sean (01:26:59.844) I'd like to have you come back another time to actually talk about how to support those who are tapering off their psychiatric drugs. That's something that I think, you know, people do need more information on and how a naturopathic doctor might be able to facilitate that process. Would you be willing to have a further discussion around that down the line? Julia Britz (01:27:21.877) Oh, always. I mean, I could talk about that forever. Sean (01:27:24.932) Great. Well, we really appreciate it. Fascinating conversation. This is the first time I've spoke with a naturopathic doctor. So I've learned a lot today. So Dr. Julie Britz, we want to thank you for a radically genuine conversation. Julia Britz (01:27:34.645) That's awesome. Julia Britz (01:27:40.533) Thank you.