How Our Gut-Brain Health Affects ADHD and How to Calm Inflammation
🌟 My new book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit, is available to preorder here 🌟
In this week's wisdom episode, I chat with Josh Dech, a holistic nutritionist and physician’s consultant, about the often-overlooked link between gut health and ADHD.
Josh shares his personal journey with ADHD and severe gut issues, and how healing his digestive system transformed not only his physical health, but also his focus, energy, and emotional wellbeing. With over 300 cases of Crohn’s and Colitis reversed under his belt, Josh brings a refreshing and hopeful perspective to ADHD management through lifestyle changes.
This episode is packed with practical tips and thought-provoking insights that empower you to take control of your gut - and in turn, your brain.
What You’ll Learn:
✨ How the gut-brain connection works through the vagus nerve and it's role in ADHD
✨ The role of the gut microbiome in focus, mood, and brain inflammation
✨ Josh’s personal and family experience with gut issues and understanding his body supported his healing
✨ The need for quicker research dissemination and the power of medicine and social media
✨ How current research on gut health is becoming mainstream through medicine and social media
✨ Practical tips to reduce brain inflammation, including sleep, stress management, routine, and exercise
Timestamps:
01:53 – What is the gut-brain connection?
07:05 – Josh’s journey of healing gut issues and ADHD
11:51 – How your gut impacts brain chemistry
14:34 - Understanding Sleep and Health Management
Tune in now if you’re curious about natural, practical ways to support your ADHD through gut health and daily wellbeing practices.
Find out more about Josh and his work via his website, gutsolution.ca or via Instagram.
Links and Resources:
⭐ Book on to the next ADHD Wellbeing Workshop about RSD (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria) Click here to book.
⭐ Perfectionism, Pressure, Procrastination, Productivity, and all the ADHD Ps in between! Workshop available to buy now on-demand. Click here to purchase.
⭐ If you love the podcast but want more ADHD support, get a sneak peek of my brand new book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit and pre-order it here!
Find all of Kate's popular online workshops and free resources here
Follow the podcast on Instagram
Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity.
Takeaways:
- Understanding the connection between gut health and ADHD can significantly impact symptom management.
- Managing gut health is crucial for ADHD individuals, as it can directly influence brain function.
- Simple lifestyle choices, like regular sleep schedules and dietary adjustments, can improve ADHD symptoms.
- The influence of environmental factors on neurodivergence emphasizes the importance of mindful living.
- Emphasizing a holistic approach to health can empower individuals with ADHD to reclaim their wellbeing.
- Awareness of the gut-brain connection is vital for addressing ADHD and overall mental health.
Transcript
Welcome to another episode of ADHD Women's Wellbeing Wisdom.
Speaker A:Little short, bite sized pieces of wisdom that I've curated from all the many, many episodes that have been recorded over this time, and I really hope that this short insight will help you on the week ahead.
Speaker A:So I wanted to share with you a really fascinating part of a conversation I had with Josh Deck.
Speaker A:Now, Josh is a holistic nutritionist and he's a physician's consultant specializing in Crohn's colitis and severe IBS.
Speaker A:And after reversing over 300 cases of Crohn's and colitis, which was previously impossible to fix, he's been connected to some of the world's most renowned doctors and has launched a massive podcast and been recruited to the Priority Health Academy as a medical lecturer, helping to educate doctors on the holistic approach to gut health and inflammatory bowel disease.
Speaker A:Now, I wanted to share with you this part of the conversation where we talk about the role of gut brain connection and where it originates in our bodies.
Speaker A:The interplay of the vagus nerve, which we talk about a lot in the different episodes with regards to regulating and calming our nervous system and our stress response and how the gut could be impacting our brain function and our ADHD symptoms.
Speaker A:And we also go into talking about sleep, managing stress and implementing these different routines to help improve both our gut health and the way our ADHD may show up.
Speaker A:So I really hope that you find this section of the interview fascinating and insightful and you get some practical tips on improving whether it's your gut health, your brain health and sleep.
Speaker A:And also just maybe make some tweaks to your lifestyle to help you manage those ADHD traits throughout your life.
Speaker A:Because as we know with adhd, these well being, daily lifestyle tweaks can make a really big difference.
Speaker B:So here it is, the gut brain connection.
Speaker B:It's actually on a few levels.
Speaker B:The first major connection is actually in utero in the womb.
Speaker B:Your gut and your brain tissue are actually of the same cells.
Speaker B:They bifurcate, meaning they split apart and then develop into two separate organ systems, the brain and the GI tract.
Speaker B:But they are actually they start from the same things before they split.
Speaker B:And so right from the very seeds, the roots of these organs, they're the same we actually have inside the brain.
Speaker B:There's billions and billions of neurons inside of the brain.
Speaker B:You have 4 to 500 million neurons inside of your GI tract that wire to your spine.
Speaker B:They directly connect to the brain through the vagus NER nerve and there's this Constant bidirectional feedback loop from the brain down to the gut and the gut back to the brain.
Speaker B:There's electrical signals, there's chemical signals, and up to 90% of your neurotransmitters, this is neurological messaging signals.
Speaker B:They're made inside of your digestive system.
Speaker B:And so if that factory, so to speak, isn't working properly or it's on fire, your gut's inflamed, you have all kinds of issues.
Speaker B:You're not gonna produce the same chemicals, the appropriate balance of chemicals, and that ends up turning the volume knob up on your ADHD symptoms.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's really fascinating.
Speaker A:I guess it's what we hear a lot about with epigenetics.
Speaker A:We have our default genes, and we have these genes.
Speaker A:But like you say, if we look after ourselves, our gut and our lifestyle, our stress levels, sleep, all of that, it can definitely impact how debilitating our ADHD can be.
Speaker A:But what I think is fascinating is what you're saying is that the gut brain connection and how, by looking at our gut health, we can see that direct impact on the way our ADHD symptoms show up in life.
Speaker A:I'd love to hear a little bit about your story, if that's okay.
Speaker B:I'd love to share that story.
Speaker B:And I think it's so powerful as a story because it shows, I think, the extremes your body can fall into if you're not careful.
Speaker B:So growing up, just give you a little background.
Speaker B:I got a family history of gut issues, so I was always told they're genetic.
Speaker B:And I want to preface this whole story with never take a diagnosis lying down.
Speaker B:Genetics are very malleable.
Speaker B:And so my mom had gut issues.
Speaker B:She actually ended up having several bowel surgeries.
Speaker B:My dad's had irritable bowel syndrome.
Speaker B:And as a teenager, early teens, I got diagnosed with IBS as well.
Speaker B:Now I've had.
Speaker B:I didn't actually realize I had adhd.
Speaker B:Looking back, I do.
Speaker B:We went through.
Speaker B:I got a full assessment from a psychologist who specializes in adhd, and I went through my whole history.
Speaker B:I didn't know till I was probably 27, 28 when I got married.
Speaker B:And my wife, she's like, something is off here, like, we should get this looked at.
Speaker B:And lo and behold, here I was.
Speaker B:And what ended up happening in my early 20s, I used to be a paramedic, and I saw the doctors all the time, like, yeah, just, you know, try to not stress so much.
Speaker B:Never talked about food, nutrition, gut health, ever.
Speaker B:And it finally hit a critical mass in my mid-20s, where I was, I'll tell you.
Speaker B:I mean, I was 15, bowel movements a day, my transit times, I would eat and I'm five, 10 minutes, I'm in the bathroom, I'm literally looking in the toilet.
Speaker B:There's whole undigested food.
Speaker B:It looks like I just threw it off the plate and scooped it into the bowl.
Speaker B:And so I was having severe GI upset.
Speaker B:I actually got to a point where I was severe enough to have blood and mucus in my stool as well.
Speaker B:And so my digestive system was completely a total train wreck.
Speaker B:My liver was junked up, everything.
Speaker B:My ADHD symptoms were so severe, I finally caved being, I won't say anti medication, but natural where I can.
Speaker B:I fell in and said, you know what, I'll take the Vyvanse and see what happens.
Speaker B:Very common ADHD drug.
Speaker B:It's basically pharmaceutical grade crystal meth.
Speaker B:I mean, I was zoomed in, dialed in.
Speaker B:I was irritable if I was working, if my wife came to tap me on the shoulder, I was snippy, I was jumpy.
Speaker B:It just wasn't a good place to be.
Speaker B:And it really did help manage my symptoms for about two, maybe three months.
Speaker B:But after I started developing an adaptation to this Vyvanse, I still had the gut issues.
Speaker B:I was still going through the same stuff.
Speaker B:But as my body began to adapt, I was up to something like 50, 60 milligrams.
Speaker B:And I think the max we allow in Canada is actually 75.
Speaker B:And so I was pushing that maximum dose and I started to wear to my system.
Speaker B:Instead of after 12 hours, it was like seven, eight hours and I started having these crashes.
Speaker B:I was emotionally erratic, I was irrational, I was sometimes a little bit paranoid.
Speaker B:I had bouts where I'd yell, I'd scream, surprised.
Speaker B:My wife is still here with me, honest to God, God bless her.
Speaker B:But I, I was, I was a complete train wreck.
Speaker B:I was having suicidal thoughts.
Speaker B:It was unbelievable.
Speaker B:Looking back, it's like watching a horror movie, like it wasn't me.
Speaker B:But my brain chemistry was such a disaster from my gut, compounded with the medications which messed my brain chemistry even more.
Speaker B:It just forced certain chemicals into your brain, like a headbutt.
Speaker B:There's so much looking back that had I know what I know now, we never would have gone through that patch in our lives and frankly in my marriage.
Speaker B:But it was all repairable where I'm at now.
Speaker B:Like I said, you'd never know I have ADHD unless you live with me.
Speaker B:And I occasionally leave a door open or forget Laundry in the washing machine, but that's it.
Speaker A:I mean, I want to preface that by saying, like, it's not a bad thing to have adhd.
Speaker A:It's not a bad thing to be neurodivergent.
Speaker A:But I guess it's the challenging symptoms, the very difficult, you know, what you were talking about then, like severe mental health problems and the hyper vigilance and the nervous system dysregulation, all of that.
Speaker A:Like, no one wants to live with that.
Speaker A:We could have the good parts of our ADHD and not all that, you know, that would be amazing.
Speaker A:But unfortunately what we see is that very often we get the very challenging part and the easier bits to deal with, all the fun bits like the imagination and the creativity, and then the resourcefulness pales in its significance because everything else is so hard to deal with.
Speaker A:I'm interested to know what then led you to getting that help, that.
Speaker A:That help, you know, how did you heal yourself?
Speaker A:And then how did it come from you healing yourself to helping other people heal?
Speaker B:It's really interesting.
Speaker B:I started reaching out.
Speaker B:I had friends of mine who I would talk to because I was.
Speaker B:I was a personal trainer at the time, my early 20s, mid-20s.
Speaker B:After I left paramedics, I changed careers.
Speaker B:And so I was in my mid-20s and I had some friends I was working with who were very up and up in the functional medic base, working as nutritionists.
Speaker B:So I started touching, basically, what if, what does this look like?
Speaker B:Started modifying some things in my diet and I watched my symptoms improve.
Speaker B:But it was, you know, 30%, 40% better.
Speaker B:And I was like, if I can get 40% better, why can't I get 100% better?
Speaker B:If there's this much latitude in my body's ability to heal from panic attacks and anxiety and everything I was dealing with, why not further?
Speaker B:So there was a fellow working at the gym at the time, and he's also been a trainer for a decade, but at this stage, he's a functional medicine specialist.
Speaker B:He's worked with some of the top doctors on planet Earth.
Speaker B:This dude, I've seen him walk circles around specialists.
Speaker B:He's unbelievable.
Speaker B:And so I sat down with him and I said, curtis, I need help.
Speaker B:I paid him for some sessions, some work together, and here I am in like a month.
Speaker B:My brain chemistry is already balanced.
Speaker B:Panic attacks are gone.
Speaker B:I was like, okay, like there's something to this, so teach me.
Speaker B:And I started doing mentorship with him.
Speaker B:I actually went back to school, became a nutritionist myself and holistic nutrition, started studying this stuff.
Speaker B:And I just started unpacking.
Speaker B:And frankly, the more I unpacked, the better my health got.
Speaker B:And then the easier it was for me to sit down and study.
Speaker B:I still hate reading a textbook.
Speaker B:I'd rather do audiobooks.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But the idea being that there's so much that my body was able to learn and to do.
Speaker B:And this was really the journey.
Speaker B:And thank God now Curtis and I actually work together and you know, we work together in this, in this company here.
Speaker B:So it's been a really impressive journey, I think, as far as a testament of what's possible.
Speaker B:But we had to look and say, what's going on in the gut, brain connection?
Speaker B:What's going on in my liver?
Speaker B:Your liver is not just a detox organ.
Speaker B:It actually metabolizes fats, produces cholesterol.
Speaker B:And what's really interesting, there's something that happens inside of our guts.
Speaker B:We have these microbiomes, about 100 trillion microbes.
Speaker B:In fact, we're born approximately 99% human, 1% microbe.
Speaker B:We die 90% microbes and only 10% human.
Speaker B:They outnumber us vastly.
Speaker B:And as microorganisms, just like you as a human being, you eat and poop, so do your microbes.
Speaker B:The question is, are they pooping out good things or bad things?
Speaker B:And my bacteria all over, like I had body odor, my skin, I had acne all over my back, my gut was a mess, bloating, diarrhea, the works.
Speaker B:My microbes were pooping out bad things because their inputs were bad.
Speaker B:If you eat bad food, you have bad output, so to speak.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:And our microbes do the same and they actually produce something we call LPS stand for lipopolysaccharide.
Speaker B:The short easy term is LPS or endotoxins, which just means inside toxin.
Speaker B:Your body, your liver actually produces excess cholesterol in an attempt to bind to and neutralize these toxins.
Speaker B:So my liver was an absolute mess.
Speaker B:My blood work was a mess, my brain was a mess.
Speaker B:That permeability in the gut, those toxins leak out and get to your brain.
Speaker B:Fixing all this reversed and repaired the damage.
Speaker B:I had to remove Candida took years.
Speaker B:Layers of parasites and gut dysfunction, lymphatic issues and some of.
Speaker B:I'm still working on some of it.
Speaker B:And then I could take it the step further, not only to fix the obvious critical like the house is on fire, but I could go in now and fine tune and really build my body and my brain into a way that I wanted it to be, to behave, to look and Now, I do have all the good parts with very few of the bad of adhd.
Speaker B:That's a bloody superpower.
Speaker A:That's amazing.
Speaker A:But there's a lot of people listening to this podcast and they're in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and they've dealt with gut health difficulties, whether it is colitis, whether it's ibs.
Speaker A:I mean, I.
Speaker A:I've had ibs.
Speaker A:It's interesting, isn't it, that we're only just learning, like you say, about the gut brain connection, that, oh, it's come to social media, like now it's filtered through to social media.
Speaker A:But why, why is it that it's taken so long to filter, filter down?
Speaker A:And I know that you lecture doctors and doctors are only just recognizing the connection between stress and gastrointestinal problems.
Speaker A:I just wondered what you're hearing, I guess, on the streets from the doctors.
Speaker B:Now, let me flash my street cred.
Speaker B:So here's the thing.
Speaker B:We've really only been studying the gut Microbiome for about 35 years, at least in North America.
Speaker B:Still to this day, there are GI specialists.
Speaker B:When my clients go in and talk about the gut microbiome, they go, oh, you believe in that nonsense?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So here's the thing.
Speaker B:There's a lot of ingrained education or lack thereof when a study comes out and research comes out.
Speaker B:Typically, I find the.
Speaker B:The natural community, believe it or not, is about 20, 25 years ahead of the allopathic Western community.
Speaker B:I grew up using homeopathic medicine and natural stuff.
Speaker B:And the things my doctor was telling me then, I like aluminum and antiperspirant, deodorant, bad for the brain, leads to Alzheimer's.
Speaker B:A study came out that popped off of social media like two years ago on this.
Speaker B: This was like: Speaker B:So we're 26 years ago at the time of this recording, 27 years.
Speaker B:So it's amazing how long it can take.
Speaker B:When a study comes out, the average is between 17 to 20 years from a study being done and research coming out and saying, now we have the information to actually disseminating down to doctors, who then have to relearn their ways of doing things, who then have to try to teach the patients.
Speaker B:And then word starts getting out and then social media trickles it down.
Speaker B:We're 30 years before it becomes common practice, if not more.
Speaker B:And then there's all the stragglers in between, sort of diluting the pool of information, saying, no, no, no, my doctor told me this.
Speaker B:Well, your doctor's got information that's 30 years out of date.
Speaker B:So we do see a fair bit of that.
Speaker B:That's why things take so long, frankly.
Speaker B:And it's really unfortunate.
Speaker B:And this is why we have to be like you.
Speaker B:What you're doing right now, I mean you, Kate, sit here and go, I am doing my best, I'm getting ahead, I'm being active.
Speaker B:And I love that because you have agency over your own health.
Speaker B:You are the only one.
Speaker B:Nobody cares about your health more than you do and frankly nobody cares about your kids health more than you do as a mother.
Speaker B:And so we have to look at this and understand that we have to take agency responsibility and oftentimes do our own research.
Speaker A:Yeah, I wondered what do you do kind of from a lifestyle perspective that is helping you sharpen your brain and reduce inflammation and, and all of that.
Speaker A:Like what have you introduced to your kind of like daily lifestyle?
Speaker B:Yeah, mine is fixing the gut dysfunction, the candida parasites.
Speaker B:That's a whole can of worms by itself.
Speaker B:Really basic stuff.
Speaker B:It really helps to be if you think of yourself as a professional athlete, but a professional sleeper and waker.
Speaker B:And by that I mean setting a bedtime, keeping it regular.
Speaker B:Now I was one of those people, I toss and turn, I'd wake up during the middle of the night because my gut was jacked up, my adrenals were messed up.
Speaker B:But blue light blocking glasses at nighttime, you know, my wife and I will love to sit down and watch the office or Frasier or something goofy before bed, but blue light blocking glasses, otherwise we're getting, we get on average about a hundred times more light at nighttime than we should.
Speaker B:And being indoor cats now rather than outdoor people, we tend to get a hundred times too little light during the day.
Speaker B:And our sleep wake cycle, that circadian rhythm we call it, is based on light intake and input and output.
Speaker B:And so if I'm getting too much light, I'm stimulating my brain, I'm not producing my melatonins to start putting me to sleep.
Speaker B:Start getting into some of those cycles.
Speaker B:Blue light blocking glasses, schedule your morning and your sorry, your wake up and your bedtime times.
Speaker B:I have alarms because still I got adhd, right?
Speaker B:I get into things, I get distracted and lose track of time.
Speaker B:I have an alarm.
Speaker B:9:30, boom.
Speaker B:Start getting ready for bed.
Speaker B:10:00, you should be in bed by now.
Speaker B:10:30, lights out, my alarms go off, okay?
Speaker B:And I just listen and that's what I do.
Speaker B:And it's a conscious choice constantly.
Speaker B:I've been doing this for a year and I still sometimes press snooze by instinct and I'm like, oh shit, it's 11 o' clock, I gotta go to bed.
Speaker B:But it's starting to build these structures and frameworks around your life.
Speaker B:You should see my desk.
Speaker B:I have an adhd.
Speaker B:I'm covered in sticky notes and all kinds of stuff for reminders, and that's just what works for me.
Speaker B:And so those are the little things, but the biggest thing I can do, sleep, stress management.
Speaker B:Oh, God.
Speaker B:Exercise is huge for balancing your brain chemistry.
Speaker A:So I hope you enjoyed listening to this shorter episode of the ADHD Women's Wellbeing podcast.
Speaker A:I've called it the ADHD Women's well Being Wisdom.
Speaker A:Because I believe there's so much wisdom in the guests that I have on and their insights.
Speaker A:So sometimes we just need that little bit of a reminder.
Speaker A:And I hope that has helped you today and look forward to seeing you back on the brand new episode on Thursday.
Speaker A:Have a good rest of your week.
