Adapted from episode 87 of The Perfect Stool podcast and edited for readability with Dana Kay, Board-Certified Holistic Health and Nutrition Practitioner
Lindsey Parsons
So I know from the intro that you have a child with ADHD. So can I ask you about your personal story and what led you to the holistic approach to ADHD?
Dana Kay
Yeah, definitely. And I think, like most sort of alternative health practitioners, there’s always that story behind their motivation. And there’s no different for myself, believe it or not, I was actually an accountant in a previous life I plan to continue in that field. If the concerns over my son’s health hadn’t grown, I always dreamt of being a businesswoman in an office and my dream came true. But then my son’s health started to deteriorate. And by the age of two, he’d have these meltdowns just like any other terrible to child but then they sort of didn’t go away, and they seem to get worse and worse, and you just would be at the playground, and you’d have so much energy compared to any other child. And I kind of sort of felt like I was on this emotional roller coaster. I’d be dealing with so much energy, and then we’d have this massive meltdown. And then for an hour, he’d be okay. And then we’d have this massive meltdown again, and it just, it wasn’t really what I imagined parenting to be like. And so I’d I’d asked friends, I talked to teachers in the preschool, and everyone’s like, “Oh, don’t worry, he’s just a boy, he’ll grow out of it.” And so I just kept going along with that. And things started to get worse at age three, age four, and sort of by the time of mid fours, late fours.
That’s when sort of the teachers or the preschool started to notice a bit of a difference. And we went to the pediatrician who referred us to a neuro developmental psychiatrist, and he was diagnosed with ADHD. And we were immediately handed prescription medication. And honestly, between you and me, I was relieved with the diagnosis similar to myself. I’m not a bad mom, this is not my parenting and this is not my fault. There’s actually something that is contributing to what’s going on in our family. And I was excited to fill the prescription medication, bounced into the drugstore, bounce back out, gave it to him. And that was the thinking to myself that that was finally the thing that was going to help us get help for our family. At first things were okay until they weren’t. And we started having these side effects and went back to the doctor and they increased the dose. Then they prescribed another medication to counteract the side effects of the first so he was losing weight, not able to sleep and didn’t want to eat. And then he’d have these mammoth mammoth meltdowns that were worse than before, in the afternoon when he was like coming off that medication. And so it was like, Yeah, okay, he was able to sit still at preschool. But when he got home, it was actually ended up worse than what it was before. And so this sort of continued until my son who was now five was on three very strong medications. And the doctor suggested a fourth medication to counteract the anxiety that had now come up from it. And that’s when I sort of said, doesn’t seem right. And I just couldn’t do it anymore. And this is where sort of my career path completely changed. And back to school, I did my holistic health degree, multiple specific certifications in this particular area. I really learned that medicine wasn’t the only way. I began to learn that ADHD symptoms can be reduced naturally and I learned how food can affect so many aspects of our lives as you have too, Lindsey, and in your story and what you share. Look, today, my son is in middle school. He’s a teenager. He’s thriving. He hasn’t been on meds for years and he’s a straight A student. But right now he does have a B, which is very upset about which but for me, I don’t care. Like the most important thing for me is he’s happy, my family’s happy and we now have that peace and that calm and that balance in our house that I knew that we could get to. Once I learned this, and once I saw the changes that all of this had, on my own family, I really couldn’t keep this information to myself. I didn’t want anyone else to have to go through the struggles and the challenges that I went through. I’ve been lucky enough to have helped over 1000 other families get to the same place as me but just so much quicker, and without as much stress.
Lindsey Parsons
That’s wonderful. Yeah, So tell me about how diet impacts ADHD and kids.
Dana Kay
Yeah, so look, I like to think of diet as the foundation. When children are diagnosed with ADHD, the first course of action that most doctors suggest is medication and many of them don’t mention that altering the diet can significantly reduce ADHD symptoms. This is very much exactly what happened with my son and I started to learn about the effects of gut health – that’s why I love being on this podcast – gut health on ADHD symptoms and how when we heal the gut, ADHD symptoms are reduced or removed completely. That’s why I like not only… I’ll go into the details of why diet does help, but I think that it’s so important that food should be first. Food should come first. I’m not against medication, but it shouldn’t be the first cause of action, not when food can sometimes be even more effective with absolutely no side effects. So if children continue to eat these processed inflammatory foods, like gluten like dairy, and soy which I’ll go into why, those ADHD symptoms are not going to go away, because the foods they are eating are exacerbating the symptoms. So when we take these foods out, they’re so highly inflammatory. And I like to sort of think of it like a bucket, and everyone’s born with this metaphorical bucket. Our goal in life is to keep the load on that bucket low. Some of our kids might have bought been born with stuff in the bucket already.
My son was born given antibiotics straight away, was in the NICU, was on a CPAP machine, wasn’t breastfed there was a lot going on. And so his bucket already had stuff in it. Now, the goal in life is to keep that bucket low. And some of us are really good at emptying that bucket outside of our body because our detoxification pathways are optimized, whereas, others may have some genetic issues, gene mutations in certain areas and they cannot empty that bucket effectively, which happened to my son. And so what happens is, we put this load on the bucket inflammation, and inflammation can come from food, it can come from toxins, it can come from environmental toxins, it can come from medication – which came from my son, and this will load and load will rise up until it gets the bucket gets so full. And if you can’t effectively empty it out or tip over into our body, and our body will be riddled with inflammation. And that’s when symptoms come out. For kids, they might be born with that bucket that has stuff in it already and then they start eating these foods. Now when you’ve got a high bucket, and you start eating other highly inflammatory foods, that load is going to get up very, very quickly. So I get a lot of questions. “Well, why does say gluten, dairy and soy affect one kid but doesn’t affect the other kid, even if they’re in the same family, and I bring it back to that bucket?” Well, that kid’s bucket might be full already and that kid’s detoxification pathways may not be optimized. That’s sort of the way that I look at it. Now, gluten, dairy and soy are the top three inflammatory foods that I think of, and they’re the top three culprits that are driving inflammation in our body and, and these highly inflammatory substances can lead to an immune response. And they lead to increased intestinal permeability or leaky gut. I’m sure your listeners probably know a little bit about leaky gut, am I right?
Lindsey Parsons
Of course.
Dana Kay
Yes, so they can lead to leaky gut and kids with ADHD are more likely to also have compromised immune systems. So the effects of these substances tend to have a whole greater effect on the body. Now in terms of why do they cause leaky gut, I won’t go into detail about all of them. But I think gluten is probably the number one food that I recommend that all children with ADHD cut out of their diets. Pretty much everyone should not be eating gluten, in my opinion, but we’re talking about kids with ADHD here. Now, gluten is so inflammatory, that even if someone doesn’t have an allergy, it does cause leaky gut. It’s harmful for everyone and that’s because it triggers intestinal permeability in everyone. That refers to sort of the breakdown of the intestinal walls. Now when functioning properly – I don’t know if you want me to go into detail on this if your listeners already know this – but intestinal permeability is the breakdown in the intestinal walls and it allows that water and nutrients to pass through but blocking other things from entering the bloodstream. When there’s that breakdown, it can lead to leaky gut, which basically means the tight junctions in the gut, that are supposed to control what passes through the lining of the intestines. They’re not doing their job very effectively. So they’re allowing toxins and other harmful substances to get through into the bloodstream. When toxic substances get into the bloodstream, the body fights them off and tries to get rid of them, so when something enters the bloodstream that’s not meant to be there, it triggers that inflammatory response as the body seeks to rectify it. Gluten leads to increased intestinal permeability, which leads to leaky gut, which leads to inflammation, which leads to a load on that bucket. And when that bucket is high, it it leads to the symptoms like stomach aches, constipation, brain fog (which is like inattention), hyperactivity, reflux, anger issues, nose or wheezing. I could go on and on, but a lot of those symptoms correlate with ADHD. By cutting out gluten, parents of children with ADHD are removing one food that significantly contributes to inflammation in their body and the load on that bucket. In my experience, if we remove that, along with those other highly inflammatory foods like dairy and soy, and feed the body with the right things, then ADHD symptoms diminished significantly, and sometimes disappear completely, because they allow the gut to repair. Does that explain it okay?
Lindsey Parsons
that’s awesome. Yeah, absolutely. So I, as a parent felt at one point that my son was likely gluten intolerant when he was in his middle school years, and I tried to get him to go gluten free. And I only got him to agree to about a two week trial of this. So that was it. I mean, it was just a losing battle, because even if he was, say, restricting it, the best I could get him to agree to was say, you still eat it once a week. And I’m thinking, well, that’s kind of meaningless in the end. So I’m curious whether you had better success. And obviously, your child was younger at the point at which you started doing this. But how in the world do you get these other families to do it?
Dana Kay
Yeah, look, it is a lot. And that’s why I’ve sort of designed my program, the way that that I have. My son was a lot younger – the younger, the better – because they grow up with it and that’s what they know. With the older kids, it’s a lot harder, and you do need to get a little bit more buy in. But the way that you do it with the older kid is really getting them to understand the feelings in their body and how that affects their body and if they are having that gluten intolerance, and they’re experiencing symptoms, when they stop the gluten, they can actually feel the changes in their body. That’s where you jump on it to try and get that buy in. And so when they do eat something, they would experience the symptoms coming back. I can tell you that I’ve seen it time and time again and so it is really important that you’re constantly having those conversations with the older kids. There are so many challenges that can come up with it. What I tell with families is that it’s not an overnight change. I tried to change everything on day one, I literally took out gluten, dairy, soy, artificial flavors, artificial colors, salty food and sensitivities that were in his food sensitivity panel on day one. Let’s just say I had multiple panic attacks on the floor of my bedroom. That is not what I teach in my program. I always tell families that Rome wasn’t built in a day, transforming their family’s diet won’t be completed in a day either and so it’s okay to take it slowly. When you’ve got an older child, that’s important, because you need to take them along in the journey with you. If you just throw it on them, they’re going to rebound. So it’s okay to take one step at a time. And if that pace that’s doable for you and your life is one change a week or one change every two weeks, then that is okay. Families really need to give themselves permission to take things slow, because it’s not a diet. It’s not a phase. It really is a permanent lifestyle change, but when it becomes part of your lifestyle, it’s second nature. You don’t even think about it anymore. So very much, I think that having support when doing it with a family is key to this. Trying to do it alone is so hard. Take my word for that one. I did it by myself and it was so extremely hard. And so we my program, we’re literally there every single day with families holding their hand step by step, telling them exactly laying out that blueprint for them on what they need to do next. So they don’t need to think about it. When that challenge does come up, which it will, we can help them overcome it because that is our powerhouse. That is what we know best. Having helped over 1000 families, we know what works, we know what doesn’t work. And we know if there is a challenge most likely we’ve dealt with it before.
Lindsey Parsons
Yeah, so obviously it helps if you have buy in from both parents. I’m curious whether your husband bought into the entire idea of changing the diet because my husband wasn’t bought in at all. Yeah
Dana Kay
I love this question. No, he wasn’t bought in – probably still not 100% body and either, but you know this wow, this is that’s just the way it is. We’ve seen so many changes but he’s a man of science, as most men are, and also stubborn and I love him. He’s upstairs and I always throw him under the bus. The positives outweigh the negatives. I’ve run into many non believers in my time and I will tell you like it was the science that first made me rethink the direction we were traveling with my son. And same for him. And the fact that we obviously had significant side effects from the medication. But there are so many studies out there to support this. And I think that, really, when you’re trying to convince the unconvinced, you’ve got to hit them with science. I’ve got so many studies out there that just really, really drive at home, that diet is so important. Look, it’s not just about diet. I don’t just teach diet, but it’s diet. It’s detox. It’s lifestyle. It’s reducing toxins. It’s all of that. But I mean, I could list off studies and studies. I don’t know if you want me to but I could I could list off some studies and I think that you hit the unconvinced with the studies. And sometimes mums just need to take it into their own hands. And honestly, that’s what I did at first. I said, Look, this is what I’m doing. Too bad. Come on the journey, or you don’t. I just went forward and did it Aand they they start to come on board when they actually see the changes – and the changes are amazing. And mean the first change that you see with reducing that inflammation in the body, is a reduction in tantrums, a reduction in meltdowns, a reduction in anger, the severity, the length of time, the frequency all reduced. For my son, it was literally within two to three weeks of changing the diet. And honestly, the emotional dysregulation is the hardest thing for a family to deal with, because it’s so loud.
Lindsey Parsons
Absolutely,
Dana Kay
It puts a family on hold basically. It’s that roller coaster of emotion. So it’s actually really nice to see that that’s one of the first changes that happen.
Lindsey Parsons
Absolutely. So, obviously, taking out the bad stuff is necessary, but what about what kids with ADHD did eat more of?
Dana Kay
Yeah, look, it’s really like the same thing for anyone else. It’s really about not what just to take out. It’s also what to put back in the diet because I always say to people, “Gluten and dairy free is not necessarily healthy.” If you’re gonna replace packaged goods with packaged goods, you’re not gonna get to where you go and sometimes gluten free can actually be worse than the non gluten free. As far as what to weight, my best tip is to focus on whole nutritious, fresh fruits and veggies, grass fed animal proteins, such as meat, poultry, seafood, eggs and also plenty of healthy fats like avocado, coconut and olive oil – really avoiding those refined oils. You also want to be drinking plenty of spring water. I mean, the numbers of families that come to me whose kids, the only thing they drink is juice, soda and milk, they you take the juice away, you take the milk away and the soda away and there are different kid and you don’t even need to make the dietary changes, but you do for their health. By drinking plenty of spring water to avoid harmful chemicals that are in some waters, but also, obviously water helps detox the body and remove the toxins that are already there. I find that all of these foods really provide us with the nutrients we needs so we can function at our best along with our kids. When buying ingredients, my rule of thumb is (ingredients in terms of like a package food), “If there isn’t something that you can’t pronounce, put it back,.” If you don’t know what it is your body is not going to know what it is. Try to stick with an ingredient list that’s less than five or six on there. The more ingredients, the more worry that there’s going to be those other things in there as well.
Lindsey Parsons
Right. So you mentioned detoxification a couple times. I’m curious, are you testing kids in your practice? With with what kinds of tests might you use to check the detoxification? Yeah,
Dana Kay
Look, I think functional lab testing definitely plays a role. I would like to say that about 50% of the families I work with, we just do sort of the diet lifestyle, like detoxification, and reducing toxic exposure and they get to where they need to go without doing lab testing, which is amazing. What that tells me is probably 50% of the kids that are diagnosed with ADHD are not in fact, having ADHD. It’s probably a byproduct of what’s going on in their body. You apply that to the 6 million children in the US today that have been diagnosed with ADHD. That’s probably 3 million children that have been wrongly diagnosed, but the other 50%. Yes, it helps dramatically, but there’s something deeper going on in their body that we need to check out. And we use functional lab testing to identify those HIDDEN stressors. There are four basic tests that I suggest to families. There are many more and I have access to many more but I find these four a really great starting point. Now, the first test is a stool test. It gives us a really clear picture of the state of the gut and things like parasites.
Lindsey Parsons
Which one do you use?
Dana Kay
I currently use biomeFX from microbiome labs, I have used a number of different ones over the time, but I do actually like to look at the most real up to date technology. PCR testing is one that is getting out of date now and so this is using a DNA sample of each of the bacteria or the parasites so it’s much more accurate in that way. So we’re looking for what’s going on in the gut. We’re also looking for inflammation and leaky gut and digestive enzymes – things like that. The next one we use is a food sensitivity test and not just a standard one that you can buy online. They’re not all created equal. I use a lab called vibrant wellness, and we do their food Zoomers. And so I’ve had people that have got an IgG food sensitivity test from online, and just say for example, eggs come up negative – because what that is doing is just testing the food at the top protein level. But with the food Zoomers, what they actually do is they check the food down to the peptide level of the protein. So for example, egg has something like 18 different peptides in it. So what the Zoomer is doing, is actually checking all of those 18. So I’ve had times where it’s come up negative on a food sensitivity paddle, but we do an egg Zuma this so highly reactive at the peptide level, just not at the top protein level. And so a lot of the time we won’t be successful if we didn’t remove egg. Now, food sensitivities, are not true allergies, but they do cause inflammation in the body that would a load on that bulkhead. So you can actually heal from the sensitivities. Once you heal the gut, you can start to add them back in.
Lindsey Parsons
Do you make sure they’re off of the gluten dairy and soy before you run the food Zoomer just so that the level of leaky gut is essentially reduced prior to checking for other sensitivities?
Dana Kay
No, I don’t and that’s because we’re doing it sort of side by side. Obviously families just start with our phase one. If they start with our phase one, then gluten, dairy and soy will be removed for six months. If they go to phase two, which is testing, then they will do it that way. Some families – when we talk about their health history, they’ve got very traumatic health history, and we know that we just need to get to it. Now I will tell you, I have had families that have come to me three years of being gluten, dairy and soy. And we do a wheat Zoomer on them. And they are so reactant to gluten, it’s not funny. They’ve been eating gluten and are probably not aware of it.
Lindsey Parsons
I’m just curious though, whether they’re coming up with pretty much every food that the the child is eating on the food Zoomer, such that, they’re left with nothing to eat.
Dana Kay
Yeah, look, a lot of the some of the time they do. But what we’re there because we’re there every single day holding their hand, we’ve got five weekly group coaching calls, there are so many foods out there that they can eat. We’re really guiding them through that process and if we just get so many, we prioritize – we just take the biggest hitters, and we leave the rest. We use a rotation diet on the rest. And so really, with a kid, we sort of feel where they are. We feel where the family is, we don’t want to overwhelm the family too much. Some come back with only like five sensitivities, others coming back, like my son, had 40. I actually did every single one, obviously, that’s the best, but at the same time, we need to make sure they’re getting the nutrients and everything to grow. So it is about “Let’s work out what’s best for this child based on the knowledge that we have.” So the third test that we do is an organic acid test, which I love.
Lindsey Parsons
Great Plains?
Dana Kay
Yeah, I loves Great Plains, but at the same time, it’s really keeping an eye on the different technologies that are out there, which one is the most up to date and which one is going to give us that best result at that time. I’m always open to making sure that I am currently using the best. Now, I love Great Plains. This organic acid test really gives us an overview of the whole body and how its functioning the need for specific nutrients, such as B vitamins, which are super important for our compromised kids – further diet modifications, so things like oxalates and salicylates, which again can be an issue for our kids. At the same time, there are many practitioners out there that will say, “Go on a low oxalate diet. Go on a low salicylate diet,” but I focus on is, why they are high. When you’ve got high oxalate, it’s usually because of mold or candida that is producing those elevated levels of oxalates. So some fruit for kids, a lot of the time in the first round, I don’t tell them to go on a low oxalate diet, because when we fix the gut, it actually comes back down into normal ranges. It’s also looking for detoxification and that’s where by looking at that, and seeing that they detoxifying properly. It’s looking at neurotransmitters, so your serotonin and your dopamine, yeast, mold, clostridia, C diff, mitochondrial function – lots of markers, there’s over 70. That’s why I love that one so much.
Lindsey Parsons
Yeah, I love that test too.
Dana Kay
And then the final test, which not many people know about, because it’s really specific to mood and behavior, and it’s called a cryptopyrol test. Pyrols are a normal chemical byproduct in the body. They attach to vitamin B six and zinc and draw these elements out of the body when they’re excreted through the urine. So, if a kid has elevated urine cryptopyrol levels, it can result in a dramatic deficiency of zinc and B six, and those are two critical nutrients needed for mental health. But pyroluria, which is what they call it is frequently identified in behavior disorders, ADHD, depression, aggression, violent behavior, and the symptoms are like, one for one with ADHD symptoms, or tolerance to physical emotional stress, or anger control, mood swings, poor short term memory, sensitivity to light/sound and tactile sensitivities. Another one is poor dream recall, or inability to tan. You don’t have to have all of them. You could have one or two. You could have all of the symptoms or you can have half of the symptoms. That really doesn’t matter, but I see that in probably about 50 to 60% of the kids that I test. And really, it’s about bringing in some key nutrients. The pyrols is part genetics, part oxidative stress, so a breakdown in the cells. And when there’s high inflammation, that’s when you get oxidative stress. So we reduce that oxidative stress, we reduce that inflammation. But some kids actually need a lifelong management of the Zinc and B six if there is a strong genetic component to it.
Lindsey Parsons
Yeah, so I’m curious how high do you typically have to supplement thing can be six, if they have pyroluria
Dana Kay
It’s based on weight. We do a metabolic weight factor and look at the weight of the child. We also bring in some key antioxidants to reduce that oxidative stress. So like vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, I’ve actually created my own payroll supplement, because when you add in sync B six in two different forms, C, E, selenium, I actually added magnesium to it as well. You’re cutting down on sick five different supplements, and I bought it all into one, and then I adjust the dosages based on weight.
Lindsey Parsons
Oh, okay. So like, once they hit adulthood, how many pills a day? Is it of your supplement? I’m curious.
Dana Kay
With 100 pounds, like I only sort of go up to 100 pounds in mind. So with that, it’s probably five in the morning, five at night.
Lindsey Parsons
Okay, so that’s it another small number. With magnesium in there. I knew it had to be high, because that alone takes a lot of space. Exactly.
Dana Kay
Exactly. Yeah. But with kids, it’s only like it’s either two in the morning to a night or three in the morning, three at night based on that weight.
Lindsey Parsons
Of the chewable?
Dana Kay
No, we’ve got we’ve got a powder and we also have captures up into juice, or else. Yep.
Lindsey Parsons
Got it. So did I say I would love to have some of those studies just to link in the show notes?
Dana Kay
Okay, sure. I can definitely dothat for you.
Lindsey Parsons
Yeah. So obviously, since this is a show about gut health, I want to be sure we talk about the gut brain connections. So how does this apply in the ADHD world and we talked a little bit about the leaky gut. I also know that a good portion of kids with autism tend to have gut issues. Is this true for ADHD as well? Do you see a lot of gut infections?
Dana Kay
Definitely, definitely do. And as I said, like, we change the diet. For some kids, we open up detoxification pathways, and we reduce that inflammation and their gut starts to heal on its own. And so I think that the reason why the gut is so important to this, I just want to bring it back to a couple of statistics. We know that all of these disorders and illnesses are on the rise. Everyone’s like, “Well, why is there this epidemic?” It’s actually estimated that 54% of American children have been diagnosed with a chronic illness in 2018. That figure was only 15% A couple of years ago, and I look at that increase and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this is just awful.” One in two have anxiety, asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, cystic fibrosis, learning disabilities. One in five have allergies. One in six out developmental delays, and one in I think it’s 42 now, have autism. The reason in my opinion, the rise is happening happening so rapidly is it all begins in the gut. And that’s because 80% of the body’s entire immune system is within the gut walls, along with billions of nerve cells and extensive amount of gut bacteria. So all of our children’s health is quite literally connected to everything that occurs in the gut. And obviously, all of ours as well. It’s not just our children. The amount of families that I’ve spoken to, we always ask them, “Have you been on antibiotics when you were younger,” and a huge percentage have. I actually wish I’d kept a tally, which I haven’t. But as you probably know, and as the listeners probably know, most antibiotics work by killing bacteria or preventing it from growing. But unfortunately, most antibiotics can’t distinguish between good and bad bacteria. That means that they wreak havoc on the gut’s, healthy bacteria. And actually, many people suffer lasting changes to their gut flora as a result of taking antibiotics. So a huge percentage of these kids have been taking multiple rounds of antibiotics. That in turn is compromising the gut and when the caught the gut is compromised, because 80% of the body’s entire immune system is in there, it’s not a huge surprise to see that these disorders and illnesses on the rise. Now, to tied gut health to brain health and ADHD – that’s really the gut brain connection and that means that our brains are deeply connected to our guts. If our guts aren’t functioning well, our brains won’t be able to function well either. Now, the main area involved in gut function is the frontal lobe and that’s the area of the brain that talks to the gut via two way chemical messengers and nerve branches. The frontal lobe is involved in things like attention, focus, executive function, planning, organizing and problem solving, which are often issues that kids with ADHD struggle with. Because the frontal lobe is in the brain, many people are under the impression it’s the brain that needs care, when in reality, it’s actually also the gut that’s causing the problem. I think the biggest thing for me, and this is why we see such a dramatic change with kids when we just change the diet, 95% of the body’s serotonin and 50% of the body’s dopamine is produced in the gut. These neurotransmitters or hormones are the ones that help us manage emotions. They balance mood. They help our cognitive function and emotional dysregulation is a common symptom of ADHD. But many parents don’t realize that this emotional dysregulation actually starts in the gut where the serotonin and the dopamine are made. So the problem is not the emotions themselves, but the fact that the correct amount of these vital neurotransmitters are not being made in the first place. So by working to improve gut health, many parents of children with ADHD find that the emotional disregulation problem solved themselves. The frontal lobe starts to get optimize. A lot of those symptoms can be helped with with healing that gut.
Lindsey Parsons
Awesome. So beyond the food question, are there supplements that are evidence based for supporting kids with ADHD or adults for that matter?
Dana Kay
Definitely. I do like to preface this to say that one thing to keep in mind with supplementation is that everybody is a bio individual meaning that every child is unique. So what works really well for one child, might show little effect for another. But that being said, there are a number that like there are there are four supplements that I love for ADHD in particular – the most studied – and one is a good quality fish oil that has Omega three and Omega six fatty acids. It’s really important to get them in the right balance. It’s really important to get a quality one and not a gummy that has sugar on it. There are a lot of studies out there that support the Omega three and Omega six fatty acids can support things like memory, hyperactivity, clear thinking, behavioral disorders and organization skills in children. The next thing is a good quality probiotic. There’s a lot of research we know that that taking a probiotic that contains either certain types of gut bacteria or spore forming probiotics can really help with boosting that gut brain connection helps supporting detoxification, it helps with anxiety and mood and also support the body against the damaging mental and physical effects of stress. Probiotics are not created equal, so really ensuring that you have a good quality probiotic is is important.
Lindsey Parsons
So what are the ones that you like?
Dana Kay
I like megaspore biotic*, which is a small forming probiotic. I’m not sure if you’ve discussed this on the podcast before. The reason why I like it so much is it’s kind of like springtime, where you want to make sure your grass starts growing and you put down seeds. So you’re reseeding the grass so it can grow, and the plants can grow and they can prosper. And so this is kind of like what that probiotic does it. It seeds, the the gut and lets the good bacteria grow in what that needs for that person, whereas, a lot of the strain based ones don’t survive digestion. So they go in, they go into your stomach and they go out, and you’ve just got a lot of expensive poop. That’s why I do prefer the spore forming ones. I’m actually in the process of creating my own custom blend that has those spore forming probiotics. It will also have saffron which is supported in helping brain health as well. And it’s also going to have a couple of other strains of probiotics that help with calmness and mood as well. So I’m in the process of doing that right now.
The next one that I love is magnesium and magnesium is great for everyone. There are so many studies out there. Magnesium is needed for over 300 biochemical processes in the body. There are many different types, but parents find that it makes a surprising difference in their kids anxiety or depression, aids in sleep and also helps hyperactivity. Research suggests that children with ADHD and anxiety often have low magnesium levels, so using supplements can have a calming effect on behavior, insomnia, agitation, muscle cramps and things like that. It can help so many different things. There’s two forms that I like. One is glycinate, which helps with that calming. The other one is the three and eight, which crosses the blood brain barrier, which helps with the brain. So that helps with ADHD, for sure. The final one, which everyone should be taking, is vitamin D. find that it works wonders are with children with ADHD and anxiety, especially when taken with omega three fatty acids. We all know that the best way to get vitamin D is to get outside, But when you live in Seattle like I do, there’s not a lot of sunshine, except for maybe five weeks of the year. My kids and I are on a vitamin D and K to supplement like most of the year except for maybe four or five weeks of the year. It’s definitely beneficial for most people.
Lindsey Parsons
Yeah, of course. So, are there other common underlying stressors that you see in kids with ADHD – beyond the diet question?
Dana Kay
Yeah, look, there, there are a number of things that exacerbate ADHD and we really are focusing on reducing that inflammation, those four base tests will give us a high level view. Other things that can contribute to it are things like nutritional deficiencies, and making sure that they’ve got the right balances of those nutrients. Other things like minerals and heavy metals is a big one as well. We find copper overload quite consistently in kids with ADHD, if you actually Google, copper overload and ADHD, there’s actually there’s a lot of information out there about that. The problem with it, though, is we need to be very careful of copper dumping. You’ve just got to really do it slowly, especially with with kids. Food intolerances – that’s obviously another one. Heavy metals, environmental toxins, dysfunctions in body systems and even cultural or lifestyle factors can contribute to it. Hormone imbalance, inflammation, leaky gut, pharmaceutical medications create underlying issues as well, because they can contribute to the toxic load on that bucket. There are a number of common underlying stresses that can contribute to symptoms and really, the way that I look at this journey is we are trying to reduce inflammation as much as possible to allow healing to occur. And we do that in multiple ways. We do that with diet. We do that with detox. We do that with food, which I’ve just discussed, lifestyle changes, reducing toxin exposure, reducing heavy metal exposure, reducing the infections in the gut and optimizing the gut brain connection.
Lindsey Parsons
Awesome. So tell me about your new book and where listeners can find it.
Dana Kay
Yeah, it was a labor of love. It is called thriving with ADHD, which is a guide to naturally reducing ADHD symptoms in your child. Years ago, when I was going through with this with my son, I wanted a book, a program a call or whatever, on ADHD that would clearly spell out exactly what I needed to do to support him with ADHD naturally, but I couldn’t ever find it. I was constantly googling for something, anything that might actually help us get some relief from my son’s challenging behaviors. And when I was looking for that book years ago, I just struck out over and over again and there was just nothing out there. There was a novelist named Toni Morrison and he once said that if you find a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. And that’s what I did. And I still can’t hardly believe it actually. It’s an international bestseller in multiple categories, including children’s health, which just blew me away and it’s my life’s work. It’s the guide I needed when I started this journey with my son, but couldn’t find. It’s different from other books out there, because I’m not only a practitioner, but I’m also a mom who gets it 1,000%.I just, I just want families out there honestly, at the end of the day, yes, I’ve got a business. Yes, I do this for a living. But my goal will my passion to get this word out there to found there are so many families out there struggling. They do not need to struggle, and I’m not going to be able to work with everyone. Hopefully, this book makes it more accessible to other people out there. One day my dream and my vision is for the doctor, instead of handing a prescription medication when the child’s first diagnosis, they have this book. They say, “Go and implement all of this and if you still got issues, come back to me and we’ll talk about something different.”
Lindsey Parsons
It’s a great dream, but I’m not picturing it
Dana Kay
I know, it is a great dream, but I’ll do whatever I can to just get this message out there to as many people as possible, because parents do not need to suffer. Listeners can find more about my book at ADHDthrive institute.com/book. It’s available on Amazon.
Lindsey Parsons
Yeah. Okay. And where can they find your program? Same place?
Dana Kay
ADHDThriveinstitute.com. I’m also on Instagram, Facebook, and other social platforms @ ADHDThriveInstitute.
Lindsey Parsons
Okay, great. Well, I will include all those links in the show notes, and any parting thoughts for everyone?
Dana Kay
All I want to say is that we’ve probably got some parents listening who are like, “Oh, my gosh, that sounds amazing, but it sounds so overwhelming.” I’m just going to take them back to the fact that Rome wasn’t built in a day. You do not need to make all of these changes on day one. Get support when you need it. I’m very much how about I’m not an expert in everything. I will pay for experts time and advice in the area that I need specifically when it comes to my business or even my even in my personal life. All I wanted back in the day was a program like mine, and it wasn’t out there. It is possible to reduce ADHD symptoms naturally. If you’re on this vicious cycle of trial and error of medication or trial and error of anything, and you just can’t get off that roller coaster, then there are things that can help. Don’t lose hope. I’ve seen it with over 1000 families. I’ve seen it with my own family. There are solutions out there that can help.
Lindsey Parsons
Wonderful. Yeah, that is that is my theory for everything. I might be exaggerating, but you could certainly make a good dent into almost any kind of chronic health problem through functional holistic medicine. So diet changes and such. Okay, well thank you so much for sharing all this information with us and it was great talking to you.
Dana Kay
Thanks, Lindsay. It’s been fun
If you’re struggling with dysbiosis, diarrhea, constipation, leaky gut, candida, IBS, IBD, or other gut health or all over body problems, you’re welcome to set up a free, 30-minute breakthrough session with me (Lindsey). We’ll talk about what you’ve been going through and I’ll tell you about my 3- and 5- appointment health coaching programs in which I recommend lab tests, educate you on what the results mean and the protocols used by doctors to fix the problems revealed. Or if you’re ready to jump in right away or can just afford one appointment at a time, you can set up an 1-hour consultation with me.
