Can what we eat change how the brain recovers?
In August 2020, I spoke with Teralyn Sell, PhD, a doctor of psychology who coaches people on nutrition and brain health. Her focus is the chemistry of the brain in people with anxiety or depression and in people coming off drugs and alcohol.
We talked about why tapers fail when they move too fast, how blood sugar shapes mood and relapse, and which amino acids she uses. This is an archive episode, recorded when the show covered addiction and recovery broadly.
Why does tapering too quickly so often fail?
At 0:53, Teralyn said that tapering too quickly is probably the most common problem she sees. Her rule of thumb is a month or two of tapering for every year a person has been prescribed the medication, so for many of the people she works with a taper lasts more than a year.
In her view, the brain should barely notice that it is tapering, and nutrition has to support it along the way. Otherwise, withdrawal can feel like the original mental health problem coming back.
At 2:21, I pointed out that antidepressants are not drugs of abuse, yet they do have a withdrawal syndrome when stopped suddenly. Teralyn described these medications as changing the architecture of the brain. Unfortunately, she said, people often stop because they simply run out, and a week later they are rushing to the pharmacy because they feel so terrible.
Can nutrition help when a drug cannot be tapered?
At 3:30, I noted that we cannot ask someone using cocaine to taper. Teralyn agreed, but said we can support their brain right away. Many people with heavy substance use are using the drug in place of food, so in her view regular meals with protein are one of the most important early steps.
From 4:17, I asked whether food alone could supply the amino acids a person needs. Her answer was yes and no. Food fills the bucket slowly and supplements fill it faster, so she prefers a combination. Of course, a perfect diet takes real commitment, and that is hard to find when you feel unwell.
Is serotonin the whole story?
At 5:17, I asked her to explain which neurotransmitters do what. Teralyn said serotonin gets most of the attention because most antidepressants target it, but we are more than the sum of one neurotransmitter.
She described showing audiences two lab results side by side, one from a teenager with mental health problems and one from a person using heroin. Both showed depleted neurotransmitters. Interestingly, she said the common thread was a lack of nutrients. Heroin had replaced food for one person, while skipped meals and junk food had done the damage for the other.
How can blood sugar lead to a relapse?
From 9:20, Teralyn walked through a typical school day of sugary cereal, a starchy lunch, and nothing more until dinner. When blood sugar dips, she explained, adrenaline kicks in and the body moves into fight or flight. Her simplest advice was to eat protein about every three hours.
She also called blood sugar swings one of the biggest relapse triggers. When adrenaline takes over, she said at 12:03, the thinking brain goes offline and people do things they wish they had not done. For someone in recovery, that can be a relapse.
At 12:42, I said I doubted anyone at a Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous meeting had ever been told they relapsed because they were not eating well. Teralyn agreed. At 13:02, she added that many people in early recovery reach for sugar as a replacement for dopamine.
Do nicotine and alcohol affect the brain in similar ways?
At 14:26, I asked about young people using nicotine vaping devices. Teralyn said nicotine does much the same thing, and people who smoke are notorious for not eating. With alcohol, I said at 15:14 that it blocks the absorption of B vitamins. She added that gut health is a big part of the picture for people with alcohol dependence.
Which amino acids did we discuss, and what are the cautions?
From 18:37, we went through several amino acids. I mentioned tyrosine, a precursor to dopamine, and we also discussed gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), theanine, glutamine, and DL-phenylalanine.
Still, she was clear about the limits. At 21:26, she said that people with heart conditions should avoid tyrosine or take it only under close medical supervision. At 22:42, she explained that 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), a precursor to serotonin, should not be combined with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), because together they could push serotonin into a danger zone. Her message was simple. If some is good, more is not better, and anyone with a health condition or taking medication should seek medical advice first.
What does she mean by filling the bucket?
At 23:50, Teralyn summed up her approach with a metaphor. Instead of changing the architecture of the brain, she said, we either need to fill the bucket or turn off the faucet. If neurotransmitters are depleted, the bucket needs filling.
At 16:06, she described ProRecoveryRx, a supplement line for people in early recovery that she developed with Cali Estes, who has also been a guest on the show. At 24:30, she compared the vitamins and minerals in it to the oil a car needs alongside its gas.
Is mental health nutrition the same as dieting?
At 25:35, I asked about low carbohydrate eating, recalling that high fat diets were once used to reduce seizures in some children. Teralyn said she hates the word diet, because mental health nutrition is different from dieting. In fact, her own rule is easy to remember. If it is a whole food or a healthy fat, go ahead and eat it.
Why are some programs slow to accept new ideas?
At 27:11, I said that this matters for doctors like me who treat heroin and fentanyl dependence. The medications work well, yet nutrition is an important part of care. Teralyn added that for people who do not want to stay on medication forever, supporting brain health can help them step down over time.
At 27:58, I talked about naltrexone, a medication that is not habit forming and can help people with opioid and alcohol dependence. In my experience, many residential programs did not want to hear about it. Teralyn said, at 28:47, that some people she works with had worried they would be dismissed from intensive outpatient programs just for taking supplements.
Who is Teralyn Sell, PhD?
Teralyn Sell, PhD, is a doctor of psychology, author, and podcaster who coaches people on nutrition and brain health. Her work focuses on the neurotransmitters behind mood and on recovery from substance use. Her website is drteralyn.com.
What can listeners take away from this conversation?
A slow taper and steady blood sugar sound like ordinary ideas. Yet, in Teralyn’s view, they are often missing from recovery. So, she argued, the brain deserves support while a person changes everything else, with a doctor involved before any supplement is added.
How do I approach this today?
My thinking has kept developing since this conversation was recorded. Today my practice is built on one idea that runs through all of it: when the body has adapted to a substance, the safest way off is usually gradual, with the smallest steps the person’s nervous system can tolerate. Physical dependence is not addiction.
A person who took a medication exactly as prescribed and now cannot stop it safely needs a plan, not a label. Where a medication can make the process gentler, I use it. Patients direct their own care, and a good plan includes the risks, the alternatives, an exit plan from day one, and the right to change course.
I do not prescribe psychiatric medications as treatment, but I help people come off them. The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines describe the same principle the Ashton Manual taught for benzodiazepines: reduce gradually, in proportion to the current dose, and let the nervous system settle before the next step.
For some antidepressants a manufactured liquid makes the small final steps possible. In other cases, a compounding pharmacy prepares one. Withdrawal symptoms are a sign the steps are too large, not a sign that the person needs the medication forever.
Call 911 or go to an emergency department if there is a seizure, confusion or hallucinations, or thoughts of self-harm. For thoughts of suicide or any mental health crisis, you can also call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
This page is educational. It is not medical advice, and listening to the episode or reading this page does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Decisions about starting, continuing, or tapering any medication should be made with your own physician.
Full transcript
A note from Dr. Leeds: my guests speak from their own experience and expertise, and the terminology they use is their own. Whatever the topic, this show holds to one distinction: physical dependence on a prescribed medication is not addiction. This transcript is educational content, not medical advice, and nothing here creates a doctor-patient relationship.
Read the full transcript (30 minutes)
Announcer [00:00] Welcome to the Rehab Podcast on the Mental Health News Radio Network. Here is your host, Dr. Mark Leeds.
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:07] Dr. Teralyn, welcome to the Rehab Podcast.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [00:11] I’m excited to be here.
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:12] You’re a doctor of psychology. You’re also an author, podcaster, addiction nutrition coach, helping people with anxiety and depression and dealing with chemical issues with neurotransmitters. It’s really interesting.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [00:25] Particularly the brain health with addictions is one of my focuses.
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:29] This person was coming off of Adderall and also, I think, having Xanax and had tapered too quickly, you know, without proper treatment and was asking for my opinion. I had remembered that there’s different amino acids that can help to help hopefully replenish the neurotransmitters that may be depleted or involved with those drugs. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Neurotransmitters are proteins also?
Teralyn Sell, PhD [00:53] So proteins and amino acids help with neurotransmitter repletion and so do nutrient cofactors, your B vitamins, your C, your D, which is why all of that is so important. I kind of want to backtrack just a minute because someone who tapered too quickly is probably the most common thing. I’ve found that the rule of thumb for tapering is one to two months of a taper for every year you’ve been prescribed. In my practice, a lot of people that have been on antidepressants, particularly anti-anxiety medications and things like that, or Adderalls and stimulants for 10 plus years. So the taper is really more than a year long, which most people go, what? Like, well, if you don’t want your brain to know that it’s tapering, you have to go slow and you have to fill the brain health bucket while you’re going slow. You can’t just one day decide to taper with no brain health or nutrient support whatsoever. It will be probably a colossal failure, which then leads people to believe or think that they still need to be on the medication, right? Because if you taper too fast, you feel all those negative side effects that feel like mental health issues again. It seems to be a common theme lately of people wanting to taper, and the success of tapering is really dependent on how you are fueling your brain health in the first place.
Dr. Mark Leeds [02:21] When you mention antidepressants, I think some people don’t realize that you do have to, or it’s recommended to taper off of them, not to just suddenly stop. Even though they’re not drugs of abuse or addicting drugs, they do have a withdrawal syndrome if someone stops taking them suddenly.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [02:36] Oh, for sure. I look at medication like that as they’ve changed. I call it changing the architecture of your brain, right? So they actually change how your neurons communicate. So your neurons have to figure that out again. So if you take something out that it’s used to, it’s going to kind of go haywire. That’s the easiest way I can describe how to do it. But a lot of people do suddenly go off of medication because they’re tired of it. They’re tired of taking it every day. Or the common thing that happens is they run out. They’ve been thinking about stopping the antidepressant for a while and then their prescription, you know, they have to go in for a refill and like, now’s the time. I’m just not going to do it. And then you’re a week out and they’re running to the pharmacy to get it filled because they feel so terrible. So you have to have some structure around the titration, getting your medical doctor on board as well and going super, super slow while enhancing your brain health at the same time.
Dr. Mark Leeds [03:30] But if someone is smoking crack or using cocaine, you know, we can’t tell them to taper.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [03:34] Yes. Well, again, but we can support the health of their brain immediately. You know, I think some rehabs are kind of hopping on board with it. Some, I wish more would. I wish more clinicians would as well. Even just the idea of reintroducing food into somebody’s life is important because if you think about it, a lot of people who are heavy into addictions, and that can be addictions of all kinds, they’re using the drug as food, right? So they’re not fueling their body at all. So the reintroduction of food and blood sugar regulation and things like that, proteins, is probably the most important thing that anybody can do for themselves in the early stages of recovery.
Dr. Mark Leeds [04:17] Is it possible that a person could get all these amino acids from eating protein? I mean, amino acids are the building blocks of proteins and the body breaks down proteins into amino acids. Could someone get everything that they need from eating food?
Teralyn Sell, PhD [04:30] So yes and no, right? So if you’re starting with an empty bucket, a faster way to fill it would be amino acid supplementation and nutrient supplementation, right? So that would be a quicker way to fill it. The slow way to fill it is food, right? But a combination does a really great job. So, but most people don’t have a perfect diet. That’s the problem, but a perfect diet also requires a heavy commitment to nutrition. And when you’re feeling like crap, it is really hard to have a heavy commitment to nutrition. Supplementation becomes very important with mental health and addiction because of that commitment to yourself. It is a lot easier to start with supplements. It just is. But once you start feeling better, then introducing bigger things to do with your nutrition.
Dr. Mark Leeds [05:17] As far as neurotransmitters go, there’s a couple that come to mind that I think people are familiar with. Probably the big one that everyone is familiar with is serotonin. That’s what all these antidepressants work on. And when you hear about how does a drug make a person high, you hear about things like dopamine and serotonin. I don’t know that it’s clear exactly which one does what in that process and how that works. I mean, is there an easy way to explain that?
Teralyn Sell, PhD [05:42] You know, everybody talks about serotonin because like you said, most medication targets serotonin, right? It’s called SSRI, it’s a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. So the general rule of thumb is this, if you’re feeling anxious or depressed, or even if you’re coming off of an addiction and you feel depressed, you probably feel depressed because of a lot of things, but the common rule of thumb is it must be your serotonin being depleted. Well, as we get a little bit more advanced in brain health, we recognize that there are other neurotransmitters at play as well. There are things like cortisol, your stress hormone at play. There’s a lot of things and we are more than the sum of one neurotransmitter. So with depletion of nutrition and the introduction of medications, lots of different medications, not just antidepressants, but medications deplete nutrients. Your antidepressants deplete your neurotransmitters. Drugs and alcohol deplete neurotransmitters. So I do some neurotransmitter labs and the best way to describe this is this. I put two labs up on the screen. One is your average American teenager and the other one is a heroin addict. Well, the labs reveal that the neurotransmitters, your serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, GABA, glutamate, all those big players are depleted in both the teenager who has mental health issues and the heroin addict. And it’s fascinating. And I ask, usually when I talk, I ask the audience, what do you think is the common theme here? And the common theme is lack of nutrients. And in the heroin addict, it’s because heroin has replaced food. In the teenager, it’s because food is, it’s not necessary in their eyes, I guess. Skipping meals, eating good food is not a necessary thing. So those would be the kids that are struggling with mental health issues, especially your picky eaters, the ones that only eat junk. So it’s very fascinating with what’s going on in our nutritional world today.
Dr. Mark Leeds [07:47] So you’re saying that teenagers or children and maybe even young adults who are not eating a healthy, well-balanced diet because of the lack of nutrition they’re getting from their poor diet could be suffering mental health issues like anxiety and depression because of their diet
Teralyn Sell, PhD [08:01] And ADHD behavioral problems in a classroom. Yes.
Dr. Mark Leeds [08:05] That’s a huge thing because probably some of these kids are put on medications when they should have just fixed their diet or maybe seen a nutritionist.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [08:14] Absolutely. And stabilizing blood sugar is huge in behavior. And so when you put a kid, I know we’re kind of bouncing around with our population here, But when you put a kid on a stimulant, when you put a person on a stimulant, one of the first things to go is your appetite. So that’s why a lot of these kids are super skinny because they’re not eating. I’m on forums all the time and moms with kids who have ADHD and they’re on medications. Please help me have my kid gain weight and feed them anything. If they want ice cream, give them ice cream. If they want junk food, give them junk food. Calorie, calorie, calorie. I’m like, that is not helping. But the problem is the medication that you get put on to help your depression, anxiety, ADHD type thing interferes with your appetite. And that causes a whole host of other problems.
Dr. Mark Leeds [09:02] Addiction for a lot of people starts in childhood. And this between anxiety and depression and maybe self-treating mental illness and maybe even starting with poor nutrition maybe is a start for addiction for a lot of people of self-medicating.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [09:20] Mm-hmm. Well, I look at things in the vein of good, better, best. And I also then sometimes have to go down into the, well, that’s just going to be in the good enough category. Okay. So right now I’m going to talk about good enough to good category because, you know, best would be all the nutritional things, you know, that you could possibly do. Well, there’s not a teenager or elementary schooler alive that I know that is going to eat in a best case scenario. So a good to good enough category would really be to just work on eating protein about every three hours. And so when you think about that, if you do the timeline of a, we’ll just say an elementary schooler’s day, right? So they get up and they eat sugar bomb cereal and then they have lunch several hours later after that. And the lunch is high carb, typically, maybe a little bit of protein in that. And then they don’t eat again until they get home at five or six o’clock at night. And then they might have a snack before bed that is typically carb or sugar snack, you know, ice cream, jello, whatever it is. And then they try to go to bed and they can’t sleep. Well, here’s really what’s happening. Your blood sugar is all over the place. And when your blood sugar dips low, Adrenaline tends to kick in when adrenaline kicks in you’re in your fight or flight So here we are waking up in the morning Having an adrenaline kick in so you’re fighting with your kid from the time they wake up I’m sure there’s going to be some parents that can relate to these stories They don’t want to go to school. They don’t want to get up. You give them their cereal They seem to calm down a little bit, but 10 o’clock they’re acting out in school Then they eat their lunch and they’re good and then after school they might be a little rambunctious or whatever And again, the cycle continues. So when you think about protein every three hours, that kid had protein a little bit at lunch and maybe a little bit at dinner. And that is all. There are hours and hours and hours in between of a destable blood sugar situation. And if there was one thing that I would tell every single person and parent to do, it’s focus on stabilizing your blood sugar all day, every day. And that will reduce mental health symptoms and it will also reduce behavioral symptoms. And it’s also one of the biggest relapse triggers is blood sugar fluctuations.
Dr. Mark Leeds [11:47] That’s really interesting. So when a person… It’s profound and easy. Yeah. So before a person relapses, I mean, maybe even a deadly or life-threatening relapse, it may have been triggered just by not managing their blood sugar, maybe eating a poor diet.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [12:03] Well, when your blood sugar is low, your adrenaline kicks in. When your adrenaline kicks in, your thinking brain goes offline. That’s when you’re saying and doing things you wish you wouldn’t have said and done. That is every single person on the planet. We are all wired the same way. Now, the things that we say and do that we wish we shouldn’t have said and done are all different. For somebody who is in recovery, that could be a relapse. For a child or even an adult, that could be fighting with a spouse or throwing fists around. So it looks different depending on the person but we are all physiologically similar.
Dr. Mark Leeds [12:42] I was thinking I doubt that it’s ever been said in a narcotics anonymous or alcoholics anonymous meeting I doubt they’ve ever told someone you relapsed because you weren’t eating well.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [12:54] Probably not.
Dr. Mark Leeds [12:57] That could very well be the underlying issue if you were able to really trace it back?
Teralyn Sell, PhD [13:02] Well, when you think about it, a lot of people in early recovery are reaching for sugar a lot. Sugar becomes a replacement for the dopamine and things that they had. Now, if we could reach those people and use amino acids in a very powerful and meaningful way, use nutrition in a meaningful way, show them, teach them what to do, I think we would be having a very different conversation. But we don’t. We talk theoretically in rehabs and things about dopamine, right? About how dopamine impacts your addiction. But we don’t talk about how to fix it’s just a theory. Oh, here’s a theory. This is why my dopamine is off. Okay, well, what do you do about that? Oh, I got to eat? Yes, you do. You know, or supplement with amino acids. So I these conversations I wish they had them in the NA and AA rooms I really do because I think that would also be an extremely profound conversation
Dr. Mark Leeds [14:02] Yeah or at least in rehabs you know where they may provide them with things like popcorn and pretzels for their nutrition you know in between meetings
Teralyn Sell, PhD [14:11] Right because it’s cheap you know it’s cheap and I’m not saying anybody, again, that good, better, best scenario, there could be some changes that definitely are made with nutrition programs. And that’s kind of the mission that I’m on.
Dr. Mark Leeds [14:26] Yeah, definitely. One thing before we go more into that, I was curious about with children and adults also, you know, when kids are getting into nicotine, you know, these little Juul devices where they’re now smoking nicotine without even getting cigarettes. And what does that do to brain chemistry when someone starts smoking cigarettes and nicotine?
Teralyn Sell, PhD [14:47] Really, it does very similar things. It’s the same thing. It’s neurotransmitter depletion, we’ll call it throws off the balance. It’s the same thing. And again, if you know anybody that smokes cigarettes, it’s just the nicotine piece of it. They’re not eating. Cigarette smokers are notorious not eaters. So it’s the same, you know, what came first, chicken or the egg? I don’t know, but it definitely does a similar thing.
Dr. Mark Leeds [15:14] And when it comes to alcoholics, you know, with alcohol, I mean, then nutrition becomes critical and you have to address it where alcohol is blocking absorption of the B vitamins. So that’s definitely.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [15:26] Not just that, but like the gut health of someone who has, well, the gut health of anybody with mental health issues really, but especially with people who have used alcohol, their gut health is so bad with nutrient absorption. They have a ways to go with gut health as well. You’ll hear a lot of those people who have alcohol issues will talk about things like, I don’t know, do I have an ulcer? I’ve got acid reflux. I pop Tums all the time, all that stuff. So the gut health stuff is huge too.
Dr. Mark Leeds [15:57] Now, as far as like you said that’s your mission to help improve the nutrition of people recovering from addiction. What have you done in that area to improve that?
Teralyn Sell, PhD [16:06] Well, I mean, aside from working hard individually with clients that come in, I’ve developed, I’ve partnered with Dr. Cali Estes from the Addictions Academy. She’s really big in the addiction industry on a supplement line that is geared towards people in early recovery. It’s called ProRecoveryRx. And like our flagship product is designed for people in early recovery from heroin, really targeting the dopamine receptors, really targeting those nutrients in big ways. So we have lines for people who are in early alcohol recovery, early heroin recovery, and early cocaine recovery. We’ve really targeted the brain health of those people. And that is my next big mission in life is to make sure that we get those products in the hands of rehabs. Or the individual consumer as well can have it too. But we really want to get it in the hands of rehabs because we know, both of us know what a difference it makes.
Dr. Mark Leeds [17:07] Yeah. Rehabs really, really need something like that. And actually Dr. Cali has actually been on the podcast.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [17:14] Oh, she has. Okay, cool.
Dr. Mark Leeds [17:16] Yeah. We just talked briefly about that. We talked about medication assisted treatment and a lot of other things, but yeah, it sounds like a really incredible product and something that people need to know more about, definitely.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [17:29] Yes, I’ve seen it work. The other part with those products is it’s in general what people in those addiction categories and also mental health categories, it’s in general what their brain health needs is the formulations that we’ve put together. So it’s pretty powerful stuff.
Dr. Mark Leeds [17:46] I actually have made a list of different amino acids and it’s kind of intimidating. And I was just thinking, you know, with a product like that, it’s nice to know someone’s already done the thinking for you that you can just get what you need at the right time.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [18:01] Yes. And you know, the thing is that we also know that, you know, taking supplements can be complicated. And I mean, I’ve had 30 supplement bottles on my counter before, and I get overwhelmed with it. And so we’ve put it together in little packaging so that, you know, you have a.m. Noon p.m. You’re done. So it takes all the guesswork out all you need to do is grab your packet for someone in early recovery you’re thinking about so many things the last thing you want to think about is how many supplements out of this bottle that bottle this bottle that bottle do I need to take today so we’ve taken the guesswork out which is pretty cool
Dr. Mark Leeds [18:37] Yeah definitely and just to I’ll just bring up a couple I mean one one that always intrigued me is I don’t know if I’m pronouncing it right? Tyrosine or tyrosine, L-tyrosine? Yeah. And that one has always intrigued me because it’s apparently a precursor to dopamine. So when a person is using stimulants like cocaine or amphetamines, they’re depleting their dopamine. So right away, you can just take that one and replenish some of the dopamine you’ve lost.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [19:06] Yeah. Dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine are all in the same neurotransmitter pathway. So you’re influencing several different things at the same time just with that one little amino acid. It’s pretty cool.
Dr. Mark Leeds [19:18] There was mentioned, I think, in one of your blog posts about GABA. Is GABA something you can actually take? I know there’s a GABA receptor. Is there actually something called GABA that people take?
Teralyn Sell, PhD [19:27] There is, and it works really well, actually. There’s different schools of thought about GABA, so it’s really an individual thing, but GABA does work. There’s other things like L-theanine or taurine that actually work really well on the GABA receptors too. So if GABA doesn’t work for you might switch over to theanine or taurine or something.
Dr. Mark Leeds [19:49] Okay. And I think I also saw some mention about theanine being maybe beneficial in bipolar disorder.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [19:56] Yeah, there’s some research articles out there, like real research articles talking about theanine for bipolar disorder and also theanine for ADHD. There is a lot of research out there emerging on the benefits of theanine with mental health issues.
Dr. Mark Leeds [20:13] Another one is glutamine, which I think you talk about being used for or help may be helpful for anxiety.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [20:19] It can be because it has a relationship with GABA. The other thing that glutamine does is really cool for people who struggle with blood sugar regulation or alcohol type things like glutamine helps stabilize blood sugar. So there’s a there’s a lot of people who have used glutamine for like bodybuilding and things like that. So you might see L-glutamine at your nutrition stores and stuff. You might see a lot of these in the nutrition stores because they’re used for bodybuilding and weightlifting and things like that. But we’re using it for brain health, not necessarily muscle generation, you know. But yeah, glutamine is really good to cut sugar cravings. I mean, if you go into, you know, one of those big box retailers for nutrition, like you’ll see huge tubs full of glutamine only. You know, they’re using large, large, large doses. And I’m like, geez, that’s a lot. That’s a lot of glutamine, you know, I can’t imagine what your kidneys are doing. But anyway,
Dr. Mark Leeds [21:21] There’s another one that you mentioned, DLPA. What is DLPA?
Teralyn Sell, PhD [21:26] DL-phenylalanine. That’s a precursor, again, to your dopamine pathway. Also to your PEA pathway, which is phenylethylamine. They’re all kind of in the same pathway. So some people do better with DLPA instead of tyrosine, especially if you have, or DPA, sorry. If you have heart conditions and things like that, you really wouldn’t want to take tyrosine or, you know, make sure you’re very medically supervised if you do take tyrosine, but some people can take the DPA, D-phenylalanine. It’s a little bit harder to find, but you can find it. But yeah, that is very important.
Dr. Mark Leeds [22:03] Yeah, definitely important to know that, you know, because anybody can buy these things and you might, somebody might not be aware that there’s an issue with heart.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [22:10] That’s just, that’s just it. I mean, the amino acids are awesome. But you know, if you have an underlying, any type of underlying health condition, you know, seek medical advice before you do any of this, because if some is good, more is not better. And sometimes what you take might exacerbate some medical condition you have. So just kind of seek advice.
Dr. Mark Leeds [22:30] And if a person does go to their doctor and the doctor doesn’t really know all that much about this stuff they can refer them to you about to talk about these things
Teralyn Sell, PhD [22:38] Absolutely
Dr. Mark Leeds [22:40] So what does 5-htp do what is that good for
Teralyn Sell, PhD [22:42] So 5-htp is a precursor to serotonin so is tryptophan so the pathway goes tryptophan 5-htp serotonin melatonin so 5-htp can influence your serotonin pathway which influences your melatonin, which helps you sleep. So 5-HTP can be good for people that actually have imbalance in serotonin. But if you’re already taking an SSRI, you wouldn’t want to take 5-HTP because that could ultimately push your serotonin too high into a danger zone.
Dr. Mark Leeds [23:15] So again, yeah,
Teralyn Sell, PhD [23:17] Again, if some is good, more is not better. And if you’re already, if you’re taking medications or have any medical condition, seek advice. But yeah, 5-HTP is a really, it’s a nice amino acid. If you’re someone who struggles with irritability, with moody stuff, heavy PMS type things like 5-HTP might be in your future.
Dr. Mark Leeds [23:38] So ideally it would be best to manage these issues by working with these precursors and not specifically with medications that are going to alter reuptake of these neurotransmitters.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [23:50] Correct. Instead of changing the architecture, we either need to fill the bucket or turn off the faucet. That’s what I say. So if your faucet of neurotransmitters is overflowing, we need to shut the faucet off. If you are depleted, we need to fill the bucket.
Dr. Mark Leeds [24:05] Now that we’ve talked about all these things, which, you know, I hope everybody wasn’t scribbling down notes because you can get all the right ones that you need from the proper supplement. And you have these supplements that are specifically geared towards people who are recovering from addiction and different ones for different kinds of addictions.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [24:23] Absolutely. ProRecoveryRx.com.
Dr. Mark Leeds [24:26] Supplements like magnesium, calcium, like, you know, minerals, are those important also?
Teralyn Sell, PhD [24:30] They are, and they’re included in my formulations. Yeah, so all the nutrient, they’re called nutrient cofactors, and so they are what helps that neurotransmitter pathway function. It’s kind of like, you know, your car functions on gas, but you also have to have oil. So it’s the same thing. Your brain functions on neurotransmitters, but it has to have nutrient cofactors to make it happen. So it’s kind of like adding the oil to your brain. So things like magnesium, omega-3s, vitamin A, B, C, D, methylated folate, you know, your B vitamins are good. So that’s why good quality multivitamin, multimineral is just a really good place to start too.
Dr. Mark Leeds [25:15] If somebody were taking these supplements, would they also, would you recommend they also take a multivitamin or is it all included?
Teralyn Sell, PhD [25:24] It’s all included. Listen, I turned over every stone. Like I turned it all over. I’m like, you know, I’m not going to piecemeal this. People are tired of piecemealing things together. This is all in one.
Dr. Mark Leeds [25:35] Do you think there’s any benefit to at least some kind of a low carb diet as far as, because I know with children at one time, they may still be doing this, but in difficult cases of seizure disorders, they were actually using high fat, low carb diets to actually treat these children to reduce their seizures.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [25:52] I think there is. I mean, we just have to be cautious because like we have a pretty profound diet culture right now. So I mean, mental health diet. So I hate the word diet. Mental health nutrition is different than dieting, right? So I do believe that low carb, low sugar is a good place to start. Also, because carbs and sugars are inflammatory. And so there’s some research out there about the inflammatory properties of foods impacting mental health. So anytime you can look at more anti-inflammatory type foods is a good thing. I just, you know, I kind of live by these rules. If it’s a whole food or healthy fat, go ahead and eat it. Whereas carbs and sugars are not whole foods and you know what I mean? And healthy fat. So if it’s whole food and healthy fat, go ahead and eat it’s a good place to start.
Dr. Mark Leeds [26:48] Like for example, an avocado is very fatty, but very healthy also.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [26:52] It’s a singular food. We just want to keep this as simple as possible. Whole foods and healthy fats. Most nutritionists are looking at things like weight loss and that type of thing. They’re not looking at mental health and addictions. And perhaps, perhaps they don’t understand the complexity of it either.
Dr. Mark Leeds [27:11] And this is also really good for doctors like me that are, that are treating things like heroin and fentanyl addiction. And, you know, we put people on medications that work really well, but this is an important component, you know, addressing nutrition and, you know eating healthier and getting the proper supplementation
Teralyn Sell, PhD [27:28] Yeah and you know I mean if you have clients that don’t really want to be on medication forever this is a good way to support their brain health so eventually they can take those steps down
Dr. Mark Leeds [27:41] Rehabs can be closed-minded I mean if it’s not yeah it’s not the 12 steps and they don’t want to hear about it
Teralyn Sell, PhD [27:46] Right exactly but you know this can fit in with 12 steps this is just healthy living it’s just another way to improve a healthy life. That’s all that it is. We can combine efforts easily.
Dr. Mark Leeds [27:58] There’s the same issue with naltrexone for addiction, you know, the medication naltrexone, which is non-addicting, not habit forming, and can help people with opioid addiction and alcoholism. But rehabs don’t want to hear about it because, you know, they say we don’t use medications for treating addiction, but it’s not treating one drug for another. It’s a completely different kind of medication.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [28:18] Right, right. You know, maybe we need to go on tour together. Let’s do it.
Dr. Mark Leeds [28:26] Another guest of mine had made a documentary about that. And she actually went into a rehab on one part of the documentary and asked them about that. Do you use naltrexone with your patients? And they just said, you know, that’s something we don’t use here. You know, no discussion. And I’ve brought it up also. And it’s, you know, it’s like they just aren’t listening. They’re like, oh, yeah, that sounds interesting. And that’s the end of it.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [28:47] But it’s very interesting because even with the supplements, I have had some clients be worried that they were going to get kicked out of IOP programs because they were taking supplements. Listen, this is for your brain health. There’s this idea that you just have to white knuckle it and figure it out. And it’s all in your head. It’s all how you think. It’s all that stuff. Yet it’s not. And why do we have to continue the rhetoric of suffrage? I don’t understand that.
Dr. Mark Leeds [29:17] All through the levels of rehab, from rehab to PHP to outpatient, they do these drug tests that test for hundreds of different substances. And none of the patients know exactly what they’re being tested for. So I can see why they would fear that they might get cycled back through the system if they come up positive for any one of these hundreds of things they’re testing for.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [29:37] Right. It’s unfortunate. The recovery industry has a long ways to go. But I’m happy to be part of some alternative lines of thinking in recovery.
Dr. Mark Leeds [29:49] Finally, Dr. Teralyn, thank you for being on the Rehab Podcast. I really appreciate you coming on.
Teralyn Sell, PhD [29:53] Thanks for having me. It was great.
