Welcome back . It's the stay off my operating table podcast . I'm Jack Heald and this is Dr Phillip Ovedia . You guys are here because of him , phil . It feels like it's been forever since we talked last . I don't think it has been , I think we just . I think we did two shows last week , but Our technical issues were so maddening . I feel like it's been a month since we talked . So we're back on our normal technical platform . I think things will be better . So I did a little bit research on this guy , who's our guest and I am fascinated To . We're gonna talk to him in just a minute , but I'm fascinated to hear how you connected with him and why you invited him on the show , and then we'll get in it for full introduction .
Dr. Philip OvadiaYeah , most definitely .
Dr. Philip OvadiaI'm really excited for this conversation as well .
Dr. Philip OvadiaActually , our guest , dr John Ferrara , reached out to me I think he originally was asking about getting copies of the stay off my operating table book for his patients , and we kind of chatted a little bit about what he was doing and I found it innovative and fascinating as well and said I got to have you on the podcast so we can bring this to the audience .
Dr. Philip OvadiaSo what has really struck me over the past few years as we continue to explore this metabolic health space is all the different areas that it touches and all the different Physicians , doctors , practitioners of all the different specialties I now end up conversing with and talking with , and it's just like every new area you find where metabolic health touches and , honestly , it's gotten to the point now that you start to try and find the areas that metabolic health doesn't touch , because that's a much shorter list . So that's what we're going to explore , another area today that we haven't really touched on yet on the show and so real excited to introduce Dr John Ferrara . He is a integrative neuropsychologist in clinical practice and has really , I think , discovered some fascinating things about the relationship between metabolic health and the conditions that he's treating and the population that he's doing it in . So , with that , john , why don't you give a little bit of your background to our audience and Kind of tell us how you , I guess , stumbled across metabolic health as you , and to start to integrate it into your practice ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yes , sure , yeah , thank you so much , and , jack , thanks for asking that question . Yeah , because that's a good . I was surprised when I was asked to be on this podcast , but I'm definitely happy to be here .
John Ferrera Ph.D.But I was reaching out to Dr Phil because I have a library of functional medicine books in my office and I frequently , when I'm talking to parents and giving feedback , I'll tell them about functional medicine and Dr Phil's book is really unique amongst them , amongst Ken Berry's book and others , because of the way that he has different diets that you can use to achieve metabolic health , way that you can eat Metabolically healthy on different diets , and so the flexibility really I think is into the , you know , into the field and making improvements and because people come from all different places .
John Ferrera Ph.D.But it really is metabolic health and the reason why I have a library of functional medicine books is because I have a specialty In functional medicine that I developed over the last several years .
John Ferrera Ph.D.So I'm a Chris Kresser certified functional medicine practitioner and I also studying Jim Greenblatt . He's a psychiatrist with the psychiatry redefined platform and he specializes a lot in pediatrics and children with ADHD and disruptive behavior disorders , and there are so many simple tests that can be done for these children that aren't being run , like things like looking for elevated copper for a child who is Adjected and extremely disrupted , or a pyroleria test , which is like a b6 test . So that would be things that Dr Jim Greenblatt would recommend . But really on the whole , just in order for Children to optimize functioning , it's , it's so important for parents to adopt the same strategies and Parents are dealing with the same issues , the same metabolic issues that you know , or not the same ones , but they all have metabolic , you know , deficiencies , like so many people . So by making changes , you know , at the family level , it's extremely really the only way I think that you can make a change , especially for a child .
Jack HealdSo I want to . I'm a dummy here . I'm the . I represent the , the fat part of the curve of listeners . What is integrative neuropsychology ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.Right , so I'm a neuropsychologist , I'm a clinical neuropsychologist , so mostly what I do is I specialize in Neurosyte , school-based Neuropsychological evaluations for children with learning disabilities and developmental disabilities . So a lot of what I'm doing is diagnosing autism and also differential diagnosis between autism and anxiety , or ADHD and anxiety in children .
Jack HealdWhat is the neuro part of neuropsychology ? How is that different from I Don't know non-neuro psychology ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yeah , the neuropsychology part is the part that the specific testing part that looks at that uses like psychometric tests to measure behavior and and so there's a nurse neuropsychologist who specializes in , you know , alzheimer's disease and diagnosing Alzheimer's from the one end of the spectrum and then I'm Focusing in pediatrics and so on my end I'm seeing a lot of autism and learning disabilities the neuro part means we're talking about what's going on Neurologically , primarily the brain and the psychology has to do with behavior .
Jack HealdI'm guessing how it is . Whatever's going on with you neurologically affect how you behave . Am I getting that right ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yes .
Jack HealdOkay , all right Now I think I understand what you do .
Dr. Philip OvadiaYeah . So with that stage set , I guess I would start by asking you how long , at what point in your practice did you kind of recognize the need for integrative care , functional medical care and the sort of relationship between metabolic health and and what ? What bought you to that area ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yeah , so in my personal life , I started , you know , 2012 , like my own journey of improving , but I had to cut out gluten . I cut out gluten just kind of by chance because there's a family member who was celiac . Within a few days of me cutting out gluten , I lost my cognitive brain fog . I started just feeling so much better and then even realized that I had brain fog until I stopped eating the gluten . So I just stuck with that for a while . Two years later , I added refined sugar . I cut that out in addition to the sugar , and my psoriasis went away .
John Ferrera Ph.D.So this is around like 2014 or so and at that time I thought I had the perfect diet and everything and that was it .
John Ferrera Ph.D.But I was still eating seed oils . I heard that they were bad and I was trying to avoid them , but it wasn't really still eating seed oils , still eating carbs , like lots of carbs and stuff at the time . But then for me it was a 2021 . I heard a podcast with Paul Saladino interviewing Chris Canabe talking about the seed oil apocalypse and kind of like everything clicked and the way that he was able to put together diseases of civilization . I had heard about Western Price and I knew about his research , but the way that Chris Canabe was able to put perspective on the problem really kind of made it click for me , and so , really , 2021 and about June of 2021 is when I realized the importance and the significance of making these changes . And then but it took me a while then because I was still trying to piece things together and I'm coming at it from , I think , one of the more challenging perspectives , in that most of the clients that I'm dealing with have autism , with the added complexity , picky eating and severe disruptive behavior that complicates the picture .
Jack HealdSo , as I understand it , autism has . The rates of diagnosed autism have absolutely exploded over the last 35 , 40 years . I know when my kids were born , more than a number of decades ago , a diagnosis of autism was almost unheard of , and today I've seen numbers as high as one in five . I'd love to hear your perspective , if you have one , on the reason for that rise , if it's real , and what are the underlying causes , and then , obviously , what can be done about it .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Absolutely yeah . So yeah , I definitely have a perspective on the issue for a long time in the camp of where it was obvious that there's an environmental problem . This is a change . It's a significant change . It has happened so quickly , like some of these other disorders of diseases of civilization you guys have been talking about .
John Ferrera Ph.D.And so because of that . It's not a change in genetics . Yes , there's a genetic component , but it's not genetics that are changing . It's the environment that's impacting the genetics , and so I think that really it's a question that there is an answer to that could be solved if there was research that was constructed in order to answer the question . But one thing I can tell you for sure is that- .
Jack HealdWhoa , whoa , whoa whoa . You can't go blow and pass that .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Well , we can go back .
Jack HealdYou're going to go back to that .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yeah , we can definitely come back to that , but what I was going to say was that it's definitely apparent that the rates of autism are not consistent and they're widely different and very low in certain places and certain communities and certain geographical areas , and so that's why I think that there's plenty of leads out there that we can research , and so that's kind of what I mean about that . I think we can answer the question that there are examples out there that we can look at .
Dr. Philip OvadiaSo what I'm hearing you say is that it's pretty clear at this point that there's some environmental factor that has changed , and I understand that there's a lot of controversy around what that factor or factors may be . But I also at the same time get the impression that what seems like an obvious conclusion that there's something environmental going on is not widely accepted and kind of the mainstream psychological community .
John Ferrera Ph.D.No , no . And even just asking the question of what's causing this epidemic is really not accepted and the community is really a controversial hot button topic . That really is . It's unfortunately controversial . But , so , yeah , but we can narrow it down , right . So , like the environment has changed , and so I think it's complex , I don't think there's one factor right . So I think one thing , for instance , is poor parent , parental metabolic health . That's something that we know has been declining , right , and so we know that there is an increase in developmental disorders of different types when poor parents with poor give birth .
John Ferrera Ph.D.So that's definitely one factor that is increasing and so I think , and so the reason for the poor metabolic health are the same environmental factors that are , I think , also the same stress . There's a diathesis stress , you know type of problem , right , and there's genetic proclivities towards different things . So just like someone might get heart disease while another person might have thyroid issues or maybe both . It's there , you have a genetic predisposition , but it's going to be the environmental stress is going to determine whether or not you express that disease process .
John Ferrera Ph.D.And you don't have to express that disease process if you're able to avoid the environmental stressors . And so the second thing , so , aside from poor parent , mental , metabolic health , be toxic load right . And so the toxic load has increased globally from multiple sources . So pesticides have like exploded in use . Especially it's not just one pesticide Stephanie Seneff's work . She documents how they combine pesticides together , and so it's even if there's research on , say , glyphosate , that's not what they're necessarily even using and that people are ingesting . So definitely pesticides lab fix , air pollutants of all kinds , especially I guess in different cities versus rural areas there are different types of air pollutants that are there , and then of course , their adjuvants is like what I'd like to say but that is definitely another toxic load that is definitely affecting and has an impact on the expression of autism .
I don't want to open a can of worms , but I'm genuinely interested because this is your area of work . You're dealing with primarily with children with these neuropsychological conditions . I'd like you to expand on that statement about adjuvants .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yeah , adjuvants it's kind of a euphemism for vaccines , because it's what adjuvants are ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.They kind of the effective ingredient in a vaccine or in the vaccine process . It's kind of what's required to make the vaccine work , and so it's a toxin that has to be built into the vaccine , and so that is something that it's such a complex topic and it's so emotional for so many people . And so me and my especially New York City , my practice I meet parents where they are and I kind of feel them out for and I'm honest and just say what I just told you guys , that it's multifactorial and of course this might be something that can be an impact . You should definitely , if you can , advocate to separate vaccinations . That's . Another thing is that if there is a safety study on a vaccine , it's only on one vaccine at a time , it's not on six or seven , which is sometimes a practice that's done to reduce visits , and so there are ways that you can navigate that process . But really it's all about the parents , and so I just kind of meet them where they are and try to just validate them , whatever path they decide to take .
Dr. Philip OvadiaAnd so I mean obviously lots of controversy around this .
Dr. Philip OvadiaWe have currently , you know , a candidate for president who this is a large part of his platform and I think it is unfortunate that it's sort of a taboo topic .
Dr. Philip OvadiaAnd , like you said , it's maybe different components of these vaccines and it may be the combinations of these vaccines that haven't been tested that might be contributing to this . But one of the things I always kind of come back to is so you're obviously seeing children after they've been diagnosed , after they've developed the condition , and we can kind of talk about , ok , what may have caused it . But it's sort of a theoretical discussion on some level for that child in front of you , because you can't go undo whatever it is , but you can modify other factors moving forward that may impact the progression of the condition , the state of the condition . So I'd love to hear kind of what your experience has been now in the modifiable environmental factors and the effect that that's having on these children who are already diagnosed and maybe you're not going to be able to make the condition reverse completely but does it have an impact on the severity of the condition ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.Well , yeah , it really does , and it depends .
John Ferrera Ph.D.It doesn't always have an impact , but definitely I think , when parents and families or individuals find the right combination of diet and lifestyle , that there are significant changes that can be made , and so there's a documentary called Restoring Balance in Autism Recovery that's out there I think it's available again for purchase , and they actually document changes , so it's at least 10 years of footage , so you really get to see before and after of changes that are possible when people follow functional medicine type approach , and so what that means is addressing things like nutrient deficiency , gut checking , making sure that the gut is intact and there's no leaky gut , and then , after those things are addressed , and looking at toxic load , and so there's a process of which that is followed , and , of course , addressing undiagnosed autoimmunities like gluten or dairy , which are , of course , the most common , but there are so many other problems , things in the food supply that could be triggering for kids , and so I'm learning more and more about the process so that I can help coach families through it , and so one of the most interesting things is that there are so many adults with autism who have , over the last few years , adopted a carnivore diet and have claims to totally reverse their symptoms on the carnivore diet , and so that's definitely , I think , something I want to look more into because I feel that it is really the simplest way , simplest path in many ways to metabolic health .
John Ferrera Ph.D.That , of course , sounds crazy , and I know Dr Phil doesn't think it's crazy , but it's very simple to apply and you can do it in a cost-effective way . And if you have a picky eater who has autism , you can try to channel their pickiness into a carnivorous-type diet . I think that is one of the best ways to make fast improvement .
Jack HealdI have a question related to diet and picky eating with autistic children and a slight bit of background . I remember as a kid there were a handful of vegetables that my parents insisted that I ate that I hated , I just hated . Much later in life I was diagnosed with a metabolic condition and I was fortunate to have a functional doctor who said to me hey , here's this list of things you don't want to eat , and very prominent on that list were most of these vegetables that I hated . In other words , my ignorant , childlike revulsion at these particular vegetables was actually my body saying , hey , this ain't good for us , but my parents didn't know . I didn't know . And that sets the stage for my question .
Is this pickiness on the part of autistic children , the pickiness eating ? Are they inclined to avoid things that are in fact bad for them and prefer things that are in fact healthy for them ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.No , unfortunately , they always like McDonald's chicken nuggets or something cheese it . They're something that they usually tend to getting the same food addictions that other people get , and it's sugar and gluten that they end up gravitating towards . I do see times that kids will have inversions to certain foods and parents will say , oh , you know , it's such a problem , they won't eat Brussels grass . I'm like , don't take it easy with the Brussels grass , don't worry so much , it's OK if it doesn't eat those . So yes , I definitely agree that I think a lot of those childhood versions to vegetables , it turns out , probably are , especially these days .
John Ferrera Ph.D.I mean , the food supply has changed and that's kind of like the third thing that's on my list here that we didn't talk about .
John Ferrera Ph.D.But the overall quality of the food supply has decreased because of mom-to-pop agriculture and pesticides , which reduces the quality of the food . So food that was grown 30 years ago had more vitamins and nutrient quality than the food that is grown today and even over the last 10 years . If you look at the explosion of rates over the last 10 years of metabolic disease there has been an explosion . It's not just like over the last 30 years , like over the last 10 years and that correlates with , I'm sure , different things , but one thing for sure is , over the last 10 years , the pesticide use has increased a lot more , and so I think a lot of people like people in my family , for instance have an adage they go by where I don't need vitamins . I can get everything I eat from my food . And maybe that was true even just 10 years ago , but it's no longer true at the current moment because their food supply , especially in the United States , is so compromised with the pesticides and the mom-to-pop agriculture , and then when ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.you add the seed oils and the refined sugars and the processed foods on top of it . It's just the reason why we're dealing with the explosion of metabolic disease that we're seeing .
Jack HealdIt was interesting for you to say that because we had DrJ Wrigley on last week and he made essentially the same point about supplementation . There was a time when , if you ate well , you didn't need to supplement , but due to the decreased quality of our food supply , supplementation for most folks has become essential .
Dr. Philip OvadiaHow much awareness do you find in these families coming to you that there is a metabolic component to this , that their children may have these metabolic diseases , even though that may not be apparent ? I mean probably similar to what I talk about around heart disease . You don't have to be obese to have metabolic disease . You don't have to have a diagnosis of diabetes to have metabolic disease . And I just wonder these families that are coming to you and their children have autism , adhd and the other conditions you deal with . I'm curious to know , when you talk to them about the metabolic component of this , whether that is eye-opening information to them .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yeah , it's kind of good and bad news because , on the one hand , they're happy to hear they always are happy to have the conversation , especially , more and more people are cooking at home these days , and so they're trying to eat healthy , but they just don't know how to eat healthy and thankfully , because of people like you in your podcast , the word is out there about that if you have a doctor who doesn't actually write your diet , they're not the best doctor , and people are starting to hear about saturated fat isn't really necessarily great for you and plant-based isn't necessarily always the best thing for everyone , and so it's encouraging to
hear that . The discouraging part is that , especially with children who have autism , even severe autism with disruptive behavior I'm the first person that is speaking to them about diet and they've heard about diet being important , but they've gone to the major medical centers in New York City for their initial evaluations and they hear about ABA therapy . They get referred to a psychiatrist , but none of those people talk to them about the importance of making dietary changes . They don't do any tests for nutrient deficiencies . They might test for lead exposure .
John Ferrera Ph.D.That might be one thing that they might routinely test for , but a lot of what I'm doing now is kind of like first step . I was talking to parents and they're very receptive . But then the next step is how do they use this information ? And so they go to their pediatrician , and their pediatrician is , depending on who they are . They either sometimes just completely brush it off and be like , oh no , that's not necessary at all . But more and more they're starting to open the door . But that's my challenge right now is trying to kind of connect parents to support and getting them on the path .
Dr. Philip OvadiaAnd when you do the testing , how often are you finding kind of hidden metabolic disease or other nutrient issues that can be kind of easily addressed , or I should say simply addressed ? I know it's not easy to make these changes .
John Ferrera Ph.D.It's so common . Just yesterday mom called she's scheduling an appointment for two of her children . They both have autism with psychotic features and they both have fatty liver disease .
Jack HealdThey're nine years old oh my gosh .
John Ferrera Ph.D.So it's extremely prevalent . And then also just the insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes is extremely prevalent and trigger addictions . And so that's what makes it challenging is that a lot of the medications especially if a child is on risk peridone or risk peridol it actually leads to insulin resistance and so it will lead to more cravings , and so it makes it even harder for you to make these positive changes . So it gets complicated for different reasons .
Dr. Philip OvadiaYeah , I know when we spoke with Chris Palmer he certainly made that connection as well . How much and I forget the statistic , but the increase in other metabolic diseases in people that are diagnosed with psychiatric conditions . I mean it's pretty eye opening , like the magnitude of the risk . The increased risk related to heart disease in people with psychiatric diagnoses is way more than high cholesterol or anything like that . So that's just one more piece of evidence of how these have to share a common root cause to have such a high increase in risk associated with them .
Jack HealdWe had I mean , I was thinking of Chris Palmer and Thomas C Fried and the last year we've had two different researchers who have said to us Thomas C Fried is a cancer researcher . He said unambiguously all cancer is a metabolic cancer is a metabolic dysfunction . And Chris Palmer and I remember this quote specifically he said all brain dysfunction is metabolic dysfunction . And that leads me to this question Are you in a place where you can say that autism is in fact what it is is a metabolic dysfunction ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.In certain cases , absolutely . Yes , I'm still learning . It's still very complex and I'm still kind of in between , kind of going around and learning from different people who are out there . I'm like Karen Thomas is one individual , she's an autism mom who helps children on the metabolic path and James Greenblatt , of course , and others , and so I'm still so I can't say for certain for everyone , but definitely in some cases , absolutely .
Dr. Philip OvadiaSo kind of going back before you came to the kind of functional medicine and metabolic compare sort of what your practice is like and what help you were able to offer these families before you sort of came to this discovery versus now , yeah , so so one thing it's a lot of what I do is just connect parents to schools and services , and so that's the same .
John Ferrera Ph.D.But there's definitely a big elephant in the room I think of every single psychiatrist and psychologist office because people come to me and they say I'm depressed and anxious , and we talk about behaviors that they can change and thoughts that they can change , and that's all very , very true and very valid . We recommend medications , of course , but nobody talks about or until now , thanks to people like Chris Palmer and yourself but they're we're really talking about the link between metabolic health and mental health , and so that's something that is not being addressed when , when , I think people come into most psychologists or psychiatrists office and so that's the big thing that has changed . Is that ? That's something that I now will talk about ? Yeah , and so , yeah , chris Palmer , I'm sure he was talking or referring to there's been studies recently , long-term studies , of SSRI users , and SSRIs are the medications most often prescribed for depression and anxiety , and they have exploded in use , especially in recent years , alongside the explosion and the symptoms of depression and anxiety , and after groups of individuals , after 10 years on these medications , they're just as depressed or anxious as they were when they started , but now they also have developed metabolic dysfunction .
John Ferrera Ph.D.They have the same markers of metabolic disease . They have insulin resistance or type two diabetes , or they have heart disease or these other fatty liver disease you name it .
John Ferrera Ph.D.But so it really is the elephant in the room that isn't being addressed and it shows the research is showing that exactly .
Jack HealdAt this point there we've got parents who are listening to this , who are asking a question something like this what do I do to figure out if my child I think my child may have some autism behaviors ? What do I do next ? And I realize that you said that where you are in the country , the answer might be different .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Well , yes , the access to functional medicine providers , and even like natural or pathic providers , are mostly accessible in most places in the country , like happy to say , but in New York and especially , there are restrictive laws on functional medicine testing , and so there's especially like fewer number of providers who provide the service , and so families oftentimes have to go out of state to find providers . But also it's the testing and working with the doctors One part is very important . But then the other part is like the long , slow hall of making the changes and making them every single day , and so that's why I think Stay Off my Operating Table is such an important book , because it provides the support that helps you get on the path of getting towards optimal or better improving your metabolic health , because it takes time .
Jack HealdSo for a parent who has a child that they suspect may have an issue , is there some low hanging fruit , so to speak ? Are there some do these things ? This handful of changed behaviors will probably help .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yeah , it's a tough question because there's such variability in presentation with autism and also like at what age is it , and so definitely it's important for parents to contact their early intervention program if it's between zero and two to get the diagnosis , so that they can start getting access to services and support . But then separate from that , I think you were probably asking more like what they can do practically in the home .
John Ferrera Ph.D.And so I think , like knowing , I guess the first thing is being aware and kind of like taking tending to their own metabolic health before pregnancy if possible , but then setting themselves up so that they can breastfeed if they can , they can have a natural delivery if they can , and so it really depends on , like , where you enter the equation and then like what you can do really changes at that point . But then even like if you are giving formula to a baby , like a lot of baby formulas have soybean oil as like one of the main ingredients , and so like choosing an option that has healthier ingredients is definitely would be , I think , low hanging fruit and avoiding processed food , introducing meats early , high protein , high nutrient dense foods , like meats without the breaded coating , early , so that kids get a taste for it .
Jack HealdIf a parent was able to . I shouldn't say if . When a parent makes these changes , I'm assuming that most parents will notice their kid is presenting with something that doesn't seem right by the time they're two . When a parent makes these dietary changes , what kinds of improvements can they expect to see ? If , in fact , this is the problem ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yeah , the first thing that you would expect to see is an improvement in your tolerance to stress . And so I've heard the analogy and I use the analogy like we have a kind of like a bowl and the stress is the amount of the water that goes into that bowl . And there are certain things if we're inflamed because we're eating a bad diet , then that's going to make the bowl smaller . If we take a drug like the benzodiazepine or something that is going to reduce our anxiety , that's something , or a CBD , or something like that or something that's going to increase the bowl right , and so it's not necessary to take drugs if
John Ferrera Ph.D.you're able to eat the proper diet . So that's the first thing . A lot of kids with autism they have trouble , they will tantrum , they'll run out of a classroom . But the thing is , the important thing to look at is like what's happening before they run out of a classroom , and oftentimes it's like they're expected to write , or it's like time for circle time and something like a demand in their environment that is challenging for them , that they can't rise to , and so that's kind of what triggers and so they're more likely to be able to be challenged , and so that's kind of like one of the first things that you would expect to see . Wow .
Dr. Philip OvadiaBut talk a little bit more about the relationship between autism and ADHD .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yeah , yeah . So ADHD is a very interesting thing because it's another one of these . It's a diagnosis that definitely there is like a profile of an ADHD type profile . But attention problems are so much of a component of so many other things and so like sometimes there are some people who have like no pure ADHD presentation but even though people are at multiple times that there is some anxiety or that's impacting the presentation and so well , with autism especially , there's built in to the autism diagnosis there's a component of anxiety and especially usually it's like an obsessive , OCD ish type anxiety that will show up with it and so that's part of the diagnosis . Sometimes it leads to an additional diagnosis on top of the autism If the anxiety is really having such an important impact on their functioning . But that's more of a , I guess , a diagnostic preference of the clinician . There's not a set diagnostic criteria for autism . It is very subjective . It really is based on the experience of the clinician really determines the accuracy of the diagnosis .
Jack HealdIt seems like over the last 40 years I've observed a rise in the diagnosis of adults with ADHD , and I haven't known what to make of that . I certainly understand what it's like to sit down and want to do some work and have difficulty concentrating because there's so many other interesting things to look at . But I've always just thought , at least on my part , it's just buckle down , jack , you know you got work to do , just do it . Is there a ? Is it likely that this adult ADHD has also got metabolic roots ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.Absolutely , and I think also it's a case by case basis , but and more probably more so in some rather than others , because when people fix their metabolic problems , they often report resolving anxiety , and so I think that there's a definite link for sure between those two .
John Ferrera Ph.D.But there are things I think in our society , like the fast pace of society , things used to just happen slower . You would call someone , leave a message on their answering machine . They would hear it and call you back the next day . If you needed to buy something at the store , you would wait until Monday to go to the store to go and buy it . Now it's like you can do everything . It's 12 o'clock , you want to buy something , then you can go and you can get it done , and it's so I think , that also increases anxiety and ADHD , and things are happening faster .
Well , that takes me back to something you said earlier in the conversation , which was and I may have misunderstood you , if I did , please correct me but you implied , I think , that where you live in the country determines or is determined as probably your own word there's a corresponding relationship to how likely autism is to occur . I understand you .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yes , yeah , yeah . So I'm glad you asked that question , because you have one .
Jack HealdWhy did you expand on that ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.But I didn't , yeah , so , like in Portugal , for instance , in southern Portugal , which is a place I just recently purchased a home in , and I spent some time there and just talking to people over there and talking to them and asking me what I do and telling them about my diagnosed autism and I have to explain what autism is to all of them .
John Ferrera Ph.D.They're not sure what it is , and then it's definitely not as prevalent there as it is here Within the country . It's been known for a while that the level of autism within the Amish community is very low , and it's something that I think as early as 2005, . There have been a report where Dr Givdis study or made a case report that was one in extremely low in the Amish population , and so when I first started looking into this question when I was young in my career back in 2009 , 2010 , I gave a presentation on how there must be an environmental cause for autism and I was contacting the major autism research institutes and asking them like hey , can we get a study together ? I'd love to be a part of it , and there was no interest whatsoever . It was like crickets . I felt like I was a crazy person , like when I was saying I think we should do a study , I think there's an environmental cause to autism , and so yeah , so I think , definitely the autism community is one of those areas that could be .
John Ferrera Ph.D.The Amish community , I'm sorry , is one of those areas that could be studied . And then also just looking geographically for spots around the world like southern Portugal perhaps is one of them where there is an extremely low rate .
Jack HealdYou have a thesis , why that's so .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Of the rate . Well , I mean , if you look at the Amish and look at their behavior I mean they eat , they grow their own food . I'm pretty sure they like organic practices . I think they use pesticides , but definitely probably less , much less than we do , and so I think they are not only low in autism , I would bet that they are also low in other metabolic diseases as well . But I haven't looked into that .
John Ferrera Ph.D.I really haven't , Because it is a controversial topic and so it's an area that I haven't gone into , but I think the factors that we already spoke about . I think it's clear that they have a significant impact and toxic load being the big one impact and parental metabolic health , but then also child development as well .
Jack HealdI'm wondering if there was a way to just geographically , look at a map and say , hey , there's . Higher rates of autism are correlated with more of X or less of Y geographically .
Dr. Philip OvadiaYeah , it'd be interesting to sort of overlay the map of diabetes and obesity and autism and kind of see what correlations we might find there , because part of me still wonders the sort of chicken and an egg question here . We've kind of established that , okay , once you have the diagnosis of autism , a lot of the behavioral issues and other things can be improved by paying attention to and optimizing these metabolic issues . But I go back as to was it a positive factor in it ? Is it root cause ? Or are things that then happen after you are diagnosed with autism worse than the metabolic disease ? Like you said , some of the medications , for instance , or maybe some of the behavioral dietary tendencies worsening it ? But actually what and I meant to ask you about this earlier to dig in a little bit more you mentioned that maternal metabolic disease influences the risk of autism in the baby . So there's obviously some in-neuro developmental impact there . Can you go into that a little bit more ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yeah , so it's a literature that I don't have off the top of my head now , but there are definite studies where and it's not necessarily autism specific , but parents , mothers specifically with poor metabolic health just because that was what the study was done on but mothers with poor metabolic health led to an increased incidence of learning and developmental disorders . And as far as the development of autism , I should say there are some cases where and it's relatively common where there's a regression of functioning , where children are developing normally and then all of a sudden there's some environmental exposure . Most often it's an adjuvant exposure and from like a six month checkup or a wellness visit that they go to , child has a week of sickness and then they start experiencing a regression . So I think in those cases it's easier to kind of pinpoint what the cause may have been .
Jack HealdI was fascinated as I was reading your websites , just scrolling around on your website with this , I'm going back to this restoring balance documentary and I just want to make sure that what I'm reading is what you meant to say . It sounds like , based on what I'm reading here on your website , right referring to this documentary , that people are seeing their children recover from autism . Am I overstating that ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.No , you're not , and that's why the documentary is really something that I would encourage you to take a look at , just because you can see like there's one of the adults in the documentary as an engineer and I had to rewind and go back because it turns out he was one of the who had autism and was with his father thinking he loved to do , he loved the extension course , so his dad was taking him to the electronics store so he could play with all the extension boards when he was a kid and was demonstrating some significant , prominent , repetitive , autistic like behaviors and it was unrecognizable completely , and so and there are definitely anecdotal reports and that's kind of one of the things that I'm in the process of doing now is trying to kind of like shed light on and find more and more of these stories , and so that's why I'm looking forward .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Karen Thomas , like I mentioned her earlier , she has a conference coming up that I'm looking forward to attend and I'm going to get more into this world just to see , like , what people are doing in order to get the success that they're having .
Yeah , I mean and it really makes me think the parallels between again , something like type two diabetes , which most doctors wouldn't say is reversible . Yet increasingly we have all the data that , yes , it can be reversed and cured . And I know some people will say , well , you're not actually curing it , but you're curing it . These people are off medications and have normal blood sugar control , so I certainly consider that a cure . And all these other conditions that I now see routinely being reported that are thought to be not reversible autoimmune conditions , things like that we're seeing reversing now with these metabolic interventions and , of course , again some of the psychiatric diagnoses that people like Christopher Palmer and others are reporting being essentially cured with metabolic interventions .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yeah , absolutely yeah , and just maybe we can . I know we're getting close to the hour , but we can end by talking a little bit about Alzheimer's , because that's something else that has increased like crazy in prevalence especially the last 10 years , and so it's kind of we have autism on one end and we got Alzheimer's on the other end , and it's something that .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Dale Bredesen's work and others has shown that you can reverse Alzheimer's . You can reverse that process and it's more multiple sclerosis . You know Terry Walls and her work , but these irreversible progressive disorders are in fact reversible if you choose that path .
Jack HealdBill , this is so I don't know what . I have a little bit of a hesitance about coming to the conclusion that it feels like an immediate lead to , which is we've got this plethora of diagnoses for various kinds of things that we observe and more and more and more it feels like they're all coming back to they've got the same root cause .
Dr. Philip OvadiaYeah , honestly metabolic dysfunction . Yeah , it's a struggle I have these days when someone comes to me with all of these myriad of diagnoses and asks can I fix this with metabolic intervention ? And I don't want to sound like I said . I start to sound crazy to myself because the answer is almost always yes . These days , like it is very unusual that someone will present something to me that I don't think there's at least a component of metabolic care that should go into that management .
Jack HealdSo well , it kind of makes sense If I think of a metaphor of our body is like an automobile . And if I've got an eight cylinder car and I've got a bent rod and I've got leaky seals and I've got an oil leak that hasn't been addressed and I take it to a mechanic and I say , wow , my gas mileage is really bad . Well , it might be that you're driving an eight cylinder car , but it might be that you've got all these underlying problems that if we fix those , all the other stuff just goes away .
Dr. Philip OvadiaYeah , very much true , john . To wrap up , I'd love to kind of hear maybe a story , a success story , from your practice around this .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yeah , so just recently a child , a three and a half years old , diagnosed with autism , a high functioning presentation , and he had OCD type behaviors where he was tantrumming If his favorite toy wasn't around . He wasn't able to go and do things with the family and the parents were open to a metabolic approach and I was able to consult with Jim Greenblatt at the time . They started implementing . They got off , they went gluten free , dairy free and they started some minor supplementation which I won't go into because it was really specific to the child and their presentation with the supplements they were taking , but they were just over the counter supplements and the child is doing extremely , extremely well . I just got an update that they started school yesterday and they're in a mainstream school . Their mom is going to try to keep the child in a mainstream school without going to a specialized school , but there's been a significant improvement in resolution of his OCD symptoms and the OCD type anxiety with this child , and so that's one reason .
Jack HealdAnd it basically was get rid of the dairy , get rid of the wheat and do some supplementation . That was the solution .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yeah , yeah , and they're not done yet because this child still has . He's going into pre-K and so there's going to be challenges . But I think they're laying the groundwork of fixing his gut , supporting his liver , getting the detox pathways . Fixing the gut is going to help reduce the toxic load and recover the leaky gut and then supporting the liver is going to help improve the detox pathways so that the child can actually get rid of some of those toxins . And then the next step will be kind of looking and addressing if they still have problems and if the need is still there . Is there any toxic load ? What are the nutrient deficiencies that might be left imbalances , and so kind of . It's a long road , so it's a minor success story , but it's still in progress , very much so .
Jack HealdI would imagine for parents it's not minor .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Right , yes , yeah , because the alternative really is risk at all is commonly prescribed for children with those problems , or a stimulant like an ADHD medication . Then they have trouble sleeping , so they give something like a glampocene or something to help the child sleep at night , which is a beta blocker , or that's the blood pressure . So that's kind of that . That's what the best medical practices are at the current moment .
Jack HealdAll right , so we're going to two different kinds of people who need an answer to this question . There's going to be people who live geographically or somewhere where they can get help from you , and people who aren't . So give us , give us pathways to help for both that set , those sets of folks .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yes , I think it's important , like reading Dr Phil's book is an important pathway to help . Parents are sometimes surprised when I talking to their child who has autism or anxiety and I hand them a book about heart disease . But it's so relevant because so often the parents just came from a cardiologist office or they have elevated HDL or whatever it is , and so they're happy to get that book and they're happy to get it .
John Ferrera Ph.D.But a lot of the work , especially , I'm going to start offering my services as a coach , which means I'm going to do a lot of remote work and so I won't be bound by license restrictions . It's kind of like a metabolic health coach . I'm just kind of like helping push people in the right direction , helping connect them to physicians who could run tests . I do have the option to run certain tests , but at the moment I think I'm going to be . I really want to align with physicians and other mental functional medicine practitioners as much as possible , and a lot of it is educating parents and providing them support , getting them to listen to podcasts say , if they have thyroid issues in the family , then listening to like Amy Berger or a functional medicine practitioner who works in that space , and then that kind of , just to get them moving on the path .
Jack HealdAll right , so how do folks get ahold of you ?
John Ferrera Ph.D.Yes , and the best way is through my website , which is dot com . You know . Integrative neuropsychological services .
Jack HealdAll right , we'll make sure that shows up in the show notes . I've actually already got it set up . So it does that . And I will say just as somebody who's interested generally I don't have any personal stake with I'm grateful my children and grandchildren Some of them appear , as best as I can tell , to be dealing with this issue , but it's fascinating to read some of these articles . I haven't read the whole thing , but I've read a number of the articles on your website and I'm just I am fascinated . My grandmother died with what her physicians called the most severe case of Alzheimer's they'd ever run into and it was personally interesting to me to hear you connect autism and Alzheimer's . I'm closer to that end of life than the childhood ADHD . So it's motivational , phil . Any last words here , for we call it a day .
Dr. Philip OvadiaNo , just another great discussion and another . Like I said , the sort of spider web of connections that we're building between all of these various conditions continues to fascinate and amaze me , and just so thankful for all of the practitioners , like John and all the others we've had on this show and are yet to have on this show , that are making these changes and bringing it to the people that need this help .
Jack HealdJohn , thanks for reaching out to Dr Ovedi . I'm really glad we've made this connection . This was not something I saw coming and it's really cool .
John Ferrera Ph.D.Great All right .
Jack HealdWell , sorry For John Ferrara and Dr Philip Philip Ovedi on Jack Heald . Thanks for listening . All the information you need to contact our guests will be available in the show notes . We're glad you're here and we'll talk to you next time .