Nutrition, Parkinson’s, and the Gut Brain Connection with Functional Nutritionist Carolee Horner

In this episode of Beyond My Diagnosis, I welcome back Carolee Horner, functional nutritionist and health coach, to talk about Parkinson’s disease, gut health, inflammation, and how small, realistic nutrition changes can dramatically improve quality of life for both patients and caregivers.

Carolee shares why Parkinson’s found her, not the other way around, and how working with the Parkinson’s community shifted her perspective on neurological conditions, nutrition, and healing. We explore the powerful connection between the gut and the brain, why constipation is often an early symptom of Parkinson’s, and how food can either support or challenge the nervous system.

This conversation is practical, compassionate, and empowering, especially for anyone feeling overwhelmed by a diagnosis or unsure where to begin.

In this episode, you will learn:
 • Why nutrition plays a critical role in Parkinson’s disease management
 • How gut health and brain health are deeply connected
 • What inflammation and oxidative stress mean for neurological conditions
 • Why constipation is one of the most overlooked Parkinson’s symptoms
 • How processed foods impact the nervous system
 • The truth about protein, levodopa, and common nutrition myths
 • Why small, sustainable changes work better than strict diets
 • How caregivers and families can eat together without isolation

About Carolee:
 Carolee Horner is a functional nutritionist and board-certified health and wellness coach who works with people living with Parkinson’s disease and their care partners. She focuses on gut and brain health strategies that support the whole family and help slow symptom progression using integrative, realistic approaches.

Carolee’s Links:
 🌐 http://www.nutritionforpd.com
📘 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095318119061

Transcript

0:00

(Music) Hello, this is Michelle Weston with Beyond Diagnosis. It's great to have all you listeners out there. And as usual, for those of us living with a chronic condition, it's kind of nice to be the expert in the audience. Because I hope that who I bring onto the show as my experts and as the interviews that I do, inspires you. And it makes you think and makes you consider other choices you may not have thought about. So today I have someone who I actually got my masters with, a Nipollin. And Caroline, I have known each other for at least six years now, five, six years now. And what's great is that Caroline did a very tough thing. She has two kids, she's in Georgia. And she got her nutrition masters and her health and wellness coaching masters. So she was a really dervish and I am inspired by her. And I always love having Caroline back, especially because living with a chronic condition, there are so many. But there are also when we think about neurological, some that we all are still learning a lot about. Because they're relatively new as named illnesses, right, Caroline? I mean, they're named. I think they've been there for a long time. I think we just didn't know what to call them, how to describe them and what they were. It's like MS, they thought women were hysterical and that's why we got MS since the 1700s, which we weren't hysterical and we weren't crazy, no. But the point is that Caroline has decided to focus, that doesn't mean she doesn't work with other people with other chronic conditions. But she's really doing a service for the Parkinson's group. And so I asked her to come back and talk about that. There's lots of groups online, Facebook has groups on Parkinson's. And I wanted to share her ideas with you guys. So on that note, Carol Lee, how are you? Hi, I'm well, Michelle, thank you so much for having me back again. Always a pleasure, always. I'd love to come and talk to you about nutrition and especially as it relates to Parkinson's disease. Well, because we're an older generation, we have a lot of people who are growing older in this century. And how do you handle something? Not just as the Parkinson's patient, but as the caregiver, as the husband and wife, as the children. It's scary and it's terrible to see someone change so much. So how can we help them? So nutrition and how can one of those coaching is a darn good place in the world of integrated medicine to start. I know that you're going to be speaking to the Parkinson's Foundation coming up. And definitely at the end, I want to make sure that you let people know where you'll be and if they can tune in or grab a seat, whatever. But why did you choose Parkinson's to focus on? Well, so that's interesting. Usually one of the exercises you do as a new nutritionist or health coach is really talk through your story, your personal story of how you come to your niche. And so many people have these inspiring stories of, well, my mom had that disease or I have that disease and I really want to help people. I came to Parkinson's a little bit different. That community found me. And they asked me for help. A very specific group here in Atlanta at the Center for Movement Challenges, which is like a holistic wellness center for people with movement challenges and specifically Parkinson's disease. Great. It started with them asking me to do a few presentations for them, saying, hey, the best we get at the doctors follow the Mediterranean diet. A lot of us don't know what that means. We don't know how it applies to us and we really need your help. I fought this niche for a long time. Really? I did. Because you really wanted to do a lot. You wanted to be able to choose being able to help people with different things going on, right? Well, I said that I didn't know who I wanted to work with, but I knew a few things for sure. I did not want to work with the older generation. I did not want to work with a neurological condition and I did not want to work with something that is like chronic and progressive. Wow. Of course, here I am in Parkinson's, all of those things. You know what? Sometimes we end up doing something or having something that we think is a negative and ends up being a positive because we, as the experts, get to learn things. Sometimes we actually grow to love something that we thought that we'd hate, right? Absolutely. What happened? Did somebody reach out to you for the center? Yeah, to start teaching classes. So I started teaching classes. Then I had a few requests to speak at support groups. And it has just grown and blossomed from there until I finally paid attention to the light one day and said, "Okay, I see the path that you're laying out before me. I will walk it." And so I'm not 100% sure why I'm on this path, but this is where I am. And I feel very deeply and very strongly that I am in the right place at the right time. Wow. So what made you, as you started to, I'm sure you had it study and going in focus on it when you started to work with people, what did you feel was an area that you said I either didn't know or that this is an interesting population? Oh, well, there's so many things interesting about the Parkinson's population. And there are at least 10 new things that I learn every day about this illness and about the people who have this illness. One of the biggest things, though, that was a huge shock to me when I started really researching for these classes is the lack of focused research. So there is a wonderful naturopath, Dr. Lori Kane-Mishley, who is out of Seattle, who is doing some really great research on the impact of food and slowing progression. Which is what we want. We actually want to be able to slow it down. If we could slow it down, first of all, a lot of Parkinson's research is going on. And I am grateful to be at this time with a neurological condition because I know that they're working very hard on Parkinson's, on MS, on ALS, on... What am I thinking of? The other big one. Alzheimer's. Thank you. The brain. I love that. Technically, I was looking for Alzheimer's, which I watched on TV the other day on Chicago PD. Beautifully handled. The father won the policeman who got Alzheimer's. And to be able to gracefully find a way to have something like Parkinson's or ALS, to not recognize people was really scary. I mean, I just I can't. I can't even imagine not knowing when you're looking at your child who's 30 years of age going, "I'm sorry, what is your name?" Who are you? Why are you here? And that's scary for the caregiver and the person going through the chronic condition. So nutritionally, and I think nutrition is really important. OK, guys, 25 going on 26 years of MS. I want to just tell you something. If I didn't have a good integrated nutritionist like I did, I don't think I would be in the shape that I am. And I'm not saying that to flatter carolie. I'm saying that because I say this like a broken record, but I'm going to always say it. We as the patient have a responsibility. Doctors do medicine. They're in charge of helping us stay as well as we can medically. But integratively, complementary, we have to take care of our bodies. We have to say, what can I do nutritionally? What can I do with a physical activity? How can I handle my stress? What do I do about depression? How can I be more mindful? That's our responsibility. And when you choose to own that and take it on, carolie, I think people sort of also when you get a chronic condition, something is taken away from you because people love to say, I'm sorry, it's like, don't you didn't give it to me? It happened. Things happen in this lifetime. But nutritionally, why carolie and I have a closer connection is she is dealing the same thing with her patients that I do with mine, and that is inflammation. So why we say inflammation is if you have a neurological condition, you're inflaming your nervous system. And when you do that, you cause pain, you cause blockage, you cause confusion. And we want to keep our nervous system as quiet as we can to make it easier to live the best life that we can. Right. So you've been doing this for a while. What do you think nutritionally and also physical activity, because you and I both do health and wellness coaching also, what do you think has been helpful on the big plane? And also what things do you think you would burst that bubble on something that people think is good or is more of a negative thing that people should know about Parkinson's and neurological conditions in regards to how we eat? Yeah. So first, what are the big things and then debunk a myth per se? Yeah. So I think the biggest things are a general healthy diet that really focuses on a lot of colorful plant foods. The number one step I believe in managing any chronic condition with food is to get rid of the processed food. Now we were talking a little bit before we started recording about eat food. And when I say that, I mean, actually eat food. Real food, not drink it. Not protein bars. Green proteins, lagoons, those beans are such fiber powerhouses, the fresh fruits and veggies, you know, eating at fast food restaurants or eating, you know, chips and dip and things like that. Those are fun, but they're not actually food that is fueling your body. So the very first place to start is just understanding how much real food are you eating today? And how much real food do you eat on a consistent basis? So from there, you know, I preach the 80-20 rule a lot that the best that you're aiming for is a really healthy diet. 80% of the time. So 20% of the time can be for fun, for convenience, for running around for birthdays, for birthdays, for going for pizza, right? For all of those things. So 80% of the time eating real food. Now for some people, that's going to be a huge stretch. Some people are only eating 10% real food and 90% processed food. So do me a favor. I'm gonna stop here a second. Explain, I'm gonna let you explain what processed food means to us in regards to why we might eat, quote, real food. Real food is bananas, is a hamburger, is a piece of chicken, is fish. Not a fish stick, but fish. So to me, processed food is food that comes from a factory. It's pretty much the easy way to say that. If it's coming off of a long conveyor belt, it has probably been processed. If it has a whole bunch of ingredients that sound like chemicals that you don't know what they are, that is processed food. If it has a flavor of purple or blue raspberry or is very brightly dyed, these are processed food. Run away. Gatorade with a really bright yellow color or purple. When I say eat the rainbow, I'm not talking about Skittles. I'm talking about tomatoes and carrots and corn and leafy greens and blueberries and eating that rainbow. So I think that's the number one thing, right? So if you're eating 10% whole food and 90% processed food at this point, jumping to 80-20 is going to feel very overwhelming. So your goal is 20% whole food and 80% processed. Then ramp that up to 30-70 and slowly we go until you've really transformed your diet and are, you know, really feeling better in a lot of ways. Like maybe your fatigue has eased, maybe you're sleeping better, your depression's a little bit better, your anxiety, your anxiety is lessened. And these are all major quality of life enhancements. My biggest myth, as it rates as it would rate specifically to Parkinson's is maybe a dull one, which is one that what I eat doesn't matter. That has kind of been the message to people in Parkinson's that food doesn't matter. So major nonprofits are just now in the last few years starting to put out information and guides on nutrition really has just been kind of a forgot area. So for anybody with Parkinson's disease, what you eat absolutely matters. The other one is that there's a lot of confusion about protein interactions with the homework medicine, which is levodopa. So there could be a protein and levodopa reaction where they're competing at the receptor site. Some people hear this and think I should stop eating protein. And that is disastrous. No, you need you need to grow guys, you need, you need the food group, plural, right? Right. Why? But when you're just being told, this could interact and it could make your medication work less, and you don't have the education that we have, then you might think, I should just avoid protein. But what happens is that your muscles begin to waste. And as you get older, if you start dipping your toes into frailty, it is a very, very important thing. Very, very hard for you to work your way back to being very strong and robust. So that is a myth that I always try to bust as about protein in general with a levodopa interaction. Yeah, it's just in Dopa, talk to them about what Dopa is. Dopa is a good thing. When we say dopamine, we're talking about something good. Those are the good feelings, right? How would we explain it in the world of? Dopamine is one of our neurotransmitters, right? So it helps our neurons speak to each other and it is what we consider the feel good hormone, right? So when you're doing something fun and you get that little burst of, that's your dopamine. Or for some people, checking things off of a to-do list, that little oof that you get, that's dopamine. But it also, that's kind of like the surface one that we think of, but it also has impacts on your movements and really has an impact on your gut and helping your gut move things along. And since Dopa is huge in your gut, people say that the hallmark symptom of Parkinson's is Trappers. And I would highly disagree. I believe that it is constipation. Up to 80% of people with Parkinson's disease have acute and chronic constipation. We used to think that that symptom would appear about seven to 10 years before movement symptoms. Now with new technology and the ability to look back, we're seeing that a lot of people are presenting with constipation 20 years before their muscle. So that gives us an idea of how long Parkinson's is taking to develop. There are theories that it begins in the gut and travels to your brain. And that makes sense with the constipation that we're seeing. So can you, some people will know this and some people don't, can you talk about what we've found, what has been researched and found that the gut is the second brain. Why is now, do we use that? Why do we use that language now? Why is the gut the second brain? Because you're talking about that. You're talking about like, gosh, if you have constipation, if your system was bothered, your constipation, if you had diarrhea, if you had cramps, those things are your gut. Those things, cramps in your stomach. When that goes awry, it's a good idea to see gastroenterologists ask for specialists because there's something going on. And I'm like, no, don't scare yourself, but find out maybe you're not drinking enough water. That's you and I, like, that's the biggest hardest thing for humans to do is to drink enough water. Right. And that's helpful to get why we used to drink enough water. You want it to keep flowing through your body to move things around to where they need to be. Right. Right. I mean, we're mostly water, so we need water. Yeah, yeah, it is funny. It's funny how people look at that and yeah, they don't understand. We really are made of water. Right. And microbes. So we're made of water and microbes that live in our gut. And so some might even argue that the gut was the first brain before our consciousness even came to be. We relied on our gut. So we can look at even just some of the things in our language that point to how much we rely on our gut for sensing. So anytime you're in a tough situation and you can't figure out to do, what do people say to you? Oh, what does your gut tell you? Right. Think with that part of your body. Yeah. Those microbes are also sending all kinds of signals everywhere in your body, especially to your brain. So we know certain ones, for instance, Candida albicans, if it gets overgrown. And Candida lives where? I remind people what Candida, because you and I know things, but. Yeah, it's in our gut. It's a microbe that we all have. However, if we use antibiotics repeatedly and alter our gut microbe, we can't do that. And if we give them what it preferentially likes to eat, which are sugars and simple carbohydrates, it can overgrow and it can get kind of too big for its britches and take up too much space and too much of the area that it's supposed to. And when that happens, a lot of brain fog ensues. Which is really important in Parkinson's because brain fog can be a symptom. There's a lot of overlapping symptoms in PD with other nutrition related issues. So I feel that's one of the things that I always focus on with my clients is trying to unravel. What is PD and what is something else that is just super easy to blame on PD? And that happens a lot because there are over 30 patient reported outcomes or symptoms of Parkinson's. A lot of movement, but even more non-movement symptoms. So when there's so many, it's really easy just to say, oh, that's your Parkinson's getting worse. That's your Parkinson's getting worse. And I personally don't like that answer. That answer might be maybe, but what if we healed your gut a little bit? What happens? Right? Constipation of up to 80% of people with Parkinson's disease are having issues with constipation. If I can help you get your bowels moving on a regular basis, I have changed your life. Cool. It is that simple sometimes for someone with Parkinson's that if you can get their bowels moving, you have enhanced their quality of life. Yeah. By magnitudes. Yeah. For all kinds of reasons because now they feel better. They're detoxifying better. Their medications are being absorbed and assimilated better. And the list goes on. It is. It's amazing how much looking at your diet and your nutrition, what you're taking in to help your body run. Like cars don't move if we don't give it oil and gas, right guys? Well, I love that you brought up that analogy because I use that analogy a lot too, because people are thinking, well, I'm putting fuel in the vehicle. Well, but if you're putting kerosene in a Ford or you're putting straight oil into your lawnmower, this is not going to work. And the same thing happens with our body. If you put real food into our body, it should work. It's going to break down sometimes, but it's going to work. But if you try to put ultra processed food, which is like putting diesel or kerosene into a gas powered vehicle, it's not going to go well. Things are going to go awry and things are going to break down. And the same thing happens in the human body. Okay. Okay. Yeah, you know what? And I think that's a good point. You know, we don't want to talk over your head. We never do. People don't like to give you a too much information. So we choose how we're going to deliver information to you. I think that's important, right? I think that you don't want to overwhelm human beings. You want to make it digestible. Pardon the pun. I know. We want it to be digestible because it's important that we have the ability to do what we can do to help ourselves. That's why turning to integrative practitioners like nutritionists, like health and wellness coaches, like people who teach stress management and acupuncture is great. All those integrative tools can give you the better quality of life. I was going to say best, but I'm going to do better quality of life living with a chronic condition, right? Absolutely. Can you explain why a lot of, and this is just for the people who are just big carnivores, why do we say eat less red meat? What happens if you have a neurological condition and you're eating a lot of hamburgers and steaks? And ribs and blah, blah, blah, which are delicious. All that's delicious. But why do we say find balance and eat more fish and chicken? Well, especially the red meat that is available in the average grocery store can be very inflammatory and can contribute to oxidative stress. So inflammation and oxidative stress are the two things we're trying to avoid in PD because that's what's going to degenerate the brain, the neurons even further. A lot of that has to do with the quality of the meat. So we had, and you know, it's such a large topic, but as a general rule, we have meat from CAFOs, concentrated animal feeding operations, which are one thing. They're fed with grains. They're not treated humanely. They don't always see the sunshine. Then we have, you know, grass fed cattle that is out in the sunshine. It is eating what it is meant to eat. It's being treated humanely. And that meat is actually lower. It's less inflammatory. It creates less oxidative stress. So if you're going to eat really high quality red meat, you can have a little bit more in your diet, but it's still high in saturated fat, right? Which can be inflammatory. If you only have access to meat, the general red meat that is in your local grocery store, you do want to look for some healthier, leaner options because the fat in that is not going to be as healthy for you. But it really does come down to the fat. But I also believe that the life of the animal truly matters. So if you have an animal that is chronically stressed from the moment it is born until the moment it dies, it's new. It's going to have a high level of stress hormones that could possibly transfer over to you as well. That's why we say that because we don't want those stress hormones to get into your body. It makes sense to you guys. So if we're eating less of that, we have the opportunity to be hit with less inflammation. And in our name of the game is the less inflammation you have, the better off you are. Absolutely. 100% across the board. Yeah. And that's easy for said than done, right? But we want people to really look to see how much inflammation they can take down in their body, right? I mean, that's what you want. You want to be able to help yourself in regards to what can you do. And the caregiver too, you know, with Parkinson's, you know, there may be somebody who's helping you. If we can teach them how to eat better and cause less stress on their body, then we're doing our job, right? Yeah. And what's really great is that what is healthy for a person with Parkinson's is healthy for the entire household. So I, when I work with, with people with PD, I do ask their care partners and their family to join us sometimes so that they can understand that we don't need to be eating different meals. We can design a meal plan that will be healthy for the whole family. Maybe the person with Parkinson's gives up dairy and the rest of the people in the family don't, you know, there's room for, for differences like that. But overall, I have the philosophy that the whole family should eat the same way because you have enough going on with the chronic illness. You also don't need to be othered based on what you're eating. Yeah. Yeah. And I also think that it's important to remember that you want to, it isn't like you do have to start at a hundred percent, right? Okay. Talk to people about that. Because that should be our last thing we talk about this particular. And this is my favorite part, Michelle. And this is what is so amazing about the coaching program that we went through and how coaches help. But that is start where you are. The first thing to do is gain awareness. Where are you and what are you doing? And then look for little changes. Go for the easy things first. Don't start with something super painful. Go for little changes. In nutrition, we have a technique called crowding out that is my favorite. So you come to see me, we don't talk about what you need to give up for a very long time. We talk about all the things you can add. If I tell you you can't have ice cream and there's a very real thing about ice cream and people with Parkinson's. So if I, if I immediately tell them they can't have their ice cream, they're going to shut down and just be like, no. But if instead I'm asking them to add berries to their breakfast or even berries to their ice cream, people are like, oh, I could add some berries. Oh, I could add some leafy greens. Oh, I could swap that hamburger for a piece of chicken. And that's how we slowly start getting people to really transform their health. But diets do not work. Walking into my office and me giving you an entire binder that is a six month nutrition plan is a recipe for failure. That doesn't work. You need small, sustainable changes that you can build upon over time. And if you do, the shifts that you see will be huge. You are a wealth of information. You know that I love having you on. I will have you on again. You mentioned before we get off, if you're in the Atlanta area, what's coming up for you about Parkinson's that you're going to be leading in case there are people listening that want to do that? And I would love to learn more. And what's your website in case people want to contact you? Because we can work across different states, by the way, guys, not every state, but we can work across a lot of states on Zoom and on calls. So don't think that if you think what you're hearing as you're listening to Beyond Diagnosis, you think to yourself, I really like this Carol Lee woman. But I can't work with her because I'm in Ohio or in Oregon. How do they reach you? So they can reach me through my website, nutrition4pd, and that is the word for not the number. And then next week, it's actually online, I have had the very high honor of being asked to give one of the Parkinson's Foundation's expert briefings, and which will be talking about how nutrition is important in Parkinson's. And this is more their expert briefings are generally very high level scientific, not tons of day to day stuff, but to really give you the research and understand how clinical decisions, you know, the information that clinical decisions are being made on that will be archived on to YouTube. So if you can't catch it live on March 12, then that will be archived. And then check me out on my website, I just launched my new blog, nourishing life with Parkinson's disease, that website and the providing all kinds of daily advice and guidance on how to make these little changes to make your journey with Parkinson's a little bit easier. And for your caregivers, your sons, your daughters, your partner, these, your team, and it takes a village. And that's why on the show, I invite these specialists, these practitioners who just can help you with your journey. Um, Carolee, I love having you on, I will always have you on at least once a season when I can. And I'll see you on the other side. You guys have a great day. And Carolee and I wish you health and healing and a great day. Thank you so much, Carolee. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Beyond the Diagnosis. If something we talked about today resonated with you, if you're craving deeper understanding, better support, we just want to know you're not alone on this journey. Make sure to subscribe to my free sub stack at Michelle Weston dot sub stack.com. That's where I share personal insights, expert takeaways, and extra resources to help you stay informed, empowered, and one step closer to the clarity you deserve. And if you found this episode helpful, leave a review or share it with someone who needs to hear it. Your voice helps this message go further. Until next time, keep asking questions, keep trusting yourself, and keep going beyond the diagnosis.