The brain is the central area that is under stress when it comes to Autism and special needs. Improving and supporting the brain through nutrition has been one of the great passions of Dr. Jeffrey Knight, a chiropractic physician with True North Chiropractic and Wellness Center. In this episode, he sheds light on nutrition and how it affects the differently wired brain of children with Autism and other special needs. He discusses organic versus non-organic foods, GMOs versus non-GMOs, the leaky gut, and more. Learn more about what we should put inside our body and watch as it does what it innately does on its own: repair.
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Nutrition for the Brain and How it Can Help Your Child with Special Needs
My guest is Dr. Jeffrey Knight with True North Chiropractic and Wellness Center. Dr. Jeff, welcome.
Thank you, I appreciate you having me on, Emmalou. It’s a pleasure to be with you.
It’s an honor to have you with your expertise. I understand you’re going to talk to us about nutrition for the brain. That is intriguing.
It’s definitely an area that I’m interested in. As a chiropractic physician, I have a special spot in my heart for serving autistic and special needs children and individuals. A big thing is how can we help improve and support the brain which is an area that obviously is under stress in these situations. It’s definitely something near and dear to my heart. I’ve got family members that have children with autism. I serve several autistic families too. This has been a mission of mine, trying to learn and understand how I can best provide insight, information, and resources to help our bodies find a way to thrive and this is a key piece to it.
I’m impressed with your background and this explains why it means so much to you. You have family members that also deal with this. What kind of program do you recommend for families?
Without changing the diet for the better, the child with special needs will not get well. Click To TweetTo keep things simple and applicable because I know when it comes to diet and nutrition, I know a lot of family members, moms especially will go into feeling shame or guilt. That’s the last thing that I want anyone to feel. Some of the things that I would definitely recommend, we can group it into some good things that we want to avoid, some good things we want to include. This way we can make some exchanges so that people don’t feel overwhelmed with thinking like, “I got to completely revamp my nutrition, my diet, my groceries, and everything.” Let’s try to keep it simple so that you don’t feel overwhelmed.
I’m a father of six children. My wife and I, this is definitely something that’s been a challenge to try to implement some of these things in our home as well. We understand the challenges that people face when it comes to this. Let me start with some good things that you want to avoid. There’s a lot of talk on organic versus non-organic foods, the non-GMO type foods and the GMOs. Let me tell you why it’s important to try to do your best to choose organic and non-GMO. In a sense, we’re going to try to avoid the other stuff. All of us have probably heard of the pesticide and the herbicide called Roundup. The fancy name for it is called Glyphosate. Glyphosate is sprayed on all the crops throughout our country. It desiccates the wheat, it desiccates different crops and it makes them more resilient against bugs and insects and other things. At the same time with that pesticide on there, it’s a poison. It can create a “leaky gut.”
Leaky gut means, in the intestinal wall in the lining of our gut, it can create this barrier that is leaky and open. Undigested food particles can get into our bloodstream which means that can create inflammation, it can lead to autoimmune conditions for some people. For other people, it definitely has connections with brain issues such as challenges with autism. We’re even hearing such a high rise in Alzheimer’s and dementia. If there is leaky gut, that means we can be confident that there’s likely going to be what we call a leaky blood-brain barrier. The blood-brain barrier is the protective part of the brain where it only allows certain nutrients and things to pass through safely and effectively to feed and nourish the brain. With the Glyphosate, this causes it to be leakier and things that we don’t want to get into the brain can get into the brain more easily.
This can even drive certain toxins deeper and can affect our brain, mood, behavior, and hormones. It can even sometimes influence things such as fertility for some people potentially. There are definitely strong correlations with autism and strong correlations with dementia with this. This is a pretty big deal. When I went through undergraduate school, I had a nutrition class. I remember my teacher saying, “Don’t worry about the organic and the non-organic stuff.” All this information wasn’t readily available and it wasn’t studied as much as it has been. Glyphosate or Roundup is one thing we want to avoid. Some other things that I would definitely encourage as far as some things to avoid would be high inflammatory foods. A lot of processed things, the sugars and the processed foods that are either in a box or a bag. Usually, those things are going to raise blood sugar levels and also raise insulin levels. It can definitely make it so it’s more inflammatory against our brain and even the cells of our body. This can definitely attribute to a lot of challenges that certain kids have and individuals as a whole.
The closer we can get to Mother Nature and the good wholesome ingredients, ones that we can read, those are always encouraged. Some other things to consider, I want to talk about fats. Fats for a long time had a bad rep. We heard about the no-fat diets or the low-fat diets but what that did in a sense, unfortunately, we were replacing the calories we got from fat with more carbohydrates. That means feeding our bodies more sugar which led to a lot of the epidemics we’re dealing with chronic illness, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc. Our brains absolutely love fat.
I read that sugar is more harmful to us than fat. Would you agree with that?
Without a doubt. It would depend on what kind of fat because there are good fats and there are bad fats. In a sense, cardiovascular disease is more connected to the sugars than it is to cholesterol or to bad fats. There’s a caveat there because some of the fats, we definitely want to stay away from but then the fats that we thought were bad, some of those are good for us. For example, good fats that you want to include in your diet would definitely be saturated fat. That’s one of them that has had a bad rep over the years. Saturated fats come from animal meats, from dairy products. For some people, dairy can be a sensitive thing where it doesn’t settle well but if you do choose dairy, choose organic dairy or grass-fed dairy. Grass-fed butter can be a wonderful source of fat or even grass-fed ghee which is another form of butter. Those are some good options.
Some other good options for good fats would be coconut oil, avocado oil, nuts, seeds. There are a lot of other good oils too such as MCT oil which is also a derivative of coconuts, sesame seed oil. A lot of those things, the brain loves good fat, and our cells love good fats. The fats we want to avoid would be more trans fats. Sometimes trans fats can be hidden. If you look at a nutrition label and it says zero trans fats, you will know that there are still trans fats in there. If there’s an ingredient that says hydrogenated oils, either partially hydrogenated or hydrogenated then you know for a fact that there are trans fats. Trans fats can definitely be harmful to our cardiovascular system.
A lot of times the food industry will sneak some of those things in. Some other fats to avoid are oils. One that’s big is vegetable oil. You would think, “The name vegetable oil is great.” Vegetable oil contains some highly processed fats in there that are unstable and can be rancid. Things like soybean oil, corn oil, and canola oil are three big ones that you want to avoid. They’re usually genetically modified and they’re sprayed with the Glyphosate. At the same time as fat, it’s not as stable as some of the other fats. The cells of our body need good fats. The cell membrane is like the skin of our cells, and we have trillions of cells in our body that our body is made up of. Each cell membrane requires an important amount of good fats. A lot of us have heard a lot about fish oils too. I would even argue just from research I’ve seen that I would choose to stay away from fish oil. The reason is some of the fish are going to be highly contaminated with heavy metals because they come from the deep sea. Also the processing, it’s hard to keep fish oil stable, pure and good.
I would choose a good vegetarian oil that has more natural plant-based oils as a good option. That would be like Flaxseed or Evening Primrose oil or Sunflower seed oil or Pumpkin seeds. Those types of oils are rich in good nutrients, rich in good properties that can help our brain and can help our cells. That would be something that I would strongly recommend. There is some good research that I was brought aware of because fish oils always have been a hot thing. We talked about omega-3s all the time. People can get what’s called omega-3 dominant where our body needs a higher ratio of omega-6 versus omega-3. If we had a ratio of either four to one or six to one of the omega-6 to omega-3, that’s when our body thrives even more and does better. We definitely need omega-3 but not in the large quantities that we have been introduced.
If there is leaky gut, there's likely going to be a leaky blood-brain barrier. Click To TweetWhat are the sources for omega-6?
Omega-6 would be the plant-based oils such as Evening Primrose oil, Flaxseed oils. Also, the chia seeds are good, avocados are fabulous, and nuts seeds. Those typically have a good amount and a good balance of both. Also, saturated fats have some good omegas in there too, a longer chain fatty acids. That’s where I would start, there are some good places where you can do some supplementation with that too if you’re not getting enough in your diet. There are some good products out there.
A big concern with parents and with autism, it’s a big one and it’s the fussy eater. I’ve heard over and over, “My child will only eat hotdogs, my child will only eat.” I’m sure you’ve encountered it in your practice. Give us some tips on dealing with the fussy eater.
The exchanges are one great place to start. With hotdogs, maybe find some hotdogs that are produced without a lot of the nitrites, some healthier options. There are some decent options out there for hotdogs, for chicken nuggets, even yogurts. Even mac and cheese, I’ve seen organic versions of mac and cheese. This is where I like to incorporate this saying, it’s an African proverb and it says, “If you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go far go together.” I implemented that in my life. When I learned the truth and when I learned something that I know is going to be good for me, I want to tackle and go straight up that mountain as fast as I can. With me and my family, since we’ve got 80 people in our family, if I go straight up that mountain, I leave my wife and my kids in the dust. This is where if we do switchbacks and we take slow steps and go up a little bit. Take a little break and go up a little bit more instead of going straight up the mountain using more switchbacks. This is where doing these exchanges, even some chips, there are organic chips that are even better options. It’s a transition. This isn’t going to be a sprint but it’s a marathon. With some people, it might make more sense to try to be a little more aggressive and a little bit stricter about the diet because they need it that much as soon as possible.
For others, if you can be patient in the process and continue to make some of these changes, it’s amazing. How our kids have no clue that a lot of the things they’re eating are organic or non-GMO. They still eat it and they like it. There are some other tricks there too and I know it can be difficult. Innately, our bodies desire and thrive for good food. Our bodies, a lot of these kids and a lot of people in general, our taste buds have been hijacked. Our food has been full of many additives and things that can be addictive, it’s tough. With little changes, this is where I would say to start. The closer you can get to eating three meals and no snacks that would be a phenomenal thing. That can be tricky too because kids like to snack through the day. Adults like to snack throughout the day, but even doing that can be a wonderful goal to work towards.
I want to know more about that but before we leave the fussy eater, what I’m getting then is don’t take away their favorite food. Find the healthiest version you can of their healthy food. Knowing the child’s personality whatever works, introduce more foods, more variety.
That’s where I would start. The variety is powerful. The diet variation is key. If you think about our ancestors and the way they ate, they ate what was ever in a season. The more we can have a variety the better it will be for anyone. That’s a good easy place to start. Definitely start with those things they like, find healthier options but there are other ways we can incorporate this. That’s where I would encourage a lot of people especially if they’re doing this on their own. If I was working with them closely, I’d be able to coach them through and guide them through some other things and help them through this process, a little bit different potentially.
This is part of your practice?
It is, I work closely with families and where I’ll coach them through the diet, the nutrition and along with some other things. That leads me to another point where some people will say, “Is diet enough to make a difference?” A lot of the families out here reading probably would say, “No, it’s not.” I know a lot of autistic families have done incredible things with changing diet but they notice there’s still a lot of challenges. Without changing the diet for the better, the child will not get well. That alone doesn’t always mean that they will get well to the extent that we would hope.
There are some other additional things that we do in our office such as brain detox. As well as some other services we provide with chiropractic techniques that are a little bit more advanced and specialized. Focusing on the brain and helping the brain communicate better to the body and doing things of that nature. The diet is crucial without it we won’t get well but with it alone sometimes we won’t get over the humps that maybe are holding us back.
The more we can have a variety in our diets, the better it will be for anyone. Click To TweetI am looking forward to our future talks on brain detox and your specialized techniques. Before we leave nutrition, I remember hearing for decades that small frequent meals were best and you’re not the only one I ever say this, the thinking is stick with those three meals. Can you talk about that?
The reason being is probably revolving mostly around blood glucose and insulin levels which with high insulin that persists, it can create all sorts of chronic conditions. Not just diabetes but it’s linked to polycystic ovarian syndrome, it’s linked to challenges with different hormones and infertility. It’s linked to a lot of different things. When the average person eats probably about fifteen to sixteen times a day roughly if you include meals and snacks. Each time you eat a meal that’s going to spike your blood sugar levels and your insulin. Think of a roller coaster going up and down. Each time you eat something, that’s going to spike blood sugar insulin and then if you don’t eat it drops back down and then you eat again it spikes up.
The thing about insulin, it has a harder time to come back down and if you have a consistently high level of insulin, it’s definitely going to affect a lot of things including the brain. In fact, they call dementia type 3 Diabetes. Alzheimer’s is known as type 3 diabetes. It’s crucial. What I would encourage people to do is focus on eating more fat, high fat diet, moderate protein, and lower carbs. If carbs are your main source of fuel then you’re going to feel like you need to eat more often because you’re burning through the glucose, the sugar fast. Where if we can train our bodies to use fat as fuel, we can go longer periods of time and continue to feel satisfied. There’s a lot of value with that.
If you look at our ancestors, that’s how they ate. They didn’t have all these processed foods. They didn’t have all these other things. They ate vegetables and fruit. They did have some grains. I’m not necessarily anti grain but there’s a time where it’s good to stay away from gluten. It’s good to stay away from grains because sometimes that can be inflammatory and destructive if you’re trying to heal. It’s amazing when you give your body a rest and being quiet for a moment. When I say rest meaning you’re not eating all the time. It’s amazing what the body can do on its own innately. To start to repair some things, to get rid of some bad cells. We call this autophagy, that’s the scientific word for it. When we give more space in between our meals and specifically if we go dinner to breakfast the next day and we try to spread that out as far as we can, it’s amazing how our body will start to do some great things on its own.
That is good to know and beneficial for anyone. I am excited to know more about brain detox. Thank you so much, Dr. Jeff. I appreciate your time.
It’s a pleasure, Emmalou. Thanks for having me.