Eliminate Brain Fog with Enzymes

Julia Craven 0:00
So enzymes formally are biologically active proteins. But basically all they are are strings of amino acids set up in a very, very specific order that have a catalytic charge. So enzymes have an energy to them innately, and enzymes are responsible for every single reaction in your body. Nothing would react if it wasn’t for an enzyme. So they’re incredibly important to us. And they’re important to all life without enzymes. There’s no life. There’s no plant life, there’s there’s nothing. So when we think about enzymes, we often think about digestive enzymes, and the enzymes that our body produces that there are supplemental enzymes that you can take as well. And there are vegetarian sources that come from fermentation process, so a very natural fermentation process, and they can help to cut certain kinds of bonds and foods.

Brian Strickland 0:52
You’re listening to the nutrition world podcast, a show about navigating the intricacies of holistic wellness. We’re a natural health food store located in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and we believe that optimal health and peak performance should be accessible to everyone. If folks will come back to the nutrition world podcast, my name is Brian Strickland on the producer of the show. And on today’s episode, we’re speaking with Julia Craven. Julia is the VP of education and innovation at a company called Inza, medica. And they primarily manufacture enzymes and digestive enzymes. And we’ve had Julie on the show once before talking about heartburn and heartburn related topics. But we’re shifting gears a little bit today. And we’re gonna be covering brain fog, and how digestive enzymes can really have a big impact on your life. So we have a lot to cover, Julie is always a wealth of information. So let’s hop into this conversation with Ed Jones. In Julia Craven.

Ed Jones 1:45
You know, today I’ve got a topic that his near and dear to my heart, because one I also at times have suffered from this malady. And it’s called brain fog. And, you know, being in the business for 43 years in hearing the amount of people that I hear give comments about their ailments and their symptoms and their family and brain fog is very common. Is brain fog, a medical diagnosis. No, it’s really not. It’s like saying I’m tired. It’s not a diagnosis. It’s just as this is the way we feel. And the thing is brain fog is, is under an umbrella of so many different ideas that we can talk about. But today, we’re gonna have you Julia, thank you for joining us from California. explain some of the options, some of the things behind the reason we get this foggy thinking because it’s very confusing. And it’s very frustrating, especially when you’re a high performer. And you got to think clearly, and you got to get it out and you’re doing the best you can and no one knows you brain fog, but you know you have it. So welcome to nutritional pearls podcast today.

Julia Craven 2:48
Thanks so much for having me. I always love coming back and being here. Yep,

Ed Jones 2:52
we clicked very well on this. So first off, I mean, I don’t think we need to define what brain fog is. I think everyone knows what that is. And I know personally, you know, I used to try to put like, I still do connect the dots of what am I eating? What am I taking? What am I supplementing? How am I sleeping? What are the atmospheric conditions, what has caused this, this fog to go into my head? And it’s not super easy. And the thing is, and you’re going to explain this food, you don’t eat something and 15 minutes later get usually brain fog. It’s it’s a little bit delayed at times. That’s why we can’t usually put our finger on it. But what is your experience? And what are some good advice on people to start looking into this topic of brain fog and how to alleviate it?

Julia Craven 3:36
Well, like you I experienced it as well. I mean, I experienced brain fog for years. And so I was taking everything for focus for cognition, it was the gingko and the phosphatidylcholine. And then maybe I thought it was my adrenals. I never ever thought that it could be the foods that I was eating. And then when I did start to eliminate foods, even that wasn’t quite enough to begin with, because I already had some damage to my gut tissue. This is all figured out 2020 hindsight. But a lot of times if we have a situation where there’s an imbalance of gut, gut, bacteria, Candida, we get into leaky gut. And now we start to get sensitive to everything. And that’s the situation I was in and how I came to learn about enzymes. So I have a lot of experience in brain fog and how you can clear it. But the first thing I did was keep a food journal, because some unexpected things came up that I had no idea could cause brain fog for me. And that gave me an incredible amount of information. So that’s just an easy, simple diagnostic thing that you can do all by yourself. It takes a little bit of discipline, but you will be shocked if you go back and look and now it’s so easy to do on phones, that you start to see patterns in what is impacting you and you start to be able to connect the dots backwards and go, Oh, I ate that three days ago. And now I feel This way. So that’s like my first piece of advice, right? There is keep a food journal because surprising information will come out for you.

Ed Jones 5:08
I love that advice. And, you know, many times, many times I’ve tried to mentally keep a journal. To me, there’s no possible way because we, at least with me, I will start to forget what did I eat two days ago, because, like I said earlier is not in 15 minutes, as happens, it’s sometimes in two to three day periods, and looking for those patterns. And you and I just talked before we started this patterns of sleep using my favorite, which I talked about a lot my aura ring, where I looked at, what did I eat? What did I supplement? How did my life what how much time was on my phone before I went to bed to tell my sleep? Well, this food journaling is I think everyone could gain some benefit from food journaling from it unless they feel like a million dollars all the time, you know, and they’re just on top of the world. But if you have issues, the knife and fork is still one of the most powerful weapons for and against disease and aging that we have, you know, an exercise to and supplementation three to me. So you did yours on the phone? Correct.

Julia Craven 6:06
This was years ago, this was years ago. So it was it was journaling and going back. But to your point tracking is what’s important, because if you have brain fog, you cannot remember. You’re trying to function with what’s in front of you

Ed Jones 6:22
right now. Yeah, well, my daughter, she’s, she’s 31. And she said, often on a lot of brain fog, we think sometimes due to maybe mold exposure, exposure to well, actually, this is what causes me to have the most brain fog is almonds. Well, who would think I mean, we’re talking healthy foods. It doesn’t matter if it’s organic, and it’s totally pure. Almonds make me feel fatigued. And then secondly, give me brain fog. Well, I did that through just years of being intuitive about my eating, not doing the food journal. But people who do this, I think will be so benefited by it. Now. You said something that to me is, is a magical as far as how do we get people to go from subpar health to excellent health, which, and I’m not cutting the medical system down. But they don’t have a toolbox to talk about these terms like leaky gut, right. And leaky gut is basically and I use this analogy I kind of thought of years ago, if you had a screen door, it was summertime, and you didn’t have air conditioning, you leave your screen door open and the screen doors there for purpose. It lets the fresh air into keeps the bugs out. Well, leaky gut is where someone’s poke their finger through this green door. Yeah, fresh air is coming in, but also all the bugs. And that creates havoc within our system, our systems. tight junction has been compromised in the gut. And every time those food molecules go in, it doesn’t matter how healthy they are. The body’s seeing it as an enemy. So it’s doing a lot of action against it. One is it can wear you out but secondly, rainfall getting that right.

Julia Craven 7:50
Absolutely. And to that. Going back to it can wear you out there’s definitely a correlation between leaky gut adrenal health and thyroid health. You know, because adrenal and thyroid they’re very, very connected. Well, now you have low energy, is it brain fog, or is it low energy. So what can happen aside from that invader attack, not only on bugs, but on foods, especially protein foods, so gluten and casein are amongst the most popular, but your experience with almonds, I mean, very, very common. What happens is they go into the bloodstream, and they can pass the blood brain barrier, and they’re called exhaustion peptides. So Casio morphic peptides and gluteal morphic peptides. morphic, think about that, they bind to the same receptor sites as morphine. Interesting, this is brain fog. This is brain fog in action. And that was first figured out by parents with autism, with children with autism, because they saw their kids just change wildly after consuming certain foods. And so that’s what’s happening in the brain is binding to morphine peptides, with some of these kinds of proteins specifically,

Ed Jones 9:02
I love the scope of knowledge you have is amazing. I know. We’ve done a podcast before on heartburn and and I just learned several things on there. I did not know not that I know everything. But you come with a whole world of knowledge. That is that I just love it’s just a jewel. I did not know that. And there’s no doubt because you know, the amount of people I’ve spoke to over the years, when when they get out of the traditional thinking patterns of of disease and poor health and good health. And they actually open their mind to people who who have journey this journey like yourself. It one it makes sense to is, you know, often you go they go to their doctor and they mentioned the word leaky gut or they mentioned exactly what you talked about. They don’t they’re not trained in it. So they’re going to be negative about it many times they’re not going to be supportive. So I say this often we need to find a tribe. We need to find a team that supports our path of health and that still doesn’t replace the person you have as your your regular dog Do you need them, but we need to build a crew around those people could be one person could be three or four. So you’re are and again, learning is the number one thing and you’re teaching right now. Now enzymes, again, how do what how does enzymes play a role and what are enzymes.

Julia Craven 10:16
So enzymes formally are biologically active proteins. But basically all they are are strings of amino acids set up in a very, very specific order that have a catalytic charge. So enzymes have an energy to them innately, and enzymes are responsible for every single reaction in your body. Nothing would react if it wasn’t for an enzyme. So they’re incredibly important to us. And they’re important to all life without enzymes, there’s no life, there’s no plant life, there’s there’s nothing. So when we think about enzymes, we often think about digestive enzymes, and the enzymes that our body produces. But there are supplemental enzymes that you can take as well. And there are vegetarian sources that come from fermentation process. So a very natural fermentation process. And they can help to cut certain kinds of bonds and foods. So there’s special enzymes that are really, really great for food intolerances. And there’s there’s several different grades of food intolerances. And we can talk about, you know, what’s the difference between a food intolerance a sensitivity and an allergy?

Ed Jones 11:24
Yes, because a lot of people, you know, I speak to say, Well, I’ve I went to the doctor, and they did the prick test on me and said, I don’t have many allergies, or I had an allergy to five foods, that to me when I look at people is not generally the significant issue. It isn’t. It is it is sensitivities that come from, from other years of living, that certain things have happened to our body. And again, these enzymes, you said that every, almost every reaction, the body uses an enzyme, well, the ones we’re talking about, is more specific to breaking down those big food molecules into the smallest structure they can so that we can utilize the molecule that is broken down to without breaking it down, the body really can’t use it, can it

Julia Craven 12:06
you’re not what you eat, you are what you digest. Yes. So we start with intolerances, which is kind of the the lower end of the scale, we think of it as an enzyme deficiency, you maybe just don’t have quite enough enzymes to break down certain kinds of foods. But if you take some enzymes, you can, you can have that occasional cheat, you know, a lot of people do that with dairy digesting enzymes. That’s the that’s the most mild form. And then up the scale, one is what we call sensitivities. So for me, it was sensitivities due to leaky gut due to a childhood of taking medications and a sugary diet. You know, that was just what was the norm. And so that created leaky gut. And with that sensitivity, then those gluten, those casein, other kinds of food particles then start to leak into the bloodstream. So it can feel like an allergy. But it’s actually not an allergy. It’s not an innate immune response. And the good news is, is that you can recover from it, you can heal the gut, and you can recover from that. But then we have actual formal allergies, like a nut allergy, or celiac with gluten allergies, we can’t ever do anything about that innate immune response. But what we can do is support the body if those foods are accidentally consumed, to help to break them down, so that there’s less of a reaction. So there’s a place for enzymes in every, in every part of that food reaction, in every part of you know, where you are on the scale. And I mean, I didn’t know, all I knew was that enzymes were helping. And that’s the key, and you were kind of sharing that earlier. Listen to your body. Learn how to listen to your body, I think that we’re not taught that and learn how to listen and learn how to track and you will, you will get much of the information that you need.

Ed Jones 13:55
As such wise words, because we’re not taught to do that. We, you know, the world seems to put us in a box now almost like your computer and if something’s malfunctioning, someone’s gonna go in and fix one thing, and then everything’s just perfect. Well, that’s not the way the human body works, because it’s synergistic. And one things connected to most other mechanisms within our physique within our blood within our chemistry. And if you do one thing, it’s going to have downstream effects. Well, again, I know I do enzymes a lot I do, I’m off and on. I tend to have a very healthy digestive ability seems like I can digest almost anything. And but part of that just because I’ve lived a life of a cleaner life, I think, and I’m taking better care of myself. But as a general rule, like is there a basic enzyme that most people probably could take that would address? The general needs of enzymes?

Julia Craven 14:50
Yep. Actually, this digest spectrum. It’s an amazing formula because it has a high amount of enzymes to break down gluten Speaking of which the gluten digesting enzyme is called DPP, four dipeptidyl peptidase. Four, we actually have naturally occurring DPP four in our body. But if our villi becomes damaged, it may not produce as much. DPP four

Ed Jones 15:14
and Villa are the hairlike projections that are in our intestines, if we’re healthy. And if we’re not healthy, instead of them being up there will be flat. And then they don’t do what they need to do, which is like brushing and cleaning and absorbing, doing all this. So

Julia Craven 15:27
and then it has the enzyme high amount of lactase to help to break down dairy, sugar, high amount of protease to break down dairy protein and gluten protein, high amount of xylanase, to help to break down those fibers, those FODMAPs that a lot of people are having problems with now. So this is a great starter digestive enzyme, if you’re especially if you’re not quite sure what’s going on. If you’re just trying to figure it out, I start people on this one, because it’s going to cover something, and you’re gonna start to get that activity of breaking down those harmful particles that are leaking into your bloodstream, breaking them down so that you have less of them leaking into your bloodstream and doing their damage.

Ed Jones 16:06
It’s just, it’s just a super easy way to support the body. And is there any people who should not take this? Medically?

Julia Craven 16:15
I can’t think of anybody. Yeah, because the only contraindication ever with enzymes that I’m not gonna say ever, the major contract indication with enzymes is taking high amount of proteases, or blood thinners on an empty stomach, if you are on warfarin. But this is fine. That’s fine. Because you’re also because you’re not doing it on an empty stomach. You’re doing it with food. And

Ed Jones 16:36
so that means it’s going to be used up on the food rather than going in and working with blood chemistry.

Julia Craven 16:41
Yep. And these aren’t particularly fibrinolytic. Anyway, if so, I find it very safe. And also, it’s a two capsule dose. So a lot of times if you have somebody who has a digestive system that is in not good condition, and you kind of don’t know what’s going on, I like to start them low and slow. I like to start them on one capsule dose and say, how’d that do for you? You know? And if it’s always fine, it’s like, okay, great. Let’s do two now. So you have a lot of control with this product.

Ed Jones 17:08
I love that. So so far, the number one is was keep a food log with brain fog. Try to connect dots as the weeks go on. If you see like myself, I don’t care what pill I take, I won’t be able to eat almonds, probably it is my alarm food that’s yet and my daughter’s the same way. And you know, I mean, I make my own protein bar made nationally, and it’s very popular called the Xunta bar. Well, it has almond butter in it. I love the nutritional content, but I can only eat about 1/3 of that bar. But going back to people like I’m not gluten sensitive, but I know better than eat a lot because it tends to be it tends to not be my friend at a point. Yeah. So I would take this and it doesn’t give me permission. But if I’m in that sweet spot of just a little over it is going to kind of save me in it.

Julia Craven 17:55
Yeah, absolutely. And, and you know, speaking of allergies, you know, people think that enzymes can be that we’re trying to propose it as a way to cheat. And that is not the case at all. They are purely for prophylactic or for cross contamination, just to help to break down those proteins so that you may have less of a response, you still have to do the diet, you still have to be very, very strict. So it’s not it’s not I don’t think anything is ever a free pass. Yes. Like you just said, you’re in that sweet spot, you’ve only had a little bit and I’m exactly the same way. By the way. 10 years ago, couldn’t eat gluten at all. Now I’m like, what a bit. Yes. But for people who might need more, we do have a straight gluten digesting enzyme. And that’s what it does it digest gluten, and it also digest the carbohydrates that typically accompany gluten, okay. And so if you needed a higher amount of that DPP four, say, oftentimes I will do these two together when I’m traveling, and I know I’m gonna, you know, probably have something with gluten in it, then there’s a straight DPP for,

Ed Jones 19:00
say, my whole philosophy, especially as I’m getting older, is to use ancient wisdom, honor the body’s systems supported, not treat it, even nutrition, sometimes we can get into too much treatments. And that’s fine if you need it, but I love supporting the body on a daily basis. And if you think about every mechanism in the body requires energy, it just does. And so if I can relieve some of that load off of my 65 year old body, well, it’s going to save some energy for some other process may be killing some bad cells, maybe eliminating toxins, maybe doing some other good things. So this is a support system. And a question I want to ask is what part of the meal should you take enzymes beginning middle or end?

Julia Craven 19:43
Well, ideally in the beginning, or even a few minutes before you eat because you want the enzymes in there and starting to become active and then the food comes down on top of it. But because we blend in such a way that we have Ph activity in acid, alkaline and neutral So it doesn’t matter if there’s that stomach acid fluctuation that happens during the course of eating. I say take them before the meal, if you forget, take him in the middle of the meal, if you ate a lot, and you feel like, yeah, it’s gonna be Yeah, I’m kind of bloated. Take them at the end of the meal. Okay? So just take them, they’re going to hit food. But ideally, at the beginning of the meal

Ed Jones 20:20
again, it helps bloating. Yeah, we haven’t mentioned that. And that is another very common common comment. And it’s miserable to be having bloating, you know, I mean, and makes you look like you know, we don’t look to other people, but those of us who have it, it makes you look like you’ve gained 10 pounds or so like it. Yeah. Now the veggie just tell me about that one.

Julia Craven 20:39
So this is for I call it kind of a an unrecognized intolerance, because a lot of people say I like vegetables, but vegetables don’t like Yes. And one of the big reasons for that is because the enzyme that helps to break down plant fiber is called cellulase. But we humans don’t create cellulase. From our own tissues, we don’t create cellulase from our pancreas or from the gut lining. cellulase is created from the microflora in our gut. Oh, really. And it’s that way for for cows for sheep fur, you know, we are not the only ones. So cellulase is created by the microflora. So now let’s go back to a situation where you have an imbalanced gut, we don’t have good microflora, there’s not enough cellulase being created. Now we have a situation where plant materials are not breaking down, that fiber is not breaking down, what’s it doing, it’s fermenting, hence, some gas and bloating, hence, some constipation. Because if fiber isn’t breaking down, it’s going to collect. And so I love veggie just for people who have that. I love vegetables, vegetables don’t love me situation, but also for people that are transitioning to a healthier diet, because they don’t have the microflora set up yet. So this is helping them with those new beans that they’re eating, or all that new, all those new vegetables and fruits that they’re eating, while still having enzymes to break down protein, carbs, fats, and fiber. So it’s a complete formula.

Ed Jones 22:07
And so these animals who live totally on, on lot of veggie veggies instead of made like cows and things, they have a lot of those enzymes, because that’s what breaks it down. Right?

Julia Craven 22:16
Yep. And the difference is, is that they have a diet and a lifestyle. Well, hopefully, let’s say they’re naturally raised, their herbivores are naturally waiters, they have a diet and a lifestyle, that they’re naturally consuming a lot of bacteria in that grass or those grains that they’re eating. Now, that’s a whole other conversation to talk about how food is raised. But that is the natural situation.

Ed Jones 22:39
I did a podcast here about two or three months ago on regenerative farming, because I went out to Missouri and I stayed there for four or five day beautiful days, and learned so much about exactly what you’re speaking about, you know, everything filters down from the top to the bottom and the bottom of the top. And, you know, how we plow the fields, and then what we do with every component of that, that those animals, those plants being raised filters to us. You know, there’s a high think a bad agenda going on that, you know, trust the science, it’s almost like and I remember being in grammar school, and they would show those movies, better life through chemistry. Well, there’s some miracles with chemistry, but it doesn’t, you cannot be better than Mother Nature, are rules that this this earth has been set in place a million years ago are still the same rules that we should abide by. And just because people have big things on the wall with credentials, and they’re saying, we can make baby formula better in a laboratory, then we can have the mother’s breast. They’re just full of it. There’s no I mean, I don’t understand how people can say, if that doctor says that is true, it makes no sense. No sense at all. And that goes back to this. And, you know, I thinking as I talk here, I don’t think anyone would with or I would not think that most 60 year olds would have enough enzymes just because we have an older body. But it probably starts about I’m guessing 30 is a decline one reason if we eat too fast, with the foods we’re eating the stress, we’re under all of those depleted, so and the fact that there’s no side effect from it, it makes sense to enhance this system. It just does.

Julia Craven 24:17
It does. Because if you have better nutrient if you if you’re breaking down your foods better, you’re gonna have better nutrient absorption. Yes. And speaking of food intolerances and, and brain fog, well, if you’re breaking down those things, you’re going to have less brain fog. You’re just going to be doing better on that front. So we all want more nutrients, right? We’ll all go and buy a whole bunch of multivitamins, but we don’t think about how we’re utilizing our food. Bingo. It is it is where it starts, right. So better nutrient absorption, better detoxification. If you’re not breaking it down, you’re not eliminating it, and our body is meant to cleanse that is what it’s set up to do. The problem is we just keep getting in the way. We just don’t let it because we keep having lifestyle Have things in foods that don’t enhance cleansing. So enzymes can help to break down all that foods. So you are able better to eliminate, right? I mean, chronic constipation, just look at that. And food intolerances are very tied to that. And then just conservation of energy, which you mentioned, if you’re not having such a hard time digesting, the body is always working in perfect balance, and that energy will go elsewhere. And I’ve been with the company for many, many years now. And you hear the craziest stories about I started taking a digestive enzyme, and then my restless leg syndrome went away. It I mean, things that you don’t think are connected are because the gut is the hub. Yeah, all of that, you know, so there’s connections all over with the gut.

Ed Jones 25:44
That does so well spoken. And again, I don’t mean to be negative, the medical system, you could go to 15, G eyes, none of them, they’ll all laugh at this conversation. Leaky gut is not in the textbooks, this, this this I keep going on. But common sense and wisdom is I mean, it’s just should be everywhere. And so I’m thankful for you and be able to educate people. And again, brain fog is was the kind of topic is the topic here, food journaling enzymes to be considered. Now, some of the other smaller components, and we’ll wind it up. I mean, personally, and I think most would agree, if I wait too many carbohydrates, I get fine. So looking at the macros again, of course, this is a no brainer, not enough sleep. We talked about that before we started speaking here, which is insomnia is an epidemic. And I’ve done many podcasts on sleep and other things. And we, you know, we have to, first off, we have to be our own best advocate. And we need to know that we need to know. And to do that, of course, that’s why we do these podcasts to help educate people. But looking into those big four components, I think most people’s brain fog could be substantially better. Now, there are some probable diseases that could cause brain fog. And of course, being anemic can cause it, you know, getting blood tested to make sure that your blood chemistry is in the in a good range. I’ve always looked for optimal, but at least in a good range. Then because we do it here every Tuesday from eight to 11, and every last Friday of the month. And that’s again, you take steps to your own health. So there’s other mini things, but we’ve covered I think the biggest ones here and all of them, like you said earlier, the good news is, we can address and probably fix most of these things. But you got to test instead of gas and you got to learn instead of just hoping. And that’s what we’re going to do here. Any last words on enzymes or brain fog you’d like to leave people with? Well,

Julia Craven 27:38
you stated sleep. And one of the reasons that people don’t sleep well is because they’ve eaten this big dinner, and their body is digesting all night long. And so it’s again, it goes back to it’s all connected. You know, maybe you do have that brain fog because of sleep. And it maybe isn’t digestion or those endorphin peptides. But we always have to look at what’s going on with digestion as the key. So if you’re bloated, if you have heartburn, if you have constipation? The answer is not I just have a bad stomach. Yeah, which is what we hear so often, right? I just have a bad stomach. No, there’s something else going on and pay attention to that. And it’s amazing when people do start to pay attention to that they feel so much better, but they’ve gotten used to feeling bad. So my message is always pay attention to how you feel, honor how you feel, and really get keyed into that because it is your biggest guide. And then you can go from there with diagnostic tools with you call it your support team. I call it my posse. And but but trust yourself and continue to be endlessly curious and learn.

Ed Jones 28:45
I love that endlessly curious, because if not, we get in a corner we get frozen. And then we just kind of just tread water. And I will I’ve said this hundreds of times. Father Time is not the kind is to us at a certain age. Because we were put on this earth really to procreate. That was the first priority of putting our chemistry and our body together. Well, I’m not procreating. And so they put their time kind of is dismissing me, well, that means I have to step up to the plate and going to a healthcare practitioner and you say, I’ve got brain fog, I’ve got less energy. Oh, you’re just getting older. That is full of it. Because yes, there’s a point I don’t feel as energetic at my age as I felt at 25 I’m not supposed to. But generally, I’m on my game 90% of the time, I can still do almost everything I want. But the only reason is because I have embraced information, learn from people like you and have a posse that I trust. So I think this has been very valuable to me even and thank you very much for joining us and showing the immense knowledge and experience that you have because wise people are my prove my wise people are who I want as who I attract, and people who just have book knowledge is valuable. but nothing like wise people. So thank you, Julie for joining us at Nutritionals podcast.

Julia Craven 30:04
Thank you as always