CONSCIOUS EATING | 32 NATURAL CHICAGO

The Gut-Brain Connection

HOW FOOD AFFECTS OUR MOOD

by Kimberly B. Whittle

We’ve all heard the phrase, “You are what you eat,” but the connection is more than just physical because food impacts our mood, too. During the last decade, there have been an increasing number of studies exploring what’s called the gut-brain axis and the role that microorganisms in the gut play in mental health conditions like anxiety, stress, depression and other disorders.

Depression is a leading cause of disability in the U.S. and worldwide. There are long-held views in medicine that depression is caused by imbalances in brain levels of serotonin—the neurotransmitter that plays a key role in regulating mood and other functions like digestion and sleep. These beliefs resulted in decades of extensive use of antidepressants, most of which boost serotonin in the brain.

However, research by University College London, published in July in the journal Molecular Psychology, found “no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations.”

Michael Gershon, M.D., a Columbia University professor of pathology and cell biology, and author of The Second Brain, has explained to psychologists that “scientists were shocked to learn” that about 90 percent of serotonin is not created in the brain, but is actually produced in the gut and carried from there to the brain, not the other way around. This relationship is called the gut-brain axis.

A recent literature review of 26 studies suggests that imbalances in gut bacteria can disrupt the two-way communication along the gut-brain axis, leading to depression and other psychiatric issues.

“Gut health is extremely important for mental health,” says Bhavna Barmi, Ph.D., a senior clinical psychologist, relationship therapist and founder of the New Delhi-based Happiness Studio. “The traditional belief that only psychiatry and talk therapy can treat mental health has widened to include lifestyle and food, too.”

“The truth is that our food is the primary contributor of the quality and diversity of bacteria in the microbiome,” says Ishi Khosla, a clinical nutritionist and president of the Celiac Society of India. “There is an intricate relationship between the gut and the brain.” Food sensitivities, alcohol and highly processed, refined and sugary foods can lead to a lower diversity of good bacteria and increases in bad bacteria in the gut, which can trigger gut inflammation and unfavorable health conditions.

Most mood-related disorders start with inflammation of the brain as a response to inflammation in the gut. “Certain foods, like gluten, can cause an inflammatory response in the gut. Over time, sensitivities to gluten and other foods can lead to a ‘leaky gut’, an impairment of the gut lining that lets toxins into the bloodstream. Often, if it remains unresolved, it leads to mood-related disorders and other chronic health conditions,” says Khosla.

Clinical nutritionists and other practitioners use biochemical markers and food sensitivity tests to help identify food ingredients that trigger inflammation in patients. However, if a leaky gut is present, a food sensitivity test may not be very accurate. As Tom O’Bryan, DC, chief health officer of KnoWEwell, explains in his bestselling book The Autoimmune Fix, “When you have a leaky gut, a practitioner may do a 90-food testing panel that comes back sensitive to 20 or 25 different foods. And then the patient exclaims, ‘Oh my God, that’s everything I eat.’ Well, of course it is, because your immune system is doing what it is supposed to do—protecting you from toxins. Once the inflammation in the gut is reduced through the elimination of wheat and other offensive foods, and the implementation of a personalized diet and protocol to heal the gut [takes place], the same food testing panel will correctly identify those few ingredients to permanently avoid.”

MOOD-LIFTING FOODS

Kelly Brogan, M.D., a holistic psychiatrist and author of The New York Times bestsellers A Mind of Your Own and Own Your Self, as well as co-editor of the landmark textbook Integrative Therapies for Depression, recommends making three dietary changes to lift mood: n Eliminate processed foods and food toxins n Add whole foods, good fats and therapeutic foods n Add fermented foods Eating foods that are fresh, whole, simple and organic when available fuels good gut bacteria and eliminates the toxins found in packaged foods such as hydrogenated vegetable oils, preservatives, dyes, emulsifiers, taste enhancers and sugars that can upset the proper balance in the gut. A powerful mood regulator is the omega-3 fatty acid found in such cold-water fish as salmon and trout or taken as a dietary supplement. These fatty acids regulate neurotransmission and gene expression, act as antioxidants and have potent anti-inflammatory properties. Good fats from pasture-raised meats, wild fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, olive oil, coconut oil and grass-fed ghee also contribute to mood regulation.

“Resetting the gut through good bacteria in probiotics and feeding the good bacteria with prebiotics is a powerful tool to fight mood disorders,” says Khosla. Fermented foods such as sauerkraut, pickles (truly fermented, not just cured in vinegar), kimchi and coconut kefir are natural sources of probiotics. They are delicious and easy to make at home.

A 2018 University of Toronto study in the World Journal of Psychiatry identified 12 nutrients to prevent and treat depressive disorders and found that the following foods had the highest levels of those beneficial nutrients: bivalves such as oysters and mussels; various sea foods such as octopus, crab and tuna; organ meats; leafy greens; lettuces; fresh herbs; peppers; and cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower and broccoli.

Choosing what to eat is complex and affected by culture, cost, environment and taste preferences. Dietary changes can be difficult and take time, and those suffering from mood swings, depression or anxiety have additional challenges in making changes. Nutritionists advise starting small by incorporating one or two foods rich in beneficial nutrients and eliminating a highly processed or packaged food or two. Focus on incorporating a rainbow of red, yellow, orange and green foods into meals. “Food therapy to improve mood is inexpensive, free of side effects and can begin to show results within days,” says Khosla.

In view of the gut-brain axis, says Barmi, “It is imperative that from this point on, nutritionists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists work together for holistic care of the client to lead to maximum benefit.”

Kimberly B. Whittle is the CEO of KnoWEwell, the Regenerative Whole Health Hub online solution for health and well-being. Visit KnoWEwell.com.

VERNA SCHUMACHER’S Pumpkin Pie

by Veronica Hinke

The Iron Bridge Trailhead at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, in Wilmington, wasn’t always a trailhead. Until the 1940s, several families farmed the land, including the Schumacher family. On their Fairview Farm, Verna and Arthur Schumacher grew a variety of crops, including pumpkins. Each year in the fall, Verna made pies with the pumpkins. Verna Schumacher made pie every day. The Schumacher family ate pie each day, and sometimes twice a day. Sometimes breakfast was pie. She also processed some of the pumpkins and froze them for later use.

Pumpkin is a fruit that is a source of antioxidants and nutrients, including vitamins A, B2, C and E; plus fiber, potassium, manganese and iron.

Above: The Schumacher family at the Iron Bridge Trailhead at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie Below: Verna and Al Schumacher with baby Alvin Schumacher on Fairview Farm in the 1930s

Photo courtesy of USDA Forest Service

SOME BAKING POINTS:

Make your own pie crust dough or buy frozen pie crust dough. For her pie crusts, Verna utilized eggs and lard that came directly from the family farm. To tell when a fruit pie is fully cooked, look for crispy edges and golden-brown crust. The filling should be bubbling. Let the pie bubble for five minutes before removing the pie from the oven. Let pie cool for at least one hour for the best consistency.

In the Schumacher farmhouse, there were two stoves. One was a wood-burning stove that Verna would use to bake her pies during the cold winter months. The other was a modern electric stove she used during the summer months to bake.

VERNA SCHUMACHER’S PUMPKIN PIE

YIELD: 1 PIE

Crust:

1 homemade or purchased pie crust (for a 9-inch, deep-dish pie pan)

Filling:

2 eggs 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp cloves 1⅔ cups whole milk 1½ cups cooked pumpkin (or 15-ounce can) ¾ cup sugar ½ tsp ginger ¼ tsp nutmeg

Prepare the pie crust and add to the pie pan.

Beat together eggs and sugar; then add in salt. Blend all this and pour into a deep-dish, 9-inch pie shell. Bake at 425° F for 15 minutes, and then decrease temperature to 350° F for 45 minutes.

Pumpkin pie

Baking items used to make pumpkin pies and more at Fairview Farm are on display in the Elwood Village Hall and in the Island Park District community center, in Wilmington.

For more information about the farm history of the Midewin prairies, visit Tinyurl.com/MidewinHistory.

Veronica Hinke is a USDA forest service supervisory public affairs specialist at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.

from the gluten-free kitchen… Streusel Apple Pie

by Tiffany Hinton

Pie is a traditional dessert when it comes to Thanksgiving. This recipe takes a twist on traditional apple pie and apple crisp. Use a firm, crisp apple like Fuji or even a Granny Smith for the perfect pie. Try to use local and organic ingredients whenever possible.

GLUTEN-FREE PIE CRUST

YIELD: 1 PIE

½ tsp salt 1½ cups gluten-free flour ½ cup very cold water ½ cup plus 3 Tbsp cold butter

In a small bowl, add salt to the water and stir to dissolve salt. Keep in the refrigerator until ready to use. Put the flour in a medium size mixing bowl. Cut butter into 1 inch pieces and using a pastry knife, cut the butter into the flour until the mixture forms large crumbs. Drizzle in water and stir with a fork until the dough comes together. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into a 10-inch circle and place gently in a pie plate. Place in the refrigerator until ready to use. Preheat the oven to 350° F.

APPLE PIE

4 cups sliced apples, with no peels 1¼ cup sugar 1¾ cups gluten-free flour 1 cup oatmeal (rolled oats) ½ cup brown sugar 3 tsp cinnamon ¾ cup butter Peel and slice apples into thin slices. Place apples in a large bowl. Add ¼ cup flour, ¼ cup sugar and 1½ tsp cinnamon. Mix apples to coat. Add to the prepared pie crust. In a medium-size bowl, combine remaining flour, oats, 1 cup sugar, brown sugar and 1½ tsp cinnamon. Cut in the butter with a pastry knife. Sprinkle oatmeal topping over apples. Bake in the oven for 1 hour. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Makes 8 servings, if the pie is cut into 8 slices. Recipe courtesy of Tiffany Hinton, founder of Cultivating Guts. Connect online at @iamtiffanyhinton and listen to her podcast, Cultivating Guts, on Spotify or iTunes.

GUT-HEALING SMOOTHIE

Blueberries contain compounds that increase beneficial bacteria in the gut, as well as antioxidant properties that are remarkable at protecting our brain. In fact, consuming 1 cup of blueberries per day for three years gets our brain working as well as it did 11 years earlier. Bananas are high in pectin, which helps to normalize movements of the large intestine. Look for gelatin powders from pastured animals.

YIELD: 2 SERVINGS

1-1½ cups water ½ cup coconut milk 1-2 frozen bananas 1 cup frozen blueberries 2 Tbsp ground flaxseed 1 Tbsp unflavored gelatin powder 1 Tbsp high-quality fish oil 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1-3 scoops L-glutamine powder (optional) In a blender, combine the water, coconut milk, bananas, blueberries, flaxseeds, gelatin powder, fish oil, cinnamon and L-glutamine powder (if using). Blend until smooth. Add more water for a thinner smoothie, if desired. Serve immediately or pour into ice-pop molds and freeze for a sweet treat later on.

Recipe courtesy of Tom O’Bryan, DC, CCN, DACBN, from his book The Autoimmune Fix.

TIME MAY BE RUNNING OUT FOR Native Trees

by Sheryl DeVore

At least 94 of 881 native tree species in the lower 48 states are threatened with extinction. Of those, 10, including five species of ashes, are growing in Illinois, most of them in the Chicago region, according to a first–of–its-kind collaborative five-year study. It reveals that an estimated 11 to 16 percent of tree species in the contiguous United States are globally threatened, and that has local scientists concerned.

Ash tree species that grow in the Chicago region are at risk of extinction.

“Tree species diversity is really important,” says Lydia Scott, director of the Chicago Region Trees Initiative (CRTI, chicagorti.org), administered by the Morton Arboretum. “We just lost 10 million ash trees in the Chicago region in the seven-county metro area. We need to expand species diversity so we don’t experience these catastrophic losses.”

A report (nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ppp3.10305) based on the five-year study says the main threats to these species are invasive pests and diseases, along with climate change and habitat degradation.

“Planting a diversity of trees is a way to make our urban forests more resilient to pests and diseases,” says Murphy Westwood, Ph.D., vice president of science and conservation at the Morton Arboretum and senior writer for the report.

Loss of tree species also impacts other organisms. Forests hold 80 percent of all the world’s amphibian species and 75 percent of the world’s bird species. “Trees offer food and habitat for countless plants, animal and fungal species while providing invaluable benefits to humans,” Westwood says. “Understanding the current state of trees within the U.S. is imperative to protecting those species, their habitats and the countless communities they support. Planting a diversity of trees is one way to make our urban forests more resilient to pests and diseases.”

Partners including Morton Arboretum, Botanic Gardens Conservation International US, Inc. and NatureServe began the study in 2017 to determine globally threatened tree species growing in the U.S. and to create an updated checklist of all the nation’s native tree species.

“We were already working to assess all of the world’s oak species for their risk of extinction,” Westwood explains. “We realized that only a handful of our native tree species in the Lower 48 states had been assessed for their risk of extinction.” The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) (iucn.org) maintains a red list of all species in the world threatened with extinction. Specific protocols must be followed before a species gets placed on the red list.

Working on the study of native trees in the U.S. required many hours of reviewing literature, examining specimens in herbariums and interviewing hundreds of botanists and ecologists. “Now for the first time, we have a comprehensive understanding of how many tree species we have in the U.S., how threatened they are and why,” Westwood says. “One way to determine if one of those species is threatened is if you have a very rapid rate of population decline,” she adds.

For example, the emerald ash borer, native to Asia, arrived in the U.S. in the 1990s and was first detected in Illinois

in 2006. “It is killing nearly all the mature standing ash trees,” Westwood says. “That is such a rapid decline. It’s enough to put the species at risk of extinction. It has been just devastating. It’s in 35 states and continues to creep across the country. There must be trillions of emerald ash borers out there. We’ll probably never eradicate them.”

Municipalities have treated ash trees to protect them from ash borer, but that’s not what will keep these tree species from going extinct. “The solution will need to be a combination of tactics, including early monitoring and detection for the borer, biological control of the pest and researching what are known as lingering ash trees,” Westwood says. “Every now and then you see a tree here or there that survives longer than all the others,” she explains. “We call those lingering trees that have not been treated for ash borer, and yet are still surviving.” The Morton Arboretum is collaborating on this research and breeding program of the lingering trees to understand the mechanisms that make them resistant to

Emerald ash borer, an ash borer. Researchers are doing introduced non-native similar work with the American species to the United States, elm, which is also on the global could cause ash tree tree species list threatened with species, including five extinction. Researchers are develspecies in Illinois, oping and planting cultivars that to go extinct. are resistant to Dutch elm disease. “The elm and ash here were

Globally Threatened Species in Illinois

Ten trees that grow in the prairie state are at risk of becoming extinct worldwide.

n Blue Ash n White Ash n Black Ash n Green Ash n Pumpkin Ash n American Elm n American Chestnut n Kentucky Coffee Tree n Butternut n Clammy Locust

Photo courtesy The Morton Arboretum

Green ash tree bark and leaves in autumn.

planted en masse in neighborhood streets,” Westwood explains. “So when the pests came through, they could easily move from one tree to the next. At one time, we had elms across our neighborhoods.” Along came the Dutch elm disease from Asia, which

… continued on page 42

Photo courtesy The Morton Arboretum

Murphy Westwood, vice president of science and conservation at The Morton Arboretum, examines an oak tree in France as part of her research on declining tree species.

WHAT WE CAN DO

Plant different species of trees in your yard. See what’s growing in your neighborhood and try something different. Spring and fall are the best times to plant trees when the soil is not frozen. Visit MortonArb.org/blog/how-to-plant-a-tree

Choose a tree that’s recommended by Morton Arboretum’s plant clinic for your site. Visit MortonArb.org/plantand-protect/expert-advice

Join TreeKeepers to help care for the urban forest in the Chicago region. Visit Openlands.org/what-we-do/trees/ treekeepers

Get a tree planted in a Chicago neighborhood. Visit Chicago.gov/city/en/sites/our-roots-chicago/home.html

wiped out most of the U.S. elms. “We replanted neighborhoods with ash species,” Westwood says. “Now all of our ash are dying. That’s why planting a variety of tree species is important.”

Another big message from this study is to continue work on loss of oak trees, Scott says. No oak tree species that grows in Illinois is on the IUCN red list of species threatened with extinction. “But while they’re not threatened with extinction right now, our oaks are declining,” Scott says. “It’s not just species diversity we’re worried about, it’s also about age diversity. We know that the majority of our oaks [in the Chicago region] are 18 inches or larger in circumference. We’re not seeing smaller ones to replace the older oaks.” Land managers in the region have been working on an oak regeneration projects for several years. “The Arboretum is helping to coordinate this effort and is actively conducting research to understand the complex causes of oak decline in our region,” Scott says.

The CRTI and its partners are also providing education and outreach to municipalities and individuals to learn which trees to plant and ways to plant and care for them. “CRTI teaches people how to plant a tree, about watering and mulching and caring for their trees,” Scott says. “We offer training to municipal staff on forestry practices. We work with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to administer grants to communities across the state of Illinois to help them develop ordinances that preserve and protect the trees they have.”

For the past several years, the Arboretum and local partners also have been working on inspiring people to value trees. “We need them to understand why they should care, to understand that increasing the tree canopy reduces stress to an ecosystem,” Scott says.

Westwood says what’s done here to protect trees and tree diversity in the Chicago region can have far-ranging effects. “Some of the actions we can take can be very immediate and personal. Planting a tree in your front yard can help a threatened tree in California. You’re creating a cooling

Photo courtesy The Morton Arboretum

Oak trees growing in the Chicago region are not at risk of extinction, but their numbers are declining, leading local scientists to work on regeneration and restoration projects.

effect. You can help mitigate storm water. You can create habitat for insects and birds and pollinators. That one tree can have a positive impact on climate change. We know that climate change is one of the biggest threats to trees. If everybody plants more trees and supports native ecosystems, it can have an additive effect. We can push toward a better environment.”

Sheryl DeVore has written six books on science, health and nature, as well as nature, health and environment stories for national and regional publications. Read more at SherylDeVore.wordpress.com.

Mature green ash tree bark.