Dr. George Papanicolaou
speaker
129 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Jun 2025
Dr. George Papanicolaou’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
One of the important things is making sure her sleep patterns, her circadian rhythm was in place. So I worked with her to establish a good circadian rhythm, a good circadian pattern. I gave her sleep techniques and rituals, things to do to support circadian rhythm and lock it down all day long. Then we use some supplements that can be very helpful. One of them is called Bacopa Mineri.
So we're not exactly sure.
We're not exactly sure how this herb works in the brain, but we know some of the effects is to balance out the dopamine. And we think it does that by actually reducing some of the oxidative stress and inflammation and also increasing the number of neuronal connections and how quickly they can communicate. And so that seems to have an impact on dopamine levels and can balance that out.
And people feel the effect of, hey, I'm calmer. I feel better. And with her particular CMT, she also benefits from another supplement called SAMe. SAMe is a methylation supporting compound. And in people with her particular CMT gene, it can be very mood stabilizing. And it doesn't work for everybody, but in her case, she found the right dose, and the CME was very helpful in stabilizing her mood.
In fact, the Bocopa and the CME, she said, had a better effect on her brain than the stimulant.
Helping her clear that dopamine, helping her balance it out. Again, just, you know, love to make this point is it wasn't just me giving her the Bacopa and the SAMe. It really helped. But that was also in conjunction with her going to sleep at the same time, waking up in the morning at the same time, being more aware of her need for exercise. exercise was something she didn't do.
And that is the first prescription I write for any of my ADHD patients. If you look at the literature and exercise impact on ADHD, it is the best drug for the ADHD brain. So we improved those things, and that really balanced out her dopamine. We also did some mitochondrial testing. It showed up on her OATS test, but we do a very specific test called the mitoswap that actually
looks at the very detailed function of the mitochondria. The organ in the body that requires the most energy is the brain. Mitochondria are in all your cells. They're the energy-making factory inside your cell. And if they're not functioning correctly, they're not going to produce enough energy. Your cells won't work properly. And then if they're not working correctly and making the energy,
When they make energy, they produce an oxygen molecule that needs to be removed as water. If that's not happening, you have a buildup of oxygen. It's oxidative stress. That oxygen molecule is like a pinball inside your mitochondria, inside your cell. It can even damage your DNA.
We found with Claire that she had a mitochondrial dysfunction where her mitochondria were compensating for excessive oxidative stress. And again, that's something that we can really fix. In her DNA, which I did mention earlier, she did have some variations in the genes in oxidative pathways. So she wasn't very good at removing oxygen. So I gave her some antioxidants.
First off, I gave her a handout at all the antioxidants that she could eat, because I always want my patients to get most of everything they need from the food that they eat. And then I supported that with antioxidants. And in her case, I use alpha lipoic acid and glutathione.
And as you mentioned, it occurs in autism as well. It's actually a bigger deal in autism than it is in people with ADHD, but it occurs in both. There's a fair amount of crossover between ADHD and autism in the brain. Helping those mitochondria function better is always a key part of helping people with their ADHD. She did have some toxins.
She had some mold toxins, and she also had a slightly elevated mercury level. Both of them were mild, not enough that we decided not to make that a first-tier issue. We'd see how she responded to everything else.
We don't want to overwhelm her with too much, but that's why I chose the glutathione and the alpha lipoic acid for her antioxidants, because they're also both potent detoxification agents. Alpha lipoic acid can bind a lot, and glutathione is your master detoxifying compound, so it's I had those guys doing double duty, and we were managing her toxins.
But one of the things I wanted to mention, it's a mold, mycotoxins. And that's on everybody's mind for whatever reason, whether it's social media, whether it's the news, what it is. The parents saw mold mycotoxins. They were very concerned. Well, the mold-type mycotoxins are very minimally elevated, and they were okra toxin, zero alone. Those molds are extraordinarily common in foods.
And she was eating a lot of foods that are known to be high in mold, peanut butter being one of them. And so I did have them test their house with a kit that we recommend, and their house tested negative. So it's really important to know that there are toxins in our food, and mycotoxins are one of them.
But we also have glyphosate, which I measured in her, and it was on the lower average side, so not a major concern. Bisphenol is another toxin that we're going to get in our plastics. Just as an aside, I want to remind everybody, when I'm talking about nutrition, I'm talking about what you eat. You've got to filter your water. You've got to eat organically.
You have to have a detox plan in your life because we live in toxic soup. Our exposome is huge. So that was a little aside I wanted to make about how toxins can impact.
Yeah, this is a really cool test. This is a urine peptide test, and it basically, we're able to measure metabolites of milk proteins and the gluten protein that you find in grains. And there's not an immune response. It triggers an immune response, but it's not an immune response. It's how particular people, we find that people with ADHD, with autism, tend to do this more.
When they break down their milk protein and their gluten protein, they break them down into smaller peptides. These are smaller proteins. that are then going to be absorbed into the body, certain peptides will actually cross the blood-brain barrier. And when they do, they have an opiate-like impact on the brain that can impact and affect cognition, learning, focus.
Showing 61–80 of 129 · page 4 of 7
← Previous
Next →