Transcript 

Nutrition for Trauma with Tim Frie

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:01:22]: Welcome back to season five of Quiet the diet. I am your host, integrative functional registered dietitian, Michelle Shapiro. And I am so excited to be back.

This season is so much about bringing science to real life and how do we turn these concepts that we keep seeing in the scientific world into things that matter to us and things that we see kind of on social media? Per usual, we're going to myth bust a little bit of what we're seeing on social media and talk about how do we kind of decipher again what's real, what's usable for us, and what's just some people posting to boost their own egos instead, this episode is particularly special because I have brought on a guest that I have been a follower of for years, someone who I think embodies what a really non ego driven, heart centered nutritionist is, Mister Tim Frie. And I'm going to tell you about him in just a moment. First, I want to talk about what this episode is about. Okay. We are going to be talking about very sensitive topics in this episode. So I am issuing a trigger warning. If this is not the right place for you, if you're kind of listening on a drive or at work or somewhere where you feel like you can't focus and feel and feel comfortable, we are going to be talking about trauma in today's episode. Of course, we're talking about trauma from a functional nutrition perspective, but we are going to be discussing stronger themes, talking about, really, what is this relationship between trauma and autoimmunity? What's the relationship between the trauma that we experience in childhood, and how does that translate into immune conditions or mental health conditions later in life, and how all of that happens through a biological neuronutrition lens.

 

Introduction to Tim Frie

Michelle Shapiro [00:03:07]:

I'm smiling when I say neuronutrition because this is what our guest refers to himself as. Timothy Frie is a neuronutritionist, nutritional neuroscience researcher, writer, educator, and health equity activist. He is the founder and CEO of the Georgia center for Neuronutrition, GCN for short, the southeastern United States first and only neuronutrition clinic. What I've been seeing on social media recently regarding trauma is a lot about cortisol, a lot about fight or flight, a lot about big T versus little t, and what it's kind of translated to in a lot of my clients is this experience of feeling like my trauma isn't big enough, my trauma isn't substantial enough for it to have impacted me later in life. And what Tim and I really uncover on this episode is how impactful are these childhood events that we have, even if they seem like that little t trauma, on how our genes are expressed later in life, how our cell structure is later in life, and how our body reacts to trauma overall. What I think is very misunderstood about trauma is that it seems that people express it to be something like it's a this thing that's in your body that needs to be released. When what I think we really talk about in this episode and uncover is that trauma is an event that creates a reaction in the body, and that body perpetuates that reaction. And that's where a lot of that HPA access dysregulation comes from.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:04:41]:

So I wanna, again, just be really sensitive to say we go there, so to speak, in this episode. I don't know if any of you grew up watching Degrassi, but it goes there. It does. And we talk about, again, strong themes. So I just want you to be mindful of that. And most importantly, the goal of this episode is to lay the biological framework for which we understand trauma and nutrition to be related, for which we understand trauma and immunity to be related, and then to give some really hopeful messages about how impactful nutrition intervention can be when it comes to trauma. Tim on social media, his name is nutrition for trauma. That's exactly what this episode is about, is what nutrition interventions specifically work for trauma.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:05:28]:

I am elated to have Tim here and I wanted to give him just a little bit more of a spotlight, even about what his work is and how he kind of sees all this being interconnected. I will also let you know that much like another guest on this season, Tim came into this episode with a 19 page outline. And I'm a podcast host. I'm the one who makes the outlines. So Tim and our other guest later in the season both did a lot of the legwork and kind of heavy lifting for these episodes. So I'm just so proud about what you're about to learn. I hope it gives you hope as opposed to feeling like it takes away hope. And if you are already working with therapist, we just want to double express how incredible of an opportunity you have to be able to have access to therapy, trauma therapy.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:06:19]:

This episode is by no means a replacement for medical care, psychological care of any kind. This is just to show that you can impact how safe your body feels through functional nutrition intervention in a really incredible way. So really excited to talk about that bottom up approach to trauma, just like we talk about the bottom up approach to anxiety in many past episodes. A little bit more about Tim is that he has pioneered an emerging approach to traumatic stress, autoimmunity, and neuroinflammatory diseases that integrates innovative and novel applications of precision nutrition and applied nutritional neuroscience with narrative medicine, medical sociology, and he specializes in working with people who have experienced traumatic stress and subsequently developed an autoimmune or neuroinflammatory diseases. He practices through a trauma informed and neuro affirming lens, censoring the principles of consent, choice, collaboration and safety. He acknowledges the systemic, political, environmental, and ancestry or evolutionary variables that impact his clients health. And he now has a private neuronutrition practice where he works one on one with clients virtually by application only, and through the state of Georgia at the GCN. Oh, Tim is a light for all of us.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:07:34]:

I learned so much from him and what you're about to hear in the next hour and a half episode. Buckle up. Be conscious and compassionate to yourself for what you might be experiencing. And again, this is not at all a substitute for medical care, nutrition care, but we really do hope you enjoy it. I'm shaking. Kind of. Tim, I'm so excited. I'm kind of.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:08:02]:

I'm kind of freaking out right now. This is it. This is like opening episode of season five for a reason. I am overjoyed thinking about this episode, literally. For years I've been following you. I'm so excited to have you here Tim Frie.

 

Timothy Frie [00:08:17]:

Yeah, thank you. I mean, I am equally as excited, if not more. I mean, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about something that not only impacted me and completely changed my life, this has changed my family's life, and maybe it will change the life of someone listening to me this.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:08:30]:

So I know it will. God, am I crying? I'm not even kidding. I just started crying. Oh, no. I've never had that experience before. Within 30 seconds of crying an episode. Tim, we are on the very, very, very high level. We are going to talk about trauma today.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:08:46]:

We are going to talk about how trauma influences our health in really biochemical ways because I think the conversation around trauma, what's been so co opted by vagus nerve conversations, it's been co opted by like treating, balancing the nervous system, hormones conversation. So I'm really excited to kind of dive into the reality and tangibility of trauma. Have you been seeing that a lot too, where the conversation around trauma has kind of slipped away from us into this different conversation?

 

How has the conversation around trauma changed?

Timothy Frie [00:09:17]:

Oh, yeah. I mean, the conversation about trauma online, it's one extreme or another. It's like we're talking about solely the biology of it and we're talking about the vagus nerve or we're on the other end of the spectrum, which is we're only talking about like the psychological and mental component of it. And now I'm seeing arguments. People in the comments are like, this is trauma. That's not actually trauma. Why are you co opting this terminology? And we have people saying they're trauma informed and they don't really know what that means. So totally.

 

Timothy Frie [00:09:42]:

It's, you know, the conversation about trauma is really all over the place right now.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:09:46]:

This also brings up, just again, on this high level before we nitty gritty the rest of the conversation for you. When you use the word trauma, are you referring to only big traumas? Are you referring to the accumulation of what would be like the little t, big t, another kind of these catchphrases that we've been hearing a lot. What does trauma, when we're talking about in this context of the conversation, mean to you and how do you use it in your work?

 

What does trauma mean to you and how do you use it in your work?

Timothy Frie [00:10:09]:

Yeah, so I mean, for me, when I use the word trauma, or I say traumatic stress or PTsd, which I actually kind of hate the diagnosis, post traumatic stress disorder, I'm looking at it as the psychoneuroimmunological injury that occurs as a result of the event. So for me, it's not really about, is it a big t or a little t? Event. It's about what happens in our body and our brain and our mind response to that experience. So when I say trauma or traumatic stress, I'm talking about the experience in our body, our brain, and our mind.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:10:39]:

Thank you for saying that. And I have a lot of very aggressive New Yorker clients who always say to me, my childhood was good and everything's fine. And Michelle, I can handle a lot of stress. And I'm like, oh, let me tell you something. Mentally, you're one of the most resilient people ever. And I can basically be talking to any of my clients when I'm saying this, they are the most resilient, incredible people in the entire world. But what we're talking about, and we'll be talking about is how even those small experiences can shape and form how our body acts and reacts for Tim, like the rest of our lives, right?

 

Timothy Frie [00:11:13]:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, trauma is, you know, it's one of those things where I think a lot of people have experienced it, but they. They think it means something bad about them. If they experience trauma, they use that actual word, right. Because, you know, we live in a culture here in the US or in the west, and, I mean, really, this is pervasive throughout the world, really, where if you are a victim or you've been abused, or you say, I've experienced trauma, then you're weak, you know, and that's something to be ashamed of because you're lesser. And, you know, I just completely disagree with that. You know, you can be a victim and still be resilient and still be capable of growth, recovery, and healing. So.

 

Timothy Frie [00:11:49]:

Yes.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:11:50]:

Yeah, totally. And the word victim is interesting. It's something that you and I have talked about, just like, personally, professionally, offline, something we definitely are going to talk about, too. We kind of wanted to start this conversation also with something called an ace survey. So again, when we are talking about trauma in any form, it's really interesting because trauma is also something that is owned, and I'm gonna put that in quotes by psychological authority, but it is quite relevant to the nutrition work that we do. And, Tim, you refer to yourself as a neuronutritionist because you are a neuronutritionist. How can we, as true nutritionists, how are we allowed to be talking about trauma? Why are we allowed to be talking about trauma in a space that's owned by psychologists?

 

How can nutritionists talk about trauma when we aren't psychologists?

Timothy Frie [00:12:42]:

Yeah. Sounds like kind of a bizarre question when you put it that way. I'm like, what do you mean, why are we allowed to talk about trauma? So you know, trauma, you know, when we. And we'll talk about some of this, but when you kind of zoom out and you look at all of the biology and the neuroscience behind trauma, all of those pathways, you can trace them back to something that is dependent on a nutrient, a vitamin or a mineral. All of these cellular things that happen in our body need vitamins, need minerals, need nutrition. And, you know, I think nutrition has kind of become this, like, it's become this field where people think, oh, nutritionists tell people what to eat and what not to eat, or they give you a meal plan. But nutrition science is the fundamental basis of life. You know, what do our cells need to exist? So, you know, when we're talking about a traumatic injury or something that causes a biological and cellular change in our body, there are, from my perspective, very obvious nutritional implications for that.

 

Timothy Frie [00:13:41]:

So, you know, trauma is a nutritional concern. So that's why we're allowed and should be talking about it.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:13:48]:

Exactly right. And I would. It is a nutritional concern, and I also view stress and trauma as being very physical. And I talk about this a lot with clients. And exactly like what you just said, it's very chemical, it's very biological. It is not something that happens in this isolated to the brain way. Our brain is not cut off from the rest of our body. It is happening throughout our body.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:14:12]:

And really, what I think we're going to uncover and what you and I would certainly agree on and have agreed on is that it's not only, like you said, this initial impetus or this initial event, but that our bodies are so highly intelligent that our biological and chemical processes will follow suit from that event to basically, in whatever way possible it is. Protect from that event happening again, protect from the damage of that event. And what I'm seeing broadly is a lot of people's bodies in a constant state of protection. Another word that I find to be quite triggering now because of its overuse, is this fight or flight. So I think we're going to talk about that, I'm sure, at some point, too.

 

Timothy Frie [00:14:51]:

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:14:52]:

So there is this ten question survey that Tim is going to say. No, Michelle. Actually, there's four additional questions that we're going to talk about called the Adverse Childhood Experiences Survey. And the survey was developed to help understand the relationship between, or was later used, actually, to understand the relationship between autoimmunity and trauma, which is Tim's bread and butter. It is where he lives, it is where he loves to live, is that relationship between either childhood experiences or adult experiences and how they relate to how the body acts and how that can turn into these autoimmune conditions kind of popping up. A lot of times when people talk about this Ace survey, this Ace adverse childhood experiences survey, they talk about it in a very, again, intangible. They talk about like, yeah, if something happened in childhood, maybe you're going to have an experience in adulthood. I kind of want to just go through what the questions of the survey are.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:15:46]:

Tim's going to lay out some caveats for us and some things to consider. This is by no means diagnostic in nature. What I want us to do in this episode is just open up the conversation about how the events of our life can influence our nutritional status and how our nutritional status can influence our overall health once those events have happened. So, Tim, tell us your caveats and things to consider when it comes to the east survey. Again, we're just bringing up these questions for people to ponder on. This is not diagnostic in nature, not medical advice or nutrition advice.

 

Share the caveats and things to consider when it comes to the Adverse Childhood Experiences Survey.

Timothy Frie [00:16:19]:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, I think if you're listening to this and you're hearing one of these questions and you're like, maybe, I'm not sure possibly that could have happened to me. I've found in my experience working with people that if your answer is a maybe, it's a yes. And I think this kind of goes back to what we were saying earlier about this kind of cultural stigma or stereotype surrounding what it means to have experienced these things. And, you know, I don't know which version of the questions you have or, you know, which one you're going to read, but some versions of the Ace questionnaire will say explicitly, even once or just one time. So as you're listening to this, if you experience this even one time, your answer is also yes. You know, I think the other thing, too, I just want to throw out there, you know, this, you know, might be kind of alarming to some people, but I think this is important. You know, an ace score of two or greater has been associated with an increased risk of disease.

 

Timothy Frie [00:17:11]:

And we'll get into that later. But an ace score of four or greater, you know, we'll get into the specifics, but, yeah, go for it.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:17:19]:

An ace four of. Yeah, I like the suspense of it. I will dispel a little bit of suspense. At some point. The scores, when they were doing research, they said, we actually can't report on this research because the scores were so correlated that they almost look causative and they almost think that they're gonna think we're lying, is how compelling the research was. Did you read that, too, Tim?

 

Timothy Frie [00:17:42]:

Yeah. Well, I mean, the other thing, too, on that note, like, I think it's important here. There's a lot of people that I don't want to say they're like trauma deniers, but maybe they are. They'll say, you know, well, we don't have, you know, like, randomized controlled trials. We have no proof that, you know, these aces or traumatic experiences do cause autoimmune disease or whatever. But the thing is, we'll never get that causative study because it would be unethical for a researcher to design a study where you would have to intentionally expose children to this adversity and then, you know, follow them longitudinally, you know, for 25, 30 years and see how those traumatic experiences impacted their health. So from my perspective and from my practice, the association is strong enough that you can kind of connect a to b, even though the science doesn't say with absolute certainty that you can. So what?

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:18:28]:

Science has anything with absolute certainty? Come on. You know, it's like. And also, the science does point to that, even though the science is not definitive. The science. Wow. Does it point to it? And we'll talk about that science, too.

 

Timothy Frie [00:18:37]:

Yeah.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:18:37]:

Okay, so this is the adverse childhood experiences survey that I have. Again, all of them are a little bit different depending on their adaptations. And Tim is going to add some caveats throughout. And feel free, Tim, to just jump in. Again, not diagnostic in nature. Just want us to consider how these events that seem small or these type of events that seem small may actually impact our health later on. So the question is, prior to your 18th birthday, the first question is, did a parent or another adult in your household often or very often swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you, or act in a way that made you feel afraid that you may be physically hurt? The second question is, did a parent or another adult in the household often or very often push, grab, slap, or throw something at you or ever hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured? Question three. Did an adult or person at least five years older than you ever touch or fondle you, or have you touched their body in a sexual way or attempts to touch you or touch you inappropriately? Question four.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:19:36]:

Did you often or very often feel that no one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special, or feel that your family members didn't look out for one another, feel close to one another, or support one another? Question five. Did you often or very often feel that you didn't have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you, or that your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you or to take you to the doctor if you needed it? Question six, was a biological parent ever lost to you through divorce, abandonment, or another reason? Question seven, was your mother or stepmother often or very often pushed, grabbed, slapped, or have something thrown at her, or was she sometimes, often, or very often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist, or hit with something hard or ever repeatedly hit over the course of at least a few minutes, or threatened with a gun or a knife? Question eight, did you live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic or who used street drugs? Question nine, was a household member depressed or mentally ill, or did a household member attempt suicide? Question ten, did a household member go to prison? Okay, Tim, do you want to add your question? Yeah, I know I feel like now it's hard to, like, talk about it because I feel so taken in by experiences that I know my clients have had, that I've had. So I'm just having a moment for that while I'm reading them, too.

 

Timothy Frie [00:20:57]:

Yeah, well, you know, I'll just share. You know, my ace score is eight. You know, that's what mine is. And, you know, when I first learned about this and learned about aces, I feel like I kind of experienced this grief, the season of grief for a while, because, you know, this made so much sense. So if this is your first time listening to this right now, and you're like, wow, I have experienced a lot of those things. I hear you. And it is a lot. It can be a lot to digest at once.

 

Timothy Frie [00:21:25]:

So there's a version of this, there's a few different, what are called expanded Ace questionnaires that basically, you know, because what the original ten questions kind of look at is abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction. Or there's three categories of those questions. When you zoom out a little bit. We have institutional and community trauma. So, you know, some of those other questions look at, like, economic hardship. So did your family ever struggle to pay for basic needs like food and housing? Another question looks at discrimination. Have you ever felt discriminated against because of your race ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation? Bullying? Were you ever bullied by your peers or adults at school? And then the fourth question is community violence. Did you ever witness violence in your neighborhood or in your community? And there's some other variations of this that look at, like, family dynamics.

 

Timothy Frie [00:22:14]:

Were you in the foster care system, or did you ever feel like you lacked emotional support from your family and community. So these kind of speak more to what would be considered, like, those little t traumas.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:22:25]:

Absolutely. And again, the research for this correlation between the ace scores and what health events are later in life is so substantial. And there is one statistic I wanted to share, that 10% of men with an ace score of one suffer from chronic depression and 18% of women do. 33% of men with an ace score of four or more later develop depression, while nearly 60% of women with that score develop chronic depression and adulthood. Again, that's just one type of possible result. The, I guess, interesting. And it's, like, hard to talk about. What's interesting when it's coming to, like, really, really intense stuff and sad stuff is that the correlations are just as strong for immune diseases and autoimmunity.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:23:12]:

And that's not what we would expect. Right. We wouldn't expect for you to have an experience in childhood, be told to get over it. Like everyone. Like all of us. Right. And then it show up later in life as an immune condition. Tim, can you start to unpack for us what happens here on a biological level? What is going on with that?

 

Explain why the correlation between the ace scores and health events are later in life is so substantial. What is happening on a biological level?

Timothy Frie [00:23:33]:

Yeah, well, you know, one thing I want to share. I started to earlier, but, you know, there was some research where they looked at thyroiditis, like graves disease and Hashimoto's, to autoimmune conditions that impact the thyroid. And they found that people with an ace score of four or more for a greater have a 50% increased risk of developing an autoimmune thyroid condition compared to those who had an ace score of zero to one. And when you look at the correlation between aces and autoimmunity, I mean, there's. It's pretty clear. Lupus fibromyalgia, Ms. Sjogren's greater symptom severity in people who have more aces. So you have, like, this dose dependent relationship.

 

Timothy Frie [00:24:11]:

So the more severe the trauma, the more severe your symptoms. You know? So, you know, kind of learning about that, too. Like, the correlation between more trauma, more immunity. That's a clue. You know, that's. That's a pretty big clue.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:24:26]:

100%. So, yeah, the one thing I want to say about all this, too, before we do dive in, is there's like that the phrase what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It's like, what doesn't. Yeah, what doesn't kill you makes you traumatized. I don't know. It's like. Yeah, it's not. It might.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:24:42]:

There's actually. There is some research, too, that shows that, like, resilient responses to trauma do confer some level of benefit, but all you're doing is deterring negative outcomes. You're not. It's not like, great, you know, it's like, it's not like anyone can be looking and be like, this is good because it made you stronger. You know, it doesn't really lay the. Found the groundwork for a stable immune or even emotional response to things.

 

Timothy Frie [00:25:11]:

Yeah, like, you know, trauma is never protective. You know, like, experiencing adversity in your childhood or developmental trauma or being discriminated against, it will never prevent anything, you know? And, you know, I think these conversations about, like, grit and resilience, it's like, you know, well, these things kind of toughen you, or they increase your resilience or grit, and that's not actually true. You know, resilience is. There's dozens of factors that influence our resilience. And if you don't or cannot experience post traumatic growth or you do not receive the support and care that you need after trauma, that's actually a deterrent to your resiliency. So I completely agree with you. So let's unpack the neurobiology of this a little bit. So, I'll do this the best that I can.

 

Timothy Frie [00:25:55]:

We'll start with what I think most people see and know the most about when we. When we talk about traumatic stress or chronic stress. And that's the HPA axis. So the hypothalamic pituitary, adrenal axis. This is basically oversimplification. It's our body stress response system. It is a connection and feedback loop and a communication cycle between the pituitary gland and hypothalamus in our brain and our adrenal glands, which sit on top of our kidneys. So, hypothalamus is located at the base of the brain, and this is responsible for endocrine regulations.

 

Timothy Frie [00:26:32]:

And so the hypothalamus is, you know, it's. This is our body's kind of internal balance regulator. It plays a role in hunger and sleep and body temperature in our circadian rhythm. So if you think about even that right off the bat, if we know that traumatic stress impacts the function of the hypothalamus, that could explain the insomnia and some of the sleep and nightmares, you know, that are some of the sleep challenges and nightmares that people experience when they have trauma. It could explain some of the issues with satiation and increased appetite or under eating that people experience when they have trauma. Then the second part of this HPA axis is the pituitary gland. It's this really tiny pea sized gland that sits just below the hypothalamus. This is responsible for all kinds of different hormones.

 

Timothy Frie [00:27:17]:

It stimulates the adrenal glands, which is the third part of this hPa axis. It plays an important role in sending out thyroid stimulating hormone, which is important for our thyroid function. It produces growth hormone and some of the other, like, sex hormones related to, like, breastfeeding and testosterone and, like, estrogen, you know, production and things like that in women that are related to, you know, reproductive function. So then we have the back part of the pituitary gland as well. That's kind of what the front part of the anterior portion of the pituitary gland does. Then we have the posterior portion, and that produces, you know, oxytocin, which is, you know, really important for childbirth and social bonding, and something called antidiuretic hormone, which kind of regulates our fluid balance and water and plays some role in how our kidneys function. Then the third part of this HPA axis is the adrenal glands. And these are small glands that sit on top of our kidneys.

 

Timothy Frie [00:28:11]:

And there's two parts. We have the cortex, which is the center, and this is what produces cortisol. So this is that stress hormone that everybody talks about. Everybody's worried about their high cortisol and chronic exposure to cortisol. Cortisol doesn't just increase when we have stress and voila, we have high cortisol. This high cortisol can impair our blood sugar metabolism and ourselves. It sends a lot of different signals to different immune cells to tell our immune system to either chill or get ready for something. And it also plays a big role in our electrolyte balance, sodium, magnesium, potassium, and I, things like that.

 

Timothy Frie [00:28:48]:

It also produces aldosterone, which is part of that fluid and electrolyte balance mechanism, and different androgens, so different sex hormones that play a role in our libido and our sex drive. And then the other really big important thing that the adrenal glands do is they produce what are called catecholamines. These are things like adrenaline or epinephrine. And this is what really drives what we know as the fight or flight response, which we'll get into that. I think we've really oversimplified or exaggerated what that really means. But when your adrenal glands produce these catecholamines, this basically turns on your nervous system. It speeds up your heart rate. It speeds up your respiration rate.

 

Timothy Frie [00:29:27]:

It causes your blood pressure to go up. So just if we pause there for a second and we think about that alone, this HPA axis, knowing what these things do, to me, it just kind of makes sense why chronic HPA axis dysregulation would lead to so much downstream immune system dysfunction.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:29:51]:

Really, really good at laying the groundwork. And again, what I need everyone to hear me saying is that this traumatic event, as it happens, it basically puts the body on notice that this thing can happen again. So our bodies are so intelligent, and they want to prevent bad things from happening. And when we acknowledge something is bad and has happened that is bad, or our body intuitively understands that that thing is not good, our body starts to behave in a different way and then continues to behave in that way. And I see this obviously, a lot in cases of mcas and pots and any sort of dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system, is that the body just starts living in that state. Now, some people would call this HPA axis dysregulation. They would call this the fight or flight state, which I don't really agree with as being all encompassing, either. Let's talk a little bit about the fight or flight conversation, and then I want to go through the other mechanisms by which trauma influences the way our body acts, and also if it does cause any physical or cellular damage or anything like that, too.

 

Explain the fight or flight significance as well as other mechanisms by which trauma influences the way our body acts, and also if it does cause any physical or cellular damage.

Timothy Frie [00:31:07]:

Yeah, so, you know, kind of related to what you just said, you know, so the HPA axis can either hyperactivate or hypo activate all of the things that it does in its response. So if the HPA axis is hyperactivated, then you have really high levels of cortisol for a long period of time. You know, the cortisol can actually damage the brain. It can cause neuronal damage. It can cause your, you know, different parts of the brain to atrophy or shrink. And you can have these anatomical changes where it will, you know, parts of the brain will. Will get smaller or they'll get bigger. And, you know, if you think about, you know, cortisol getting into the brain for long, long enough of a period of time where it's affecting your hippocampus, which is largely, largely responsible for your memory and emotional dysregulation, well, then that's what kind of causes some of these hyperarousal symptoms related to trauma.

 

Timothy Frie [00:32:00]:

So, you know, being kind of, like, easily startled or, you know, hyper vigilance, where we're just always constantly looking for something that might hurt us or harm us. And that's kind of what most people I think know is anxiety. So the other end of that spectrum is hypo activation, where you have, you know, high levels of cortisol that has basically saturated your adrenal glands. You've been producing so much of it, which that can actually has this kind of interesting mechanism where it tells, since this is a feedback loop between, you know, the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus, it can tell your body, like, wait, you're producing way too much of this chill. We need to slow down. So then you have an impaired stress response, which just results in systemic dysregulation of so many things, because you have now parts of your body that cannot do what it's supposed to do, and that ultimately is what causes disease, specifically with regards to the immune system and autoimmunity. High levels of cortisol change the way that your body produces all kinds of different immune cells. And when you have parts of your immune system that are either under activated or overactivated for long periods of time, you just kind of end up in this cell danger response, but you end up with your cells thinking that you are perpetually in danger and that you're facing threats.

 

Timothy Frie [00:33:20]:

And our body is really good at handling stress, but not a lot of stress for a long period of time, or a very intense stressor that we have no support with kind of healing from.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:33:36]:

I think it's the phrase, a little bit of stress with a really good response is good, and a lot of stress is bad. And then you have to basically, you know, thinking about this feedback loop with the brains, with the brain structures and our adrenal glands, again, our body starts to behave and act in a chronic way. Thinking just in case there is a famine, just in case there is a disaster, I need to put myself into this kind of, like, again, activated or highly activated or under activated state. What I'm just. And I'm just repeating what Tim said so beautifully, which is also that having low circulating cortisol or high circulating cortisol, or low metabolized cortisol or low free cortisol can have different impacts on immune function. So the way that our immune system functions, because I think people think it's like you just have white blood cells kind of, like, running around, and that's the immune system. It's like this extremely complex communication system. That's how our immune system works.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:34:42]:

Some of our immune cells live in certain places and send messages from there. Some travel throughout the body, and they either do the repair work themselves, or they'll signal to other immune particles to come in and help. Basically, what happens is cortisol, again, being this immune signaling molecule, because it actually can influence immune function by telling the immune system to ramp up or slow down. Having that unchecked, cortisol directly influences what your immune system does. The only way our immune system knows what do I do is through the actions of the brain, through other hormones, through the nutrients required for the immune system to function. But you really have to start, we all have to start viewing the body as this communication system. So when we have clients, either Tim or I, coming in, not only are we sitting in the experiences that they've had and appreciating the value of their life experience, we're also understanding what happens. That communication system in the body.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:35:42]:

Why does the body think it needs to do the things that it's doing? Because sometimes I just want to be like, you know, body, you're being a little dramatic about this. Like, why are you? That's not what I want you to do. So it's. It's that the body, again, I want to use this word, the body behaves or acts in a certain way to prevent further harm. I think when we, again, originally think about trauma, people think that there's this, like, it's just in your memory, or it's just this physical thing that happens, where it snips your DNA, which we can talk about, too, but it's really this deeply complex network of a perpetuating cycle of protection. And what the body does in a state of protection is a little bit odd and has effects and side effects, essentially, in the long term.

 

Timothy Frie [00:36:26]:

Yeah. Something I was thinking about when you were saying that is the role of cytokines and inflammation. I think a lot of people who have autoimmune disease are on these disease modifying drugs or biologic medications, that they decrease the levels of some of these cytokines. So tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin one, interleukin six. These are immune cells that are called pro inflammatory cytokines, and they drive inflammation, and they direct other cells basically say, come along, we need to inflame this body, but it's not for the purposes of attacking the host. That's what I find so beautiful about our immune system is even when you have autoimmunity and you have auto antibodies, where you have this civil war going on in your body, it's true that part of your body, some of your cells have turned against each other. But in response to that, there's other parts of your immune system and other cells that are, nope, we're going to protect this person. Like, we're not doing this.

 

Timothy Frie [00:37:24]:

But the thing is, those conditions, a civil war is not conducive to harmony or balance. So you have these things that are attacking tissues, and then you have these other things that are trying to protect your tissues. So when we have high levels of these pro inflammatory cytokines that are directing our immune cells to keep us inflamed, to protect us and prevent damage from these autoantibodies, it's kind of like, you know, we're causing damage when we're trying to protect ourselves. So it's a catch 22, you know? And, you know, when we have really high levels of these pro inflammatory cytokines circulating in our blood and getting into our tissues and our organs for long periods of time, you know, other things start to shut down, and, you know, we start to experience these systemic issues. And I think this also kind of speaks to, as well, why people with autoimmune disease, it can take so long to get a diagnosis sometimes. And when you're bouncing around from doctor to doctor and you play this game, I call it symptom whack a mole, because you have systemic inflammation, and your immune system is producing a response that kind of directs your entire body in these really important regions of your brain.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:38:40]:

What you're saying in that is so important, too, that it's not like the body is trying to hurt you when it's doing autoimmune stuff. It just. Your body thinks that the amount of modern stressors and trauma that we have and nutrient deficiencies that we have, it thinks that this is the best path forward, and our bodies are not necessarily equipped to take on the burdens that they are. However, the most important thing that I want to say to people is that if you. There's so much that can be done with all this. So it's not like, oh, the chances of you having all these conditions, almost like a genetic certainty, and, you know, oh, forget it. Now I have to double deal with the fact that I had the trauma in the first place and now deal with the mess of it. Well, it's not like you have to, in order to physically reroute this, that you have to relive the trauma or go to trauma therapy specifically to create a new pathway for your body to choose a.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:39:38]:

Because we basically want to prove to the body you don't have to do this and run amok and self attack and do all this. There's a different path and way. Before we talk about what that path and way is, there's two things I want to make sure we cover, too. Tell me about cell danger response and how it relates to trauma. And if you can or have any information on DNA and how it's impacted by trauma, I would love to hear that, too.

 

How is cell danger response related to trauma? How is DNA impacted by trauma?

Timothy Frie [00:40:02]:

Yeah, I mean, I think we'll kind of start with the DNA, and again, pull me out if I get too hung up in the weeds here. So, you know, there's a lot of, like, books and content right now about transgenerational or intergenerational trauma. And I think some people kind of write this off as being, like, this very spiritual thing. And it is. It can be very spiritual for certain cultures and religions and belief systems. But for the purposes of this conversation, I'm going to talk about transgenerational trauma through the lens of, like, biomedicine and neurobiology. So what this basically means is that you have genetic changes spanning generations as a result of multiple generations experiencing different types of trauma. So, you know, we have, you know, behavioral and environmental transmissions of intergenerational traumas.

 

Timothy Frie [00:40:47]:

So these are things that are a little bit more kind of like social or more subjective that are passed down. So different parenting styles or how you discipline your children or being exposed to multiple families growing up in a community where there's violence and inequity and injustice and things like that. But then, on the genetic or biomedical side, we have a few different mechanisms involved in transgenerational trauma. One of them is DNA methylation, which is something we talk about all the time in functional medicine. But we never seem to zoom in on the DNA methylation concerns related to trauma. Trauma essentially just changes your DNA methylation patterns, and that changes the way that your genetics are expressed. It's epigenetics and all these different exposures and things in life that change the way our genes function and turn on and turn off. The other thing that trauma can impact is histone modification.

 

Timothy Frie [00:41:41]:

And these are basically like proteins that wrap around our DNA, and trauma can alter those experiences. And think about that. We're changing something that protects our DNA that's going to impact the stress response and immune function. And all of these different things that we've been talking about, there's been a lot of different genes that, you know, we're looking at right now for, you know, targeting trauma treatments, which is really kind of fascinating. But, you know, a lot of these different genes that are impacted by trauma are related to these glucocorticoid receptors. So things that the adrenal glands are doing, there's another one that I'm really fascinated by. It's this FKBP five. It's binding protein, and it basically regulates the sensitivity of, like, cortisol and these glucocorticoid receptors.

 

Timothy Frie [00:42:28]:

There's been, you know, all kinds of research on, like, the genes that play a role in, like, brain derived neurotrophic factor, you know, so the different genes that play a role in neurogenesis and creating new brain cells, you know, and there's. There's, you know, all of that's, like, really fascinating and cool to think about. But, you know, I think, for me, what we can really do with nutrition and lifestyle is it's kind of the same thing with any other chronic illness, like heart disease or, you know, high cholesterol or something like that. We have the ability, through our health behaviors and our nutrition related behaviors and our food choices, to turn these genes on and off and up regulate and down regulate these things. When it comes to trauma, you know, we have some degree of influence over that, but ideally, we're doing that in a supportive community, and we're surrounded by people who they not necessarily need to have shared our experience, but they understand why we would want to change those behaviors. I think a lot of people who have the privilege of not having experienced trauma, it can be really difficult for them to understand why someone would be so concerned about their nutrition or their health behaviors or their fitness or their stress levels. They literally have a different genetic makeup. Their body is functioning differently.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:43:48]:

Absolutely. And this genetic piece, too. Tim, you might not know the answer to this question. I'm curious what your answer is. Is it proposed that the changes would happen in utero and then they're passed down? Is it proposed that the changes are passed, are like, are they truly epigenetic? Where you see the SNP's like, how do we perceive intergenerational trauma as passed down?

 

Timothy Frie [00:44:11]:

Yeah, I'm not sure about that. Theoretically, that kind of makes sense. Kind of related to this and the cell danger response, which I can get into, into, into in a moment. You know, there's been a lot of research looking at, you know, maternal cortisol levels and health outcomes of the infant or the baby later in life. So, you know, if you think about a mom who has been exposed to domestic violence, some sort of, you know, economic hardship or, you know, maybe, you know, experiencing, you know, all kinds of trauma during, you know, motherhood, that's going to, you know, impact the biology of the infant. So that's something that's kind of on my mind when I work with pregnant women who have experienced trauma, and they're facing a lot of stress. Now, we need to talk about how that could potentially impact their child. So let's talk about the cell danger response, though, because I think that's really important.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:45:04]:

It's a big Tim thing also.

 

Timothy Frie [00:45:05]:

Yeah, it's kind of a new thing. This is something that was just recently proposed. It's relatively new to the literature. And what the cell danger response is is kind of this universal, evolutionarily conserved metabolic response. And it's a host of changes that happens when our body feels that it's up against a threat or that it's in danger. Hence the name cell danger response. There's a few different mechanisms of this. The first one is there's a mitochondrial mechanism.

 

Timothy Frie [00:45:38]:

When the cell danger response is activated, the powerhouse of the cell, the mitochondria, the parts of our cell that produce energy, they will increase. Well, they will actually decrease the amount of energy that they produce, which has a downstream consequence of increasing reactive oxygen species, which are these free radicals, and they cause inflammation. There's also metabolic shifts. So we see a reduction in what's called oxidative phosphorylation, which kind of changes the way that we produce energy in this process called glycolysis, and the way that we produce glucose and energy for our body. And then we have. This is the most fascinating part to me, is the way that the cell danger response impacts something called the danger associated molecular patterns damps. And, you know, that alone causes systemic inflammation and can lead to this host of immune changes. And, you know, when you.

 

Timothy Frie [00:46:32]:

When you zoom out of all of this and you think about, okay, you know that these three things are happening, and we know that immune cells talk to each other, and we know that those immune cells talk to other types of cells, of course that's going to lead to systemic disease. Right? So that's kind of what the cell danger response is. It's our cells responding to danger. And when it thinks we're in danger for long periods of time, we live in this state of physiological stress.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:46:59]:

What I hear us both repeating, and I hope people hear us repeating, is that this is about patterns of how the body functions. So when we think about stress and we're like, vagus nerve. Amazing. Yes. We're obsessed with vagus nerve work. We completely understand. We're like, take ashwagandha. It's like, well, that doesn't adaptogens, like a whole thing.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:47:22]:

That doesn't answer the question of, how do I, from the body to us, how do I behave right? Like, how do I exist? So, which brings me to this really important concept for us to talk about, which is the concept of safety, Tim. And when I even say the word safety, what just comes up for you around this conversation?

 

Explain how the concept of safety is related and impacted.

Timothy Frie [00:47:45]:

Yeah, well, I think the word harmony kind of comes to mind. I think a lot of people are striving for balance. We're never going to have balance, in my opinion. You know, like, just even using the concept of, like, work life balance, I don't want to work as much as my life is happening. I don't want equal distribution. Right. Because that's, to me, what the word balance implies. So, you know, when you think about homeostasis or just stasis in general, we want our bodies to be in a place of harmony.

 

Timothy Frie [00:48:15]:

Wherever everything is communicating effectively. When there is something that's activated, our body knows how to respond to that appropriately, not too much or not too little. And, you know, if we don't have harmony, and again, we're existing in a physiological or psychological space where we just feel like something can happen to us that is not safety. And, you know, anyone who's ever studied psychology or even, like, in high school, if you take high school psychology, you learn about, like, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Fundamental human need is safety. You need to have your basic needs met. But it's like, we throw that out the window when we create society, or, you know, like, the way that we've set our world up is not conducive to safety. So, yeah, like, harmony is what comes to mind when I think of safety.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:49:06]:

I love that. And I also think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I would say of all of the things I learned in my dietitian degree, Maslow's hierarchy of needs weirdly comes up the most. It's not like the calorie counting that comes up the most. I'm like, wow, that was good. Like, thanks for teaching that, you know, in my psychology classes and actually in nutrition classes, too. And, of course, like, community nutrition classes, a body that is safe in my head also doesn't need to be as prepared and doesn't need to act in a funky way. So just as much as we're saying that one traumatic, you know, Ac.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:49:41]:

One traumatic adverse experience can lead to downstream effects of how the hypothalamus directs the rest of the body to act, I just want to make it clear that acts and moments of safety, whether it's physical safety that you're getting from something or emotional safety, can do the exact opposite you. Basically, you always have to prove it to our body. I've had, you know, my bestie, Doctor Robert Kochko, come on this podcast, and he always uses the phrase the nervous system learns by example. So if you can show your body, look, we're cool, we're safe, you don't have to do that weird, funky stuff that is so much more profound than taking a random supplement for like, a random ashwagandha, you know, like, you know.

 

Timothy Frie [00:50:27]:

Adaptogen that just, you know, that really excites me and energizes me because we never learn what safety feels like in our body. You know, like, we don't take a course on how to achieve psychological and physiological safety. Nobody's talking about this because, you know, we're raised in a society and in communities and in families where we're under so much chronic stress. There is, you know, many of Americans are living kind of, like on the brink of losing their economic security and losing their home. People are struggling to feed themselves and, I mean, hunger for long periods of time. You know, that's also kind of this unsafe physiology to exist in. And so, you know, for a lot of the people that I work with, or you as well, like, I think people learn to be unsafe in their bodies and then they become unsafe existing in the conventional medical system because maybe they've experienced medical trauma or they're just not feeling like they can show up as themselves and be honest when they ask a doctor or healthcare professional for help. So they've never really learned how to be safe in their body.

 

Timothy Frie [00:51:35]:

You know, for me, when I work with people, it's like I can give you a meal plan and a supplement protocol and all these things, but to me, that's just like the bare minimum that I can do for you. So I think having these conversations early on in the relationship with someone who's going to help you take care of someone who's helping you take care of yourself, they need to help you figure out what safety is. And to me, that's your compass.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:52:01]:

Exactly. That's why safety, I knew in this conversation, was going to be such a guiding light for us, for how we're going to approach this topic. I'm a little bit tricky when it comes to clients in that I'm kind of like, yeah, we'll do supplements, come on in. We'll have fun with functional nutrition. But what the relationship really is is having that person find out what makes them feel safe and then cultivating safety in their lives, in their friendships, in their, again, in the foods that they eat, of course, and the nutrients they're intaking. But anything that you do to signal safety in the body is going to signal safety to the brain, because, like I always say, the brain and the body are not cut off. They're connected to each other. All of, all that is happening from a physical trauma perspective is happening in the brain.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:52:44]:

All that happens from an emotional trauma perspective is occurring in the body. So that is a lot of the work that we both do is cultivating safety.

 

Timothy Frie [00:52:52]:

Yeah. And, you know, when I think about someone who's been chronically dieting, you know, they. They bounce around from diet to diet and they end up kind of blaming themselves. It's like, well, I just need to get it together. I wasn't adhering to that diet. I wasn't compliant with that diet. And they think they just need to keep trying again and again. There's a reason why that diet did not work for you, and it's not because you don't have enough discipline or willpower.

 

Timothy Frie [00:53:17]:

It's because the diet did not feel safe from one perspective, one way or another, that did not feel sustainable for you. And I think when we talk about sustainability as it relates to nutrition or a meal plan, it has to feel safe. That meal plan has to feel like it's conducive to how you want to actually feel. And if you are constantly forcing yourself or white knuckling your way through which, for people that you work with in highly sensitive bodies or people who are neurodivergent or you've experienced trauma, you know, it's. We don't always need more force and compliance to feel safe. You know, we need gentleness, we need structure, we need care and support. And, you know, if, again, if we don't even know what safety is or that's a foreign concept to us, we're just going to kind of stay on this hamster wheel. More diets, more supplements, more doctors.

 

Timothy Frie [00:54:11]:

And I found that having these conversations and helping people figure out what safety means for them and that becomes their guiding light or their compass, that's life changing. That is health, destiny altering information.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:54:25]:

I think so, too. Oh, Tim, I'm going to hurt you with this question here. Here we go. Because it's going to make your brain go with so many things that you have to tell me. Ok. For most people who have high Ace scores or otherwise have even adults, you know, adverse experiences, safety is a foreign concept. And feeling safe actually feels unsafe.

 

Timothy Frie [00:54:51]:

Yes.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:54:51]:

So let's talk about how, when we have chaos or pain in childhood, how that can play into creating, like, restrictive diets, creating the chaos again, and kind of reliving it again, even keeping it within the nutritional realm. I think this is really relevant and important to ask. What about the people who's, like, everyone who don't know what it's like to feel safe and actually feeling safe doesn't feel normal, and it doesn't feel okay. And it doesn't feel good to actually feel okay?

 

How can chaos or pain in childhood play into creating restrictive diets and create chaos in the nutritional realm?

Timothy Frie [00:55:23]:

Yeah. Yep. My brain is, like, on fire at the moment. You're absolutely right.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:55:28]:

I knew I was gonna hurt you. I'm sorry.

 

Timothy Frie [00:55:29]:

You heard a zap. So, you know, I think so. I kind of call this. You're referring to something. It's kind of this. It's this term that I coined called the pleasure safety paradox. And to me, this is something that. It's kind of this.

 

Timothy Frie [00:55:45]:

It's this gray area where things that are familiar to our body and to our senses and to our mind feel safe. Familiarity is associated with safe. You know, there's a lot of neuroscience behind that. We don't really need to understand that, other than it's. It's driven by dopamine, it's driven by bonding and oxytocin and, you know, some of these other hormonal things. And then, you know, so that this kind of existing in this gray area that's. This paradox is why people make. Intentionally make decisions they know are bad for their health.

 

Timothy Frie [00:56:16]:

You know, whatever that means for the person, it's because it's familiar or it brings them some sense of perceived safety. So, like, in the context of food, you know, if I'm eating kind of what's regarded as the standard american diet, I'm eating foods that, you know, are increasing my. My blood sugar, they're increasing my cholesterol, or things that many people would regard as inflammatory. And I know that when I eat these foods, I feel tired, I have joint pain, I have gut issues, I have skin reactions. There's a part of me that doesn't feel like it's worth it for me. There's a part of my nervous system that doesn't feel okay with the opposite, you know, cultivating, you know, sensations in my body that feel calm and cool and collected. So it's hard to get out of that. You know, it's really hard.

 

Timothy Frie [00:57:08]:

And it's not something that you can do with one treatment or one supplement. You know, it takes time. It takes understanding how all of these different things that we've talked about are interconnected. And, you know, I kind of see it as like this ball of yarn, you know, and in the center of it is safety, and we have to pull out the string and get through into the core of this. But I found that nutrition and changing our relationship with food and focusing on that as a step one can kind of like, it leads to these downstream, the unraveling, if you will. Food is the tool. And we're walking around with a malnourished brain where we have all this physiological dysfunction from trauma and autoimmunity that doesn't feel safe, and we don't know what to go to for safety. In my work, I bring people back to food, which is something that most of my clients are already familiar with.

 

Timothy Frie [00:58:05]:

They've tried functional nutrition, they've tried holistic nutrition, but they've only gotten so far. But using food differently can be a way for us to reconnect with our body and retrain our nervous system. And it also allows us to make sure that we're giving our body and ourselves what it needs to actually heal, shipped out of this inflammatory state. So I don't know if that answered your question, because there is a lot.

 

Michelle Shapiro [00:58:26]:

There, but the sometimes you need an impetus, and sometimes you need a little bit of a shove, and it's also okay. And I always tell the story, Tim, so listeners know the story. But when I went to acupuncture for the first time, I kept asking the acupuncturist, like, you know, am I going to feel high from this? Am I going to feel weird from this? And the acupuncturist looked at me and said, would feeling relaxed or happy be the worst thing that could ever happen to you? And I was like, kinda, yeah, that would be really scary. I don't know what that's like. And I was like, yeah, that would actually be the worst thing that could happen. So along this journey, if you do the actions that portray safety to your body, and you treat your body with respect, and you treat your body with love, even if it's not, like, cerebrally and consciously acceptable for you to feel safe, the message of safety will be translated. And I think that's really important.

 

Timothy Frie [00:59:24]:

Yeah, I mean, it really is a rewiring. It is creating new neural cells. It is retraining your brain, retraining your nervous system, and hunger and fullness and satiety and the sensory experiences from food. They're all driven by the nervous system. So that's another reason why nutritionists need to be talking about neuronutrition and this topic, because all of this is driven by the nervous system. And if you can, over a period of time, retrain your nervous system to, if you shift that center point back to where it should be, you identify what harmony is, which might change depending on your season of life, by the way, and what you have going on, you'll have that compass. You'll have something to come back to. And I think for a lot of people who have experienced trauma, they're going to psychotherapy and counseling.

 

Timothy Frie [01:00:18]:

And I've been in therapy for 16 years, proudly. And it wasn't until I started focusing on somatic and body based, nervous system based therapies that I actually started making what I consider to be meaningful progress. And food is one of those things where we come back to our. We come back to our senses, we come back to and need to be present in the moment. And, you know, that over a period of time, retrains our nervous system. It causes all kinds of things to move in the direction that we need it to go.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:00:51]:

And I think, you know, for many people, therapy is, like, probably one of the first steps that everyone knows and should take when it comes to trauma and trauma therapy, maybe even more so, like, somatic experiencing and trauma specific therapies, because they're bringing you back into. Most of. Most of them are bringing you back into that somatic experience. So you're not just kind of re traumatizing yourself by talking through the traumas. And that's a whole other conversation, too. But the. The point of this piece of our conversation is that you can signal safety through the physical parts of yourself. If you're not ready to talk about those parts, you don't have to go through the brain.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:01:35]:

You can actually go through the body. Now, I would recommend everyone see a trauma therapist if they're able to. And I would recommend everyone see a therapist if they're able to, 100%. And I know that even kind of bringing these topics up, bringing the ace survey up, can make people feel like, all right, I'm exposed a little bit. I just want to lead that into, there's so much you can do. You wouldn't believe how much you can do. And that for everything that has signaled unsafety in your body, there is a million more things that you can do to signal safety in the body. And the way that our body will perceive safety is, do we have enough food? Are we loved? Do we have shelter? Do we have, like, whatever those.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:02:17]:

Those safety signals are? And then there's, on a cellular level safety, as well, which is, do we have enough minerals? Is our blood sugar stable?

 

Timothy Frie [01:02:27]:

Yes.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:02:27]:

Or our cells going in the right direction. Are they making the right immune cells? Are they producing things properly? When you think of nutrition for trauma, mister nutrition for trauma, what nutrients are you thinking about? What, what pathways in the body are you thinking about specifically?

 

When you think of nutrition for trauma, what nutrients and pathways in the body are you thinking about?

Timothy Frie [01:02:44]:

Yeah, well, I'm thinking about a lot. I mean, one that really comes to mind is, you know, different, you know, antioxidants and neutralizing those free radicals that we talked about earlier. So, you know, I'm thinking about things like vitamin C and vitamin C and selenium and just polyphenols and all the things that we get from, like, colorful fruits and vegetables, you know, you know, nuts and seeds. All of the things that we're supposed to be eating, you know, that are also good for our heart. They're good for our brain, they're good for our skin. They're good for our tissues, our immune system. You know, when you've experienced trauma and autoimmunity, those things are incredibly important. And again, these vitamins and minerals are needed by our cells to produce energy and to metabolize things and for our survival.

 

Timothy Frie [01:03:30]:

This isn't something that's like, oh, well, you know, it's cute, you know, I'm gonna take a selenium or, you know, I'll take some vitamin C. This might help boost something. That's something else. I want to just clarify, Michelle. We do not need boosted immune systems. Like boosted supercharged. You know, we don't need supercharged, I mean, supercharged immune system is cancer. We do not need a supercharged immune system.

 

Timothy Frie [01:03:51]:

We need, again, harmony and stasis. So a diet thats rich in just a variety of vitamins and minerals eating the rainbow. I know that people hear that so much now, but the number of people that I see that eat foods that are two or three colors, tan and brown and red and were missing the whole spectrum of nutrients. Youre missing outd on so many polyphenols and things that your body needs to function. So, so, yeah, so, like antioxidant rich foods, you know, vitamins, vitamin C and e and a and zinc and selenium, which are also very important for thyroid function as well. You know, if you have hashimoto's, the other thing, too is just like, different b vitamins. Like, you know, b one, b six and b twelve. These are really important for, like, cellular energy production and our nervous system function.

 

Timothy Frie [01:04:38]:

You know, you can get these from, like, whole grains, leafy greens, eggs and legumes. These are also really important for neurotransmitter synthesis. And to your point of going to therapy, if you're lacking these B vitamins in your brain and your neurotransmitters are not working properly, it's very difficult to show up and be present in therapy. It's difficult to show up and process or talk about trauma, or connect with your body when you have deficiencies of these vitamins. And I've seen b twelve deficiency in particular missed in many patients who are on long term acid blocking therapy for GERD or something, and they're having neuralgias, or having pain and tingling in their hands, and they're having trouble focusing or having cognitive issues, and they're doing all the things that are supposed to be right, but again, they're walking around malnourished, so we need to correct those things. The other thing that kind of comes to mind from a nutrition perspective, is supporting the gut brain axis, which that's a whole other episode of a podcast, making sure that we're promoting a healthy gut microbiota. So again, we have harmony with communication between what our gut is telling our brain and our immune system. There's even like a gut heart access, a gut eye access.

 

Timothy Frie [01:05:54]:

It's wild. So there's all kinds of different foods, fermented foods, that kind of help with promoting diversity and production of these healthy bacteria. And again, polyphenols are just really important for that gut brain access, too, along with neurotransmitter function, like I mentioned earlier. So different types of teas, coffees, dark chocolate, all kinds of different berries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, all really good for neuroinflammation as well, and just kind of telling the immune system to chill. And I think the last thing from a nutritional perspective that's important is amino acids and protein. We need protein to produce neurotransmitters. We need a host of different amino acids, like tryptophan and tyrosine, which are precursors to like serotonin and dopamine and melatonin, you know, and if we don't have enough protein and we're not producing enough of these neurotransmitters, you're going to have difficulty thinking, you're going to have difficulty focusing, you're going to have difficulty sleeping, your mood is going to be all over the place, and, you know, yeah, I think those are kind of like the key things. And for a bonus, you know, maybe like the fifth thing might be like hydration, you know, because that's something else I think we overlook, because it's not very exciting or sexy to tell people to be hydrated.

 

Timothy Frie [01:07:11]:

But, you know, I read a study a few weeks ago where the majority of Americans were chronically dehydrated. And, you know, if. If our cells do not have the hydration that's needed to go through these detoxification and biotransformation processes, you know, we're not going to have electrolyte, proper electrolyte functions. So, you know, making sure that, you know, we're properly hydrated also plays a really big role in, you know, our neurotransmitter and brain function. That was a lot.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:07:41]:

It was really. And it was really good. You know, when we are hearing about trauma in the context of social media, we are often hearing if you release your trauma, then you'll just magically lose weight, or you'll magically. I know, it's the best, right. Or you'll magically, like, fix your autoimmune condition. It just happens overnight. And that's the most untrue, ridiculous thing in the world. What, Tim, there's subtext of what you're saying under your nutrition for trauma conversation, which is that all that you just named have served very specific functions to help the HPA axis to function in the first place, for the body to produce the molecules necessary for us to have health or mental health or any.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:08:25]:

Any kind, and also to help reduce inflammation, which is this, you know, that's a different episode, just talking about inflammation as a. As a myth busting piece. But I think that what is important to say is that what you are not insinuating, much like what I'm talking about, is that your trauma is fixed when you take a vitamin C supplement, or that it will even in the short term, reduce symptoms or anxiety. That's not really the goal of what you're saying. What you're saying is that the body processes have changed. There's damage from the constant reaction of the body acting a certain way. And for your body to act in a different way, you need to provide the building blocks for it to be able to do that. Correct.

 

Timothy Frie [01:09:10]:

I mean, we need the cellular fundamentals to heal and grow and recover and, you know, any. There's no trauma diet, you know, like, there's no thank you dietary protocol, you know, for healing from trauma, because it is so individual. It's going to depend on your capacity and your nutritional status and your beliefs and your health behaviors and your culture. And these are things that, you know, a social media post or a yemenite, a diet program or a supplement. They don't know you. I have to remind people all the time that diet plan does not know you. That supplement knows nothing about you. And a lot of these supplement companies, they're marketing in a way to convince you that this is exactly what you need.

 

Timothy Frie [01:09:53]:

I've seen so many people spend thousands of dollars on different neuro supplements and nootropics and adaptogens. And when I listen to them and I just let them talk and I let them tell me my story, we come back to you. Don't trust your body around food. You don't feel safe with food. Your body is not safe. And yes, we need to address the nutritional needs of the person. But again, if we don't have that guiding compass back to safety, you know, we're gonna keep playing this game of symptom, whack a mole. We're gonna be all over the place.

 

Timothy Frie [01:10:27]:

And I, you know, it took a long time for our bodies to, it took a long time for our bodies to be exposed to these things. It can take a while for some people to grow and heal and recover, especially after they've kind of been misdirected for such a long period of time. Healing and growth and recovery, whether it's nutrition or therapy or whatever route you go, you're cultivating it. You know, you're not installing it into your body. I wish we could just plug ourselves in and get like a system update, but, you know, healing is cultivated.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:11:01]:

Yeah. My clients hate when I say this, and I'm going to say it anyway, so to all of you. But in eastern medicine, it's the belief that for as long as it takes for a disease to develop is as long as it takes to heal from it. So people expect to, like, heal from. Heal from, quote, I'm putting that in quotes. Hashimoto's in like, three months. Or heal from these things. But what the work that both Tim and I always hope and strive to do is to lay the groundwork for a body to exist in a safe way during the time we work together.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:11:31]:

That's really the basis of it. And, you know, I work with a lot of clients on symptomatic panic attacks and anxiety. This is a lot of the work that I've done over the years. So while the recommendations for long term trauma safety support are also different than the recommendations for short term, let's get you out of this anxious state so that you're okay to, like, function. And so there, it's okay on a functional nutrition journey to have both symptom treatments and then also those really long term strategies. And I know a lot of my clients have histamine issues, so for them, like, I wish I could just give them a freaking strawberry to start us off, but sometimes you have to prove safety even before then. And just knowing where you're at is so important and treating the body in the state it's currently in. So don't try to treat your body from five years ago or treat your body in the future.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:12:25]:

If you're currently experiencing a histamine issue, it's not time to slam down some vitamin C supplements, even though that might help in the long term. So what, Tim, the approach you're talking about is actually doing long term cellular and HPA access repair so that the body can function in a way that is nothing, promoting the side effect of disease. Tim, you also do something that I'm just telling you you do. You've never said it to me, but I know that you do, which is that you provide short term symptom management kind of by accident, by creating a really safe therapeutic relationship. What is the value of a therapeutic relationship between a nutritionist and a client? And how does that help to heal trauma on a cellular level?

 

What is the value of a therapeutic relationship between a nutritionist and a client? And how does that help to heal trauma on a cellular level?

Timothy Frie [01:13:12]:

I love that. So, I mean, our social experiences have a direct impact on our nervous system. Think about it, the most fundamental level, one of the reasons why when a woman gives birth, she has a really high amount of oxytocin that gets produced in her brain, which is what creates the bond between the mother and the child. And when we are interacting with the healthcare system, we are kind of looking for that panacea. I need some relief now. Here's what's going on with my body. And so I think most medical providers, they do what they can, which is they write a prescription, they order some tests, they create a plan for you. But we miss that.

 

Timothy Frie [01:13:52]:

The relationship dynamic between the clinician and the patient is a therapeutic intervention in and of itself, and that is getting goosebumps thinking about this. That's an opportunity for you to experience safety as a patient in that relationship. Now, you may not be able to, you know, and every healthcare provider may not be able to create that safe and therapeutic relationship with every one of their clients or patients. But, you know, from. From where I sit, I need my patients to trust me. I need them to feel safe in my presence. I need them to know that, you know, I'm with them, and I need them to know that I see them and that I'm here to care for you. And part of caring for someone involves, you know, their collaboration and choice and getting consent so they feel safe.

 

Timothy Frie [01:14:43]:

And that's one of the reasons why I've been such a proponent of trauma informed care, because, you know, we cannot care for someone if we're not also caring for their nervous system and how they're showing up in the moment. You know, I think the other thing that kind of comes up for me with, you know, on that point is, I think a lot of practitioners, because of the way our healthcare system is structured and health insurance, a lot of providers are incentivized to see as many patients as possible in the shortest amount of time, shortest amount of time as possible. You can't get to know what someone truly needs or where they've been or what's going on with them in ten or 15 minutes. And I think that's why a lot of clinicians are offering a lot of tests and prescriptions, because that's what they have to offer you in ten or 15 minutes. And, you know, you and I, though, and other people that are kind of in this space, take the opposite approach, or we go, we don't want these transactional relationships, you know, like, we want to have actual transformative relationship dynamics with our clients because. Yeah, I mean, ultimately it's. It's simple, you know, the relationship between the patient and a clinician is a therapeutic intervention in and of itself.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:15:51]:

Yeah. So it's like, like, while you're working on people with these, with trauma in the long term, from a nutritional standpoint, you're also as a provider and all of us, where I really want to hold that standard is you're providing intervention by taking care of someone. You used my favorite phrase, Tim. Providers and practitioners are caretakers. Does that mean that we're all the same type? No. Like the work of a nurse. Are you kidding me? They're the most amazing people in the entire world. Like, caretaking to a different level is what nurses do.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:16:22]:

But we, and it's not that we are responsible for someone's outcomes, because we can't. Because everyone's bodies react differently, but we are responsible for creating as much of a safe environment as we can because that in and of itself, like you said, is the therapeutic intervention, and we are caretakers. Everyone has a different role to play in healthcare, but we're caring for people, and that is like, that is so therapeutic and that can't be overstated. So if you find a practitioner who makes you feel safe and they are a safe person, and they are really asking for consent, not pushing you, staying within their scope and holding just the space for you to steer the ship and you to create your own journey. That is so valuable. I can't explain how valuable that is on a cellular level. So it's just, you know, to speak to the fact that in functional nutrition, I really believe that safety is the cornerstone of healing, and it is what all of us should be trying to do with our clients. And if you are a potential client or a current client listening, I hope that's the experience you've had or the experience that you've.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:17:31]:

That you're wanting to gain, because it is the only way I believe that you can actually heal. It's really like safety first. It has to come first.

 

Timothy Frie [01:17:39]:

We need relational and social safety to heal. You know, I think there's this really disgusting and pervasive culture of, like, individualism here in the west where, you know, it's praised and honored if you are, like, alone and you figure it out without any help. But that's not how we're supposed to be living. You know, we should not be going through these really traumatic experiences and these profound healing events alone and in isolation. And many of the people that I see, and I've experienced this, my family members have experienced this. People I care about have experienced, experienced this. The people that are supposed to be caring for them, they are afraid of them because they don't actually have a connection with their primary care provider, or they've had this like, really transactional relationship with like a dietician or nutritionist that they saw and they were told to lose weight, eat fruits and vegetables, and keep a food diary, and I'll see you again in six weeks. That's not what people need, you know, it's not what people need.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:18:39]:

And they certainly don't need, like, in my dietetics degree, when they're like, do a 24 hours recall and see what they ate over 24 hours, and then tell them that, that, that they probably ate more than they thought they ate. I'm like, why am I proving them wrong? I don't want to prove people wrong. I want to. Exactly. I want to. I want to prove them right and validate their experiences. And I just, again, I can't overstate that. And another thing that I can't overstate is whoever is listening to this, there is always something you can do for your health, for your happiness.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:19:10]:

There is never a too far, there's never a no coming back. There is always something you can do to either change progression or change perception of progression when it comes to disease states. And I think finding a practitioner who makes you feel safe is. Again, it's just the most valuable experience for myself. I mean, Tim, even our conversations, like, we have heart glowing conversations with each other where I feel almost too energized sometimes, because I'm like, oh, God, now I have 100 things I need to think about. But just even being around people who understand you, the value of that can't be overstated. So I would just say that anyone, anyone who wants to work with Tim, I can tell you, because we've spoken for hours on end, and I couldn't feel safer, and I don't feel safe with everyone, I'll tell you that. I just, I'm so excited for you guys to have this opportunity, because, Tim, you just opened a new leg of your nutrition practice.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:20:03]:

Can you tell us how people can work with you?

 

How to work with Timothy Frie.

Timothy Frie [01:20:05]:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you. I feel the exact same way. And I'm noticing these, like, throughout this conversation, I'm literally sitting here gripping the handles in my chair because I'm like, I have so much to say, but I'm going to let you go. Yeah. So, I mean, neuronutrition is a relatively new field. There's only, I think, six neuro nutrition labs across the entire United States. And I've spent the past several years working with education companies, training other nutritionists and healthcare providers on how to provide this type of care that I'm talking about.

 

Timothy Frie [01:20:36]:

But, you know, I kind of just got tired of that, and I'm like, I want to go provide the care. Like, I want to do this work, and I want to be the one that actually delivers and supports people. So, you know, I opened, you know, the first and only neuronutrition center, the Georgia center for neuronutrition in the southeastern United States. This kind of a transformation of a local practice that I started, and I also recently opened up applications to work with people one on one with me. So these are people who, you know, really want, you know, twelve or more weeks of support to work through everything that we've just been talking about. You know, the majority of my clients are women, because about 80% of people with autoimmune disease are women. It affects women. Autoimmunity affects women at twice the rate it does men.

 

Timothy Frie [01:21:22]:

And I, they've experienced trauma. They developed that autoimmune disease after those experiences, and they've worked with functional nutritionists or health coaches, and they've gone the conventional route and things just aren't working. And I've found that neuronutrition and approach to nutrition that is very nervous system and brain focused and oriented. It kind of allows us to break through things that people have been struggling with for a long period of, of time. And I have no miracles here. Just let me be clear. I have no miracles.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:21:54]:

But this has your existence, which is gone.

 

Timothy Frie [01:21:56]:

Yeah. And, I mean, this approach is. It is new, it's emerging, and it has changed my life. Like I said in the beginning of this episode, learning about all of this truly altered my health destiny. It altered the health destiny of my family. And I see it as a privilege to bring this to people. Truly. I think that talking about our health and opening up about these experiences, incredibly intimate.

 

Timothy Frie [01:22:20]:

And it means a lot to me when people trust me to take care of them.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:22:24]:

I love that you shared your ace score, by the way, and it just. I hate where your ace score is. And I just want to tell you that throughout this time, I've been thinking how angry I am that your ace score is an eight. Mine's a four. And I. And I'm angry. Yeah, I'm angry that yours is, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna work through my anger on your ace score, by the way.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:22:43]:

And I just think I. The way I really think about you, Tim, is like, I know how much adverse childhood experiences and or trauma can impact us, and I'm so glad you're here and helping people because you are like an unstoppable light. And I really, really believe that. So I'm so grateful that you are and proud of you.

 

Timothy Frie [01:23:03]:

Thank you. I really appreciate that. I truly see this as a privilege to do this type of work. And it's funny, you know, when I think about things that I've experienced in my life, this has always been here, you know, this has always been a special interest of mine. And feeling this way about wanting to help other people, care for them in this way has always been there. And, you know, opening this up, you know, has affirmed that, you know, I'm onto something here.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:23:24]:

Hell, yeah, you're on to more than something. You're on to it. I think, also. Listen, I'm going to tease Tim now. I haven't teased him this whole time. If you can make it through his application form, it's, you got six pages of consent. Because he is so legitimately trauma informed. And I know that will change as time goes on.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:23:40]:

So when people are listening to this episode for years to come, because I know they will, maybe Tim's application form will only be six or seven pages instead of whatever it is, but I'm so grateful you're in this work. I'm so excited for anyone who gets to work with Tim. You guys are, like, the luckiest ever, and I really believe that. Tim, where else can people find you? And of course, I'm going to put all your links in the show notes, but just let us know, where else can people find you?

 

Timothy Frie [01:24:04]:

Yeah, I mean, the best place to learn from me for free is Instagram. My handle is nutrition for trauma. And then my website is timfrie. Timfrie.com. and, yeah.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:24:15]:

And Tim, are you releasing the notes that you had for this podcast episode?

 

Timothy Frie [01:24:19]:

Yeah. So we'll have all of my notes, which is right now, 20 pages. By the time I get done reformatting them, it'll probably be even more. But, yeah, that'll be timfrie.com/qtd. You can get all of these notes. I'll send them to you by email.

 

Michelle Shapiro [01:24:34]:

I can't wait. I'm going to put that link right in the bottom, too. It was the light of my life and the light of the season to sit down with you, Tim, thank you so much. We will see you next season and probably every season permanently. So thank you so much.

 

Timothy Frie [01:24:46]:

Thanks again for the opportunity.