Hey, Ben here, founder of Sensory Scout, I’m really excited to share part 2 of the interview I had with Dr. Wallace Nelson, who helped us formulate the NeuroBrocc (previously Sensory Thrive) supplement. In this video, you’ll learn where NeuroBrocc is produced and what the FDA has to do with that whole process. You’ll also learn the importance of diet and some great foods to help your child. And, of course, a whole lot more so without holding up any longer, here’s part 2 of our interview.

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION FACILITY

Ben: Got it. And you mentioned FDA, and so supplements themselves aren't the ones that are FDA regulated, but it's the facility where they're produced, right? It's how the process goes. Can you share a little bit- about just overall where you're producing these supplements and some of the background on the facility itself?

Wallace: Yeah. As you mentioned, the FDA does not approve direct supplementation. They do focus all their efforts on approving facilities. And what that really comes down to is that periodically they go in and they inspect facilities. They make sure that safe conditions exist, the cleanliness, things are being cleaned up. The new piece they've begun doing is making sure that labels match batch records.

But they really still don't do a whole lot. Although it is important to ensure that you're working with an FDA-certified facility because they're at least ensuring that minor standard. And we have cooperated with the FDA for as long as we've been in business. We actually have a great relationship with our regional FDA. And we've been in the game long enough to do a good enough job. We actually helped them with training some other facilities on how to do things right by the FDA.

But, in addition to being fully FDA compliant, all of the other procedures that are really important fall with nutritional supplement manufacturing. We absolutely do. So all of the good manufacturing practice, the latest levels of the GMPs, we follow all of that. And the benefit with that is that those dictate the steps that we take, not only in manufacturing a supplement, but in how we segregate and quarantine materials, in what happens with cleaning in between processes, and in a real nutshell, following those GMP... possible for there to be any type of cross-contamination.

Particularly when we're dealing with the sensory community, there are a lot of allergies present. There are a lot of times we worry, "Hey, are we going to have a small cross-contamination that's going to cause us some negative effects?"

And so by adopting and following these highest level GMPs, it is literally impossible for there to be any type of contamination of any ingredient that's not intended to be in a product. So it allows you to trust. When you see, "Hey, here's a four-product ingredient, only these four products are found inside this ingredient." There's no traces of anything else. There's no contamination of anything else. It allows us to guarantee a purity standard that's absolutely untouched.

WHAT MAKES SUPPLEMENTS MORE EFFECTIVE?

Ben:And now supplements are kind of on one end of nutrition, but on an equally important end is the actual diet and the food you eat every day. And so other than, of course, maybe some of the obvious things like avoiding really oily foods sometimes, or just only eating carbs or only eating.

Other than the extremities, what are just some of the things you've seen that have been very effective when paired with supplements and, maybe more specifically, this particular supplement?

What are some good habits that parents can look into trying to work on? And, of course, it's already challenging, I know, for a lot of parents to have your child eat any foods other than the ones they love. So maybe what are some of the good first steps to look in that direction as well?

Wallace: Yeah, certainly. And I'm so glad you asked about this. Most people, when they have a supplement conversation with me, just want to talk about like, "Hey, what supplement is good for this?" or "What supplement is good for that?" 

But, at their base, the clues that we need on the place of supplementation is really found in the name. Supplement means that this is a product you should use as a supplement to a healthy diet, not in replacement of a healthy diet. Don't eat a ton of junk and take a couple of supplements and think that you're going to get the effect that you want because that's just really not how they're designed to work.

And I like to say all the time, "You literally cannot out-supplement a crappy diet." If you're going to eat complete garbage, and you want to take a couple vitamins to make sure you're rounding that out, honestly, it's probably a net positive in the long term, but you're not going to really get the effect that you want. So putting equal focus onto the foundational diet, as you would into any type of specific supplementation, is definitely the way to approach that, just as a full picture, right?

And as far as nutritional guidance, the best that I have to offer, and this is one of those where we don't need to qualify and quantify and say, "Well, for these types of people, they should eat this, and for these types of people, they should eat that." There is one basic principle that applies to all human beings, and that is this. The real reason that we eat at all is to provide nutrition to our bodies, right? When you take a look at everything that we physically are, from what our body's made out of, our cells are made out of, our brain, our muscles, our bones, our organs, to the hormones that help to regulate our body, to what gives us energy, everything that makes us work physically only comes in through one area. And that's what we're putting inside our mouth.

So there is a paramount importance on providing nutrition. Why we eat is to provide the nutrition necessary to build our bodies and to help our bodies run properly. And anytime we're not providing those nutrients, there's a physical cost to pay, either in the ability of our body to recover from some of the perils of daily life, from exercise, from all that stuff, or there's a price to pay by our hormonal health falling off, our energy levels falling off.

So the one kind of shining guideline that we can give to people is that, since eating is about nutrition, prioritizing the most highly nutritious foods possible in the diet is really all you need to worry about. So when we look at those foods that are most highly nutritious, what we want is we want complete foods that are nutritional powerhouses, right? We want foods that have fiber, and they have vitamins and minerals and probiotics and healthy proteins and all the different categories.

So we definitely like to trend towards whole foods, rather than processed foods. And we'd like to trend towards the bigger portion of our diet that we can see made up of whole plant foods, so fruits and vegetables that provide the whole mix of things that we can provide in healthy fats, things like coconut oil, avocados, even, for example, grass-fed butter. Not a lot of people realize that that can be a really, really healthy source of fat.

Crummy grain-fed butter, the standard stuff you find usually in the grocery store, the fat's a little different. But in a grass-fed butter, that is a highly usable fat. Fats that are found in good, naturally fatty things like Alaskan salmon, wild-caught Alaskan salmon, all of those help to fuel proper hormonal health, as well as brain function. Your brain is made out of fat and we need to make sure that you have plenty of it to support all your health there. And then lastly, we want to incorporate good, quality sources of protein.

Whether you're somebody that eats a wide range of animal proteins and you can incorporate healthily sourced things like grass-fed red meat, wild caught fish, good pastured poultry, or whether you're somebody that takes a plant based approach, making sure you're including naturally sourced, whole food, complete sources of protein, will always do better than if you're trying to find some sort of lab made substitute.

So when we lab up foods, something in the natural magic of how a food comes together, having all of its attendant fiber, vitamins, minerals, fats, everything that's meant to be in that food; something's lost when we start to make these lab frankenfoods. Trend towards whole foods, great sources of protein, great sources of fat, and then just a wide variety of plants to compliment those is the best way to go. The good thing about a looser recommendation like that, saying, "Just focus on the nutrition", is you are allowed to have your taste preferences really come into play there on what you like.

I'm a father of eight kids, I don't think I mentioned that at the outset. I totally get kids to eat things that maybe they don't love, but when we just focus on nutrition, it allows us to play to the tastes of our children a little bit. Some might love strawberries, some might love broccoli, some might hate both of those things, but we can find something they really enjoy in some asparagus and carrots. We always have options that meet their tastes as long as we do away with trying to fit them in a box and just focus on highly nutritious whole foods.

A WORD OF ADVICE FROM DR. WALLACE ON SUPPLEMENTS

Wallace: I think that really the last thing that I just want to touch on is no matter where you might be in your relationship with supplements, some people have had supplements that have been life changers for them. Some people have had bad experiences. No matter what that background might be, I would highly encourage giving a clinically backed supplement a shot, because it works in every community.

One of the most impactful patient communities we've ever worked in with our clinical physicians is inside the sensory community, and inside the community with children, because in many cases, their bodies just are crying out for the specific targeted nutrition that allows them to take next steps. And combined with other therapies, these types of nutritional interventions can make a world of difference. And really, it has been one of the most rewarding parts of my 25 year career in natural medicine, working with this population, and providing game-changing clinical supplements, and really, it can be one of the most important small investments that you make into a wide variety of care for your child. So I'm really, really excited for everybody to have a chance to try this out.

Ben: Yeah. I'm really excited to hear back from you watching this video. If you're watching this video right now, how this works for you, and especially while it's like you mentioned, when paired with a lot of the other things parents are already doing -  already seeing an occupational therapist, already trying out some products at home, whether it's a swing or a weighted blanket, you can't really use a swing and a weighted blanket at the same time.

But you can take a supplement that helps a lot internally, while also doing some of these external things. And you end up having this dual approach where hopefully in taking the supplement, you see improved benefits from the therapy you're doing, from working with the therapy, you're seeing improved benefits of supplementation. So they work together to really help your child thrive, and overcome those sensory challenges that they might be dealing with. So yeah. We're really excited to hear how this supplement works for you.

Hey, Ben again. I hope you enjoyed part 2 of this interview and learned a lot not only about NeuroBrocc and where it’s made, but about how to build powerful, healthy habits in general. And if you haven’t tried NeuroBrocc supplement yet, you can take a look under this video to learn more. That’s all for now. I’ll talk to you later. And remember, let’s embrace different.