Solving Addiction with Nutrition | Julia Ross - E408

Low Carb MD Podcast

Drs. Brian Lenzkes & Tro Kalayjian

Medicine, Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 August 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Julia Ross is a pioneering psychotherapist and bestselling author who has spent over 30 years revolutionizing the treatment of mood disorders, food addiction, and binge eating. A leader in nutritional psychiatry, she's helped thousands break free from cravings and compulsive eating by addressing the brain's biochemical imbalances with targeted amino acids and real food. Her groundbreaking work has empowered people worldwide to restore their natural appetite control, emotional balance, and lasting freedom from unhealthy eating habits—without relying solely on willpower or medication.

In this episode, Dr. Brian, Dr. Tro, and Julia talk about…

(00:00) Intro
(03:52) What drew Julia Ross to psychotherapy and how she began to recognize that food addiction and binge-eating were real disorders
(11:37) The amino acid Tyrosine and how it impacts addiction centers in the brain
(16:13) Research on the effectiveness of Tyrosine and why the amino acid Dopamine is over-rated
(19:57) What causes people to crave a substance like sugar
(21:12) Why food addicted individuals need to focus on eating more protein
(26:03) Why fat alone is not sufficient to break food addiction in the brain
(29:29) How amino acids can neutralize stress and help with addiction recovery
(34:30) SSRIs, tryptophan, and addiction
(45:08) Micronutrients, amino acid deficiency, and veganism
(49:31) Whether supplementation is essential for adequate amino acid intake
(54:11) How the industry has warped our thinking about food and eating
(58:37) Whether GLP-1s help with food addiction and cravings

For more information, please see the links below. Thank you for listening!

Links:

Please consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.lowcarbmd.com/

Julia Ross:

Website and Books: https://www.juliarosscures.com
X: https://x.com/juliarosscures
FB: https://www.facebook.com/juliarosscures/

Dr. Brian Lenzkes:

Website: https://arizonametabolichealth.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianLenzkes?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author

Dr. Tro Kalayjian:

Website: https://www.doctortro.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DoctorTro
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctortro/

Toward Health App

Join a growing community of individuals who are improving their metabolic health; together.

Get started at your own pace with a self-guided curriculum developed by Dr. Tro and his care team, community chat, weekly meetings, courses, challenges, message boards and more.

Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/doctor-tro/id1588693888

Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.disciplemedia.doctortro&hl=en_US&gl=US

Learn more: https://doctortro.com/community/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Low Carb MD Podcast. No one is beyond help. No one is beyond hope.
0:07.2	Nothing said on the Low Carb MD podcast is medical advice. Please consult your own doctor before making any lifestyle changes.
0:23.8	Hello and welcome back to the Low Carcarb MD podcast. We're reunited.
0:25.2	We spent a week together on a boat and no one jumped off or threw us off.
0:29.0	So that was fun.
0:29.7	It's good to get back on the podcast.
0:31.3	It's been too long.
0:32.6	My family tried to escape you, but they didn't have any success doing that, Brian.
0:38.0	Well, his son beat us a, we taught his son a card game. He's young. How old is your son?
0:43.0	He's eight years old. Eight years old. He beat us all. He was really. He beat us all.
0:48.3	We were trying to teach him the game and we had a little, we're like, he doesn't know he's doing.
0:51.6	And then he's beating us every hand. He goes, oh, I'm going to win this hand. I get right when he got his cards, we're like, oh, my goodness, this kid.
0:56.8	All the, all the low card people got beat up by an eight-year-old. That's, that's, that's, uh, he's fun. We had a blast. It was a good time. Yeah, we had a great time. I'm excited about today, and I'm sure, Brian, you're as excited as I am.
0:53.8	Maybe you could talk about some of the controversy to set the stage before we introduce
1:15.9	our guests.
1:16.6	So let's start there.
1:19.3	Controversy, yeah.
1:20.2	True.
1:20.7	If we go back to this podcast, before I had gray hairs, we were in episode 10 and 13.
1:25.3	We talked about nutrition, lifestyle, and addiction. And all the doctors in the world, not all of them, but most of the doctors in the world said this is crazy. Nutrition has nothing to do with addiction, mood, and all that. And so it's very interesting because we had a lot of clinical experience at that time. And fat fiction, a lot of these movies came out showing that people improved.
1:44.6	And we had the clinical experience at the time.
1:46.8	So we kind of laughed and said, just wait, give it time.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Drs. Brian Lenzkes & Tro Kalayjian, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Drs. Brian Lenzkes & Tro Kalayjian and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.