Why Mental Health Isn’t All in Your Head: The Genetic & Environmental Roots No One Talks About with Mary Parker

What You’ll Discover Inside:

• The shocking childhood incident that forced Mary to abandon traditional mental health solutions—and how it changed everything she believed about healing.
• The overlooked clues in your patient’s story, behavior, and even their skin that could point to deeper dysfunction you’re missing.
• Why one surprising everyday food might hold the key to recovery for some kids—and why it’s often ignored in clinical practice.
• The critical misstep most mental health providers make with ADHD, anxiety, and mood disorders—and how it could be making things worse.
• What’s hiding in common foods that could be sabotaging your client’s progress—and why going gluten-free isn’t the full answer.
• The single most important test Mary runs before developing any care plan—and what it reveals that standard labs can’t.

Resources and Links:

• See the Full Transcript here
• Check out our Free Guide to Using Genetic Testing to Optimize Patient Outcomes
  
• Join the Next-Level Health Practitioner Facebook Group for free tools and training
  
• Visit INEMethod.com for advanced health practitioner training and tools to elevate your clinical skills and grow your practice
  
• Explore More Episodes on ReInvent Healthcare and Functional Endocrinology here

Mary Parker’s Resources & Links

Find out more about Mary on her website: InfinitePotentialINCTX.com
Pieces to Purpose – Read Mary’s story of turning tragedy into purpose in this powerful anthology
Facebook: InfinitePotentialCounselingInc
Instagram: @InfinitePotentialCounseling
Twitter: @InfinitepotenTX

Mary Parker’s Bio

Mary is an integrative mental health professional, with 15 years of experience in the field. She owns Infinite Potential Counseling Inc, located in Round Rock and Austin/ Dripping Springs. At Infinite Potential Counseling Inc, she is helping families identify genetic, diet and environmental issues that can impact mental health, and heal the whole person. 

Mary is also the President of TX C.U.R.E. A non profit organization working with families who are impacted by the criminal justice system. Her role is to help foster and grow relationships for children and families who feel alone when a parent or veteran in their lives is incarcerated. 

In her spare time, she is a homeschooling mom that enjoys hiking, kayaking, and traveling with her family.

 

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Transcript

Dr Ritamarie 

Restoring mental health is not just about balancing neurotransmitters using medication or nutrients. On today’s episode, we’re going to be exploring the role of genetics, diet, and environmental issues, including vaccines that can impact mental health and help to get the person healed on a whole person level. 

 

So I’m super, super thrilled to be having as a guest today, Mary Parker. She’s an integrative mental health professional. She has over 15 years of experience in the field. She owns the Infinite Potential Counseling Clinic in Ramrock in Austin and Dripping Springs. At Infinite Potential, she’s helping families to identify genetic, diet, and environmental issues that can impact mental health. Not your typical approach to, my kid’s having problems, my kid’s depressed, my kid’s anxious, my kid has ADD, here’s your pill. It’s healing the whole person. And she has some very creative and very effective techniques that she’s going to share with all of us.

 

She’s also the president of Texas Cure, which is a nonprofit organization working with families who are impacted by the criminal justice system. So her role is to help foster and grow relationships for children and families who feel alone when a parent or a veteran in their lives is incarcerated. So this is like giving back, right? She does a lot of community giving back, and she’s very dedicated. I’m so impressed with her dedication to help people to get well from the inside out and as a whole body. So welcome, welcome, welcome, Mary. I’m so excited to have you here.

 

Mary Parker (02:02)

Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

 

Dr Ritamarie (02:05)

And thank you, Mary. We’re neighbors, although we’re not in the same room right now. We’re not too far apart from each other, maybe like a 45 minute drive apart. Someday I want to make it to your clinic and see all the novel things that you’re doing there. 

 

So I wanted to start with how did you even become interested in mental health, let alone an integrative approach to mental health?

 

Mary Parker (02:27)

So my story really starts probably 18 years ago now, a little bit over that. At the time, I was actually working as a wedding planner. My initial degrees were hotel restaurant management, travel and tourism, and culinary arts. And I had a beautiful little boy. He was 18 months old. We walked into his checkup for his 18 month well check visit.

 

I only allowed one vaccine, because I was already really, really hesitant. I wasn’t really sure that this is what I wanted to do. I only allowed them to give him DTaP. And he started screaming at that appointment. He screamed for three days. He was completely inconsolable. There was nothing that I could do. And then on the third day, seizures started, and he went from walking, talking, working on potty training at this point in time. He was really, really energetic and really curious about the world to seizures and back in diapers. And he lost the ability to walk and talk. 

 

So we were completely stunned. We had no idea what to do. We weren’t getting answers from the traditional healthcare system. We were collecting doctors and diagnoses like we were trying to catch Pokemon. 

 

We just weren’t getting anywhere, and the doctors that we were working with, it felt more like I was being told, suck it up, just deal with it. He’s disabled. And that was not okay with me. It was more of an ego competition between the doctors. I’m driving back and forth from the hospitals in Boston to Yale New Haven hospitals, hospitals in New York, to figure out, what do we do and how do we fix this? 

 

They were doing nothing. Even when I got them to collaborate, it was, well, you know, you shouldn’t be doing that. You should be doing what I’m telling you to do. And I got fed up, and I was like, you know what? None of you are helping me. I’m not getting any answers, and I’m done. So I stepped out of the traditional medical system, and I went back to school. 

 

And at the time, I was lucky enough that I was living in Connecticut near Yale New Haven Hospital. So I got to do part of my practicum and internship hours in the Yale Child Study Center. And they actually got my child into the genetics department there. And we did an entire genetic panel, because he was reacting to every single medication that they tried. And I’m not talking about small reactions. These were massive reactions. If there was going to be a reaction, he was having it, and it was over the top. Every single medication. And I was at the point where I didn’t want any more meds. They weren’t fixing anything. Things were just getting worse and worse. 

 

So they came back, and they gave me this entire genetic profile, and they laid everything out. And the tests came back. He had alterations on MTHFR on both SNPs. He had COMT. He had issues with VDR on all of the SNPs. He had issues with MTRR, MAO, DAO. Like you go down the list, this poor kid had over 30 different SNPs that were not functioning the way that they were supposed to.

 

And again, the regular doctors didn’t believe any of it and didn’t want to support any of that. So I ended up diving into the functional world because that was where the answers were coming from. I had this genetic report, the functional doctors understood it, and they were able to explain to me what was happening inside of his body. 

 

So we discovered that with his MTHFR, he was not methylating, and it looked like it was around 90% that he was not methylating. So essentially, he’d eat, but he wasn’t getting any nutrients from his food. And the reason he was having the overreactions to every single medication that we tried was because he wasn’t detoxing. So they automatically went into his body and flooded all of his organs, and they turned into aggressive behavior, anger, ADHD looking behavior. 

 

And when we pulled all of these medications out of him and started the detoxification process and moved over to a completely organic diet, we just cleaned his entire life up. Everything went away.

 

So going down that path with my son, I had to learn all of this stuff. And we still use all of these things today. He is 20 years old. He graduated high school at 16. And he’s going to graduate college, before he turns 21. So it’s absolutely possible for you to heal and for you to find the answers outside of the medications. The ADHD medications, we’re literally giving our children methamphetamines. Why would we do that?

 

Dr Ritamarie (07:38)

Right? Yes, exactly. Wow. So you did this study. So how long before you were able to help? He was 18 months old when he had the vaccine and when he started to go downhill. How long before he started to come back, and did he recover like all the milestones?

 

Mary Parker (08:00)

So he started coming back within, I would say three months, but it was three months from when the injury happened to when I was actually able to start getting questions answered and get the genetic results and have all of that stuff going on. 

 

He was then shaken by a daycare provider at the age of three and suffered a traumatic brain injury. So we had to alter stuff so that we could fix what was happening with his brain, and we added on some additional treatments like hyperbaric oxygen and neurofeedback And a much higher fat diet at that point in time so that we can help his brain to heal. 

 

Dr Ritamarie (08:37)

Wow. You learned all this stuff, and you ended up getting your degrees and tell us what happened from that. That was out on the East coast. Now you’re in Texas. How did you create this center in Texas?

 

Mary Parker (08:52)

We had a practice in Connecticut. We moved from Connecticut to Texas in the middle of COVID, because he has vaccine medical exemptions. And we were definitely concerned about the loss of exemptions in the state of Connecticut. They had already taken away philosophical and religious exemptions. And we had spent that prior year, just before COVID happened, fighting at the state Capitol in Connecticut to keep religious exemptions and the medical exemptions. We lost the religious ones. Medical was the only thing that was still on the table. But when COVID hit, we knew that that fight was over with. 

 

There was no more winning. They were going to use this as the door so that they could get rid of all exemptions. And they did. We moved here in January of 2021. And in February of 2021, they took away even medical exemptions.  

 

Dr Ritamarie (09:49)

Good timing. Good timing. Wow. So your practice centers around mostly kids, mostly teenagers, and I’d love to hear some of the unique things. Because when we had our conversation a few months back, and I was like, you do what? You do what? And you use nature and animals and all that. So I would love to hear how that works. And then I’d love to hear how, if I walked in the door with my seven year old who’s having difficulty with the behaviors and all this other stuff, how would you go about assessing and then working up a plan for him or her?

 

Mary Parker (10:26)

Okay, so the first question was the centers. So right now we have the office in Round Rock, which is a traditional counseling office. However, inside of this practice, we have counselors that work across the age span. So I work with kids as young as three. I have counselors that work all the way through 100. 

 

When it comes to the functional side of stuff, I’m the practitioner that’s doing all of that. So it doesn’t matter the age group. But when it comes to one-on-one counseling, I specialize in kids three to 12. I love that age group. I love the kiddos that are having temper tantrums, that have been diagnosed with ADHD, that have severe anxiety, that are angry, because I know that there’s something behind that, and I can get to the root of that. 

 

No three-year-old has anxiety. There’s nothing for them to be anxious about. So if they walk through my door and mom and dad are like, they’re so anxious. Okay, well, we need to take a look at what’s going on in the gut, and what’s happening with the diet.

 

Yep. So when a client comes in, and they’re doing the process with me, I do a full intake. I’m going back to pregnancy. What were labor and delivery like? Were there any red flags? Did mom have preeclampsia or toxemia during pregnancy? Was an epidural used? Was there a C-section? Because we know that if a C-section occurred, then the child did not get the bacteria that they need from the vaginal cavity during delivery. So we know already we have possible gut dysbiosis, and there’s things happening in the body that are going to have to be addressed to fix that.

 

I asked questions about the successfulness of breastfeeding. Was there a tug tie? Was there a strawberry birthmark? How long did jaundice last? Because we know that if you’re born with jaundice, the liver is already struggling to function, because mom’s probably wasn’t functioning during pregnancy correctly. 

 

But these are all also biological markers that we need to be looking at the genes’ and what’s going on there. Because we know the tongue tied, the red strawberry birthmark, those are both signs of MTHFR. And the liver and jaundice also tend to be an indicator of an MTHFR issue whether mom has it and passes it to the infant, that we don’t know until we do the testing. 

 

We talk about the entire family health history. I go back to great grandparents and then out to cousins, nieces and nephews.

 

Dr Ritamarie (12:58)

Wow, so this is thorough, and that’s not generally done in most mental health, the counseling practices, right? 

 

Mary Parker (13:05)

Not at all. No, but we know that if there’s a biological marker, it’s going out through the generations. And it’s really, just because you have the gene, doesn’t mean that you have dysfunction. It means you have the likelihood of dysfunction. But if there’s family members that have dysfunction, and you’re surrounded by them, it’s likely you also are suffering from this dysfunction.

 

So, we gather all of that information and then I ask for a week of food. What are you eating every single day? And when you tell me you’re eating chicken, are you eating the cheap chicken, or are you eating the stuff that’s been air chilled and has no bleach on it and all of those things that they do to our chicken and also to our beef and pork. So we talk about all of those things. 

 

We talk about sleep. What does sleep look like for you? How consistent is your sleep pattern, how rested are you in the morning, and what’s your energy level throughout the day? 

 

And then we also talk about screen use, because screens have a huge impact on our, all of our health, but definitely on our mental health. And they do play a part for people that have some of these alterations to their genes. They can be a little bit more sensitive to things like the wifi and stuff like that.

 

Dr Ritamarie (14:28)

Yeah, and one thing you didn’t mention as you were mentioning all this questioning, did you ask about their vaccine status, right?

 

Mary Parker (14:36)

Yes, so we talk about vaccine status, we talk about any prior surgeries, repeated ear infections, how many times have we had strep throat, how many times have we taken antibiotics? Like I have this full questionnaire so that I don’t miss any questions. I pull it out every single time, because we want to make sure that we’re touching upon all of those things.

 

Dr Ritamarie (15:00)

Yes, yes. And so when your child had this horrible reaction after their vaccine, how do you attribute that? Is it because they had such compromised detox pathways they couldn’t handle it? Or how do you explain that?

 

Mary Parker (15:17)

So what I learned along this process was that it probably started with me during pregnancy. I have a history of polycystic ovarian syndrome. It was actually diagnosed at the age of 12, and it was one of the worst cases the doctors had ever seen. 

 

I had over 100 cysts the first time that I went to the doctor. And I went in because I was in the grocery store with my mom and out of nowhere I just passed out. And when I woke up, I was in severe pain, and it was all in my abdomen. So they rushed me to the hospital, discovered all of these cysts and quickly diagnosed me with PCOS. And unfortunately I didn’t know all of this information. My mom didn’t know all of this information. And immediately at the age of 12, I was on birth control pills, because they wanted to control the cysts. They wanted to control the cycles. 

 

So I was on birth control for a really long period of time and didn’t have the healthiest diet. I got married really young. We ate a lot of processed food, and it was a high stress situation while I was pregnant. So all of these things contributed to his susceptibility. 

 

And the genes, the SNPs that are altered for him, they do definitely show now looking back in doing my family health history and his dad’s health history  run through both sides of the family.

 

Dr Ritamarie (16:43)

Okay. Did you do your genes to compare to his to see like mom and dad and where he’s got some of this stuff from? Or I’m assuming some of it was homozygous.

 

Mary Parker (16:50)

There were definitely alterations that predominantly showed up on my report versus dad’s report. But he had a lot that actually came from both of us.

 

Dr Ritamarie (17:00)

Wow. So all of this stuff is super important to hear, because a lot of the people that are listening are health practitioners that are more maybe geared towards adults. Maybe some of you are geared towards pediatrics and hopefully you’re listening in. But these are the kind of questions we should be asking about everybody, right? 

 

Whatever they present with, these are all the pieces that I think are missing when we’re trying to get to the root cause for most health issues, not just the mental health issues, but for chronic digestive problems and whatnot. 

 

But a lot of times it’s not thought about in the mental health community, right? We think it’s depression, it’s anxiety, it’s what neurotransmitter is out of balance, and how are we going to put it back in balance with which medication, or if you’re more functional or holistic, drug, which nutrients or herbs or amino acids or whatever.

 

What I’m hearing from you is it’s not that simple, because that’s not really getting to the root cause, right? You’re just fixing a neurotransmitter imbalance. Why is that neurotransmitter imbalance? Not to say that a lot of these problems are not coming from neurotransmitter imbalance, but what’s causing that and how do you correct it?

 

Mary Parker (18:12)

Yeah. Well, very frequently it all goes back to that MTHFR. If MTHFR is out of balance, and our gene code is a ladder, if we’ve got a gene down on the bottom of the ladder that’s not working correctly, well, how is that affecting every gene and every single enzyme above it that’s relying on that specific enzyme that’s not being created? 

 

So, methylation is a huge part of the picture, and it has a direct impact on MAO, which determines how you’re using your neurotransmitters and then also how we’re creating them. So we need to understand that picture. 

 

We have to have the entire blueprint, as it were, for the individual. And we can’t treat mental health on an island, because mental health is tied to physical health. We’ve got to be looking at it like it’s the whole planet.

 

Dr Ritamarie (19:04)

Absolutely, absolutely. And do you have a particular genetic testing company that you use, or a report? Everybody’s in this state now with 23andMe going under, and there’s just so much out there, and there’s a lot of companies popping up as a result. And what’s good and what’s not good?

 

Mary Parker (19:25)

So the one that I use that I really, really like, because it’s affordable and that’s a big part of this. There’s so many gene tests out there, but sometimes the price tag is so big that the typical family can’t afford it. 

 

So MaxGen has a panel that’s called the works, and it does your entire methylation protocols. It looks at MAO, DAO. It says what sleep pattern is the best for you. Should you be fasting or should you not be fasting?

 

What type of learner are you? Should you be avoiding caffeine? And if so, after what time? How likely is it that you are going to be able to stop smoking if you start? What type of exercise is the best for you? What diet? It’s a really great report with all of the information that it gives you. And it also comes back and it says, you could use these vitamins and these supplements to support this stuff, but you could also be using these food sources to support this stuff. 

 

And I really think that we have to go to food first.  And if we can use first food to heal, then that’s what we should be doing. 

 

You know, I literally have some clients that I’m working with, their report comes back and eggs are the thing that they need the most, because every single one of the SNPs that they have says, well, we can use eggs. So we’re going to use eggs every single day. It’s one of our super foods. Let’s make sure we’re adding eggs to our meals and getting those for breakfast. Add them in for dinner where we can use them for whatever it is that we have to do.

 

Dr Ritamarie (20:55)

Wow. And so you use this test and are there other functional tests or regular conventional lab tests that you use on a regular basis to help to assess this person?

 

Mary Parker (21:06)

So it’s really dependent on the individual and what the concerns are when they come in. And the functional tests are also often driven by what does that report come back and say? Because it also talks about, do you process your hormones correctly? And if it comes back, and it’s telling me somebody is not processing hormones correctly, well, I’m going to be adding on a hormone panel. I need to know what’s going on inside of the body. Are some of these symptoms actually, because your hormones are out of balance? 

 

But I also work with a lot of kids that, present with pans and pandas. So, I may be doing a stool test for a GI map to see how much strep do we have in the gut. Do we have staph in the gut? That showed up quite a few times for clients that I’ve worked with. But also molds, parasites, all of those things. People don’t look at parasites for mental health, but the reality is there are so many mental health symptoms that are actually being caused by parasites.

 

Dr Ritamarie (22:02)

Wow. Wow. So your approach is thorough. And I want to go back to what intrigued me when we first spoke was the animals and the nature. Tell us more about that and the therapeutic effect of that, of nature and animals.

 

Mary Parker (22:15)

So we know that nature has energy, and one of the best things that we can do for ourselves, and I make sure that I do every day, is grounding, making sure that my feet touch the earth. So, you know, putting us in an environment where we’re surrounded by trees, and we’re surrounded by animals, it totally changes the energy level with the way that we’re working. And people walk in, and they immediately just calm down, because it is a different environment. It doesn’t feel as clinical.

 

And when kids are struggling, sometimes they’re not so comfortable talking or interacting with an adult, but they’re happy to talk to a chicken or cow or goat or dog or even a horse. You know, our facility doesn’t have horses, but I love therapeutic horseback riding. I feel that horses have such a huge therapeutic effect. And I do have a dog that comes to the office with us.

 

Animals have a huge impact on calming our nervous system and just providing us support. And sometimes we don’t even realize that we need it. I actually love my dog, because when a family walks into the room, I know who I need to be actually addressing and figuring out what’s going on. Because if he doesn’t walk to the child that I’m being told is struggling, and he walks to one of the parents, I know that I actually need to be asking some questions about what mom and dad are experiencing right now, and who are they getting help from? And then how do I help them, because I have to help them, before I can help the kid.

 

Dr Ritamarie (24:51 )

And I think that’s really, that’s an uncomfortable situation, because the parents, here’s the kid, this kid has a problem, but they’re not necessarily turning the mirror on themselves to see what are we doing to facilitate these behavioral changes or other things. 

 

So I brought my kid in, he’s seven years old. He’s having trouble in school. They want to, they suggest we put him on Ritalin. He has explosive outbursts. I don’t want to put them on Ritalin. I come to you, because I heard you’re great at helping people to not go on Ritalin but also to get the results. Where do you start? And this will help our practitioners as they’re listening, with the steps that we can incorporate when we’re dealing with this.

 

Mary Parker (24:33)

Absolutely. So we start with that functional test. I want to get that information back as quickly as possible, because that is going to give me the information that I need to determine what we are going to do food wise? What are we going to do with vitamins or supplements if they’re needed? And what do we need to do as far as sleep? But also this report lets us know, is there a possible toxicity? Because there’s a whole section in the report that goes over food sensitivities and then things that you could be toxic to.

 

Dr Ritamarie (25:12)

So this is the gene test that you said, what did you call it? The MaxGen gene test. Okay.

 

Mary Parker (25:17)

So then I know, do I have some follow-up lab work that I need to be ordering and requesting? And when they leave that first appointment, my number one recommendation for everybody is to get on a methylated vitamin. Because if you’re walking into my office with anxiety or depression or ADHD, whatever the diagnosis is, we know that you likely have a methylation issue. 80% of people are probably walking around with a methylation issue, and anybody who walks through my door has one. I already know that. If you’re a girl, you are more likely to have one. And if you’re Hispanic, you’re also more likely to have a methylation issue.

 

So understanding that part of it, have methylated vitamins that I recommend that they go on almost immediately. And we also talk about, on that very first appointment that we need to be looking at removing processed food, sugar, and food dyes from the diet. Those are a huge conversation. 

 

Our medical records program actually has That Clean Life, I think it is, or something like that. It’s a food planning software that we can use. And they’ve just added on an integration with Instacart. 

 

So if I’m working with a family who comes back, and they say to me, Well, we don’t know how to cook like this. We’ve only ever done processed food. Nobody ever taught me how to cook. Well, then we’re going to use That Clean Life. And I’m going to send you a menu plan. And that menu plan is going to link right to your Instacart. It’s going to fill your cart for you. But all your recipes are there too.

 

Dr Ritamarie (26:56)

That’s pretty cool. Now, I’m assuming this is after you’re going to run this test, after you’ve done that extensive assessment question history taking. Got it.

 

Mary Parker (26:55)

Yeah, we’ve already done that extensive intake. We’ve done the genetic test. And if we need to order additional tests, I now know that. 

 

And then we’re working with the family. So we’re not just, if a three-year-old comes into my office, I’m not really working with a three-year-old. I’m working with mom and dad. Because mom and dad are the ones that are in control of the food. They’re in control of the chemicals that are coming into the house. They’re in control of the body care products that are coming into the house. So that is also a big conversation that we have. 

 

We talk about the things in our environment that we need to be changing. And most people don’t think about the fact that your skin is your biggest organ. Anything that you’re putting on your body is being absorbed into it. So if it’s full of cancer causing, gene mutating, food dyes, and all of these things, your kid is absorbing those things too. 

 

Very often, depending on the test results that I get back from the MaxGen report, we may be talking about detoxification. So do I want to be using something like a zeolite? Do I want to be using charcoal? Do I want to be looking at an anti-parasitic, because it’s very likely that you have one based off of some of the things that come back in the report. So every person is individual. There’s not really a go-to protocol that I have for anyone outside of the methylated vitamins.

 

Dr Ritamarie (28:14)

Right. So let me ask you something about the methylated vitamins, because are you not concerned with some of the way they interact? Like there’s people with a COMT variant, homozygous COMT, that would not do well on methylated vitamins, but you wait until after the report comes back before recommending the methylated vitamins.

 

Mary Parker (28:34)

If I have somebody that’s really really in critical shape like when they walk in, then I’m going to recommend it right there with the caution that if anxiety Increases, your heart is racing, or we are having sleep issues. I want you to stop it immediately hyper hydrate, and flush it out

 

Dr Ritamarie (28:50)

Got it. That makes sense that you’re supporting them, but you’re giving them all the cautions and caveats and go low and slow and that kind of stuff. 

 

And with little kids, right?  You talked about three year olds. How are you getting them to take supplements? Because, know, at that age, especially if they have any autistic type tendencies, right? They tend to be super sensitive, and they’re not going to be able to swallow pills, certainly at three.

 

So how are you getting this stuff into them ,and how are you getting the diet changes to be accepted?  

 

Mary Parker (29:23)

The diet changes are the hardest part. So with getting methylated vitamins into them, I will go first with a liquid if I can get that. If that absolutely is not an option because of taste, then I don’t like gummy vitamins. But in those situations, I would recommend using a gummy vitamin, because it’s the only way we can get it in. Because once we start adjusting everything, their diet is going to start shifting on its own.

 

They’re going to start craving those things that they’re missing and that their body needs, because as human beings we do. When I go on carnivore, I know when I need vegetables, because I’m like, “Yep, I’m going to go eat a dirty carrot right now. I’m going to pull it out of the ground, because I need the carrot right now.” So we see that in the kids that we’re working with too. There starts to be a slow transition. 

 

Dr Ritamarie (30:08)

Because your body needs it, right? You have the cravings.

 

Mary Parker (30:11)

So we see that in the kids we’re working with, too. But I will also tell mom and dad to hide stuff like fields of greens in all of the food that you cook. Because II put a scoop in, stir it in, they don’t know that it’s in something that they’re eating. If we can get a liquid that’s like an orange flavored liquid, make some kind of orange smoothie or  put it in their orange juice that they can’t even taste it. So I will work with mom and dad dependent on the individual in some ways that we might be able to get some of these vitamins in without the fight.

 

Dr Ritamarie (30:53)

Do you ever look at blood sugar? Because I’m concerned when you say orange juice, and there’s so many kids that by the time they’re seven, have insulin resistance is already starting, and their blood sugars are off the charts. Do you work with that? Do you see that very much in this population?

 

Mary Parker (31:09)

So if we see a family history that is showing that there’s diabetes throughout the family history, and the genetic report comes back, and it lets us know that there’s already markers for that, we’re going to be asking those questions. And this is also when I would start talking to the parents about, maybe we want to temporarily, and this isn’t long-term forever, but maybe temporarily we want to really focus more on the high-fat type diets, keto, carnivore.

 

But this report comes back, and it will tell us, would you be better on a hunter gatherer diet? Are you better on the Mediterranean? Are you better on keto? Like what is it that your genes are going to thrive on? For a lot of these families, it is carb heavy. It is very sugar heavy. There’s a lot of education that has to go into this is how we slowly remove sugar. This is how we slowly remove carbs and start replacing things with healthier choices.

 

Dr Ritamarie (32:06)

What about gluten? Do you find that there’s a lot of gluten sensitivity in this population?

 

Mary Parker (32:11)

I see that a lot in these reports. It is very rare that it comes back and says that there’s not a gluten sensitivity.

 

Dr Ritamarie (32:19)

Yeah, I would imagine, I know in my population, it’s one of the hardest things to get people off of.

 

Mary Parker (32:25)

It is. And then at the same time, when you explain why they’re actually sensitive to it and that this isn’t necessarily the wheat grain itself, because I have full-blown celiacs, but I can go to Europe, and I can eat pasta and bread, and I don’t have any problems. When I come back to the United States, however, we have Roundup on all of our wheat, and they’ve altered the wheat germ so that it’s no longer the same wheat germ, and it actually contains the pesticide inside of the germ itself. So you can’t wash it out. There’s no cleaning at all. 

 

So, families are a little bit more willing to listen when we’re talking about the fact that this isn’t just about wheat. This is about the poison that’s on and in the wheat that your child is responding to.

 

Dr Ritamarie (33:13)

Right, any last tips, tricks, things you want to share with us, so we can support the work, the wonderful work you’re doing in working with this population, but to help when we have folks coming in who aren’t necessarily aware of the mental issues or maybe they are? Because like everybody’s anxious and depressed these days.

 

So,  anything else you want to share that we could incorporate into our practices as well.

 

Mary Parker (33:38)

So I’d really just pay attention, when you are doing functional work with clients, always making sure that we’re going after those gene steps, what’s hiding in the background, so that we can understand the methylation pathways, the detox pathways, and then how we’re processing and using our neurotransmitters. The neurotransmitter thing. There’s studies coming out right now that say we really don’t understand that even a little bit, and everything we thought is completely wrong. 

 

So I’m not really sure how to use all of that information right now outside of, if you’re not able to uptake your neurotransmitters, then they’re not doing a whole lot of good for you. We’ve got to support that. So your physical health and your mental health, they’re one and the same.

 

Dr Ritamarie (34:25)

So how do people find out more? Do you have a website? You have a chapter in a book. Tell us about that.

 

Mary Parker (34:31)

The book is called, Pieces to Purpose, and it is about women who have taken a challenging moment in their life and turned it into their purpose. And it’s definitely, the story of my life and how I came to do the work that I’m doing. In healing my child, I found what it is that I want to do to help heal the world. So that was pretty amazing for me.

 

Yes, so we have a website. It’s infinitepotentialINCTX.com, and you can find us on social media. We are on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, rumble. We have started a YouTube channel. We’re kind of all over the place.

 

Dr Ritamarie (35:12)

Infinite Potential is the way to look it up, really. And we’ll have all the links in the show notes in the description. So you guys, if you want to follow up, you can. And I thank you so much. 

 

We’ve been talking to Mary Parker, and she’s been giving us great information about how we can’t separate mental health from physical health. And we have to address the physical health to impact the mental health. You can’t do it any other way.

 

And we talk a lot about root causes. Neurotransmitters are going to be out of balance when people are expressing certain mental health kind of conditions, but is that really the root? Is that really the deeper root? It’s why are those neurotransmitters out of balance and whether it’s a toxic exposure, certainly there’s going to be a genetic tendency there, whether it’s gut dysbiosis, early introduction of antibiotics, vaccines, prenatal care, you name it on and on. And all of these things have to be looked at, whether somebody’s presenting with depression, anxiety, ADHD, memory loss, whatever, all of these things need to be taken into account. 

 

So thank you so much for being here and thank you all for listening and being part of this movement to Reinvent Healthcare. And until next time, shine on.