I was very excited to hear Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride speak at Saturday's Deidre Currie Festival. It seems that everywhere I turn I hear more about her work these days, and it all makes so much sense. Following is the information from my notes at the talk. (As I said last time, in the notes on Sally Fallon's "Dirty Little Secrets of the Food Industry", information is a bit hodgepodge in places - I was typing fast trying to get it all, but didn't always succeed.)
Do "quick fixes" really heal, or just treat the symptoms for a while?
First of all, she doesn't propose that her diet is an easy or quick fix. Real solutions rarely are. Instead she teaches how to heal conditions that have stumped doctors for years, such as ADD, ADHD, learning/behavior/social problems, autism, depression, reflux, constipation and other digestive issues, and many others - she said it sometimes takes up to two years or more on this diet. Until now, the only treatment was aimed at the symptoms, and there weren't whole body evaluations or any lasting cures. The answers only involved more medications and side effects.
A little background information
photo by Cheeseslave
Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride worked as a neurologist and neurosurgeon in Russia, and now lives in England. At the age of three, her son was diagnosed as severely autistic. "Having looked at his profound digestive abnormalities, I found that my own profession had nothing to offer my own child. He is now fifteen years old and cured. That was a fateful event in my life and what it took to knock this doctor out of the mainstream. Every medical doctor I have met who has 'moved to our side' has had something like this happen to a loved one."
I just bought this book by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride: Gut & Psychology Syndrome, and was surprised at the cost - but I looked and couldn't find it cheaper anywhere else. Yet I suppose when you think of all the answers inside and what it could mean for families, it's actually pretty inexpensive...WHAT IS GAPS SYNDROME?
- In children it can be diagnosed as: autism, ADHD/ADD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and the largest group are those with these three: learning, behavior, & social problems.
- Unless something drastic and serious is done to help the above children, they become adults with these problems: more prone to substance abuse (and higher chances of reacting adversely to drugs), depression, obsessive/compulsive disorder, manic-depressive, and schizophrenia.
- The numbers are growing, and it can maim the lives of not only these children and adults, but of whole families for the rest of their lives. The medical community doesn't offer any cures; all that is offered is symptomatic treatments.
- In a clinical setting, one feature unites all these problems: THEY ALL HAVE DIGESTIVE PROBLEMALITIES.
- In chidren, digestive issues are usually the first symptom. Sometimes they are severe, but other times they're not so severe and you only find out later, after talking more about their history, that they have these problems.
- Sometimes GAPS patients have allergies, asthma & eczema (those two usually alternate), thrush, or chronic cystitis (bladder infection) - have you ever heard of a doctor who would ask them about any digestive problems when they show up with these symptoms?
- Chronic Cystitis: through the urine is how toxins are moved out of our body. If they build up in the blood instead, it causes chronic inflammation and symptoms of cystitis. They test the urine but don't find an infection, so they don't know how to help.
- Thrush/yeast overgrowth in the vagina or any sweaty, warm places. A healthy body is populated by beneficial flora that live in harmony with us in the skin, mucus membranes, vagina, bladder, urethra, everywhere in the body. But if you've been on a lot of antibiotics, if there are environmental toxins, stress, a bad diet, or all these things, your body flora changes. Good bacteria are gone and it opens the gate for pathogens. The first thing you might see is often candida and other yeasts that cause thrush.
- If your body is well equipped, yeast can't settle in your body and cause harm. If it has already settled and started causing problems, it is an alarm bell that your immune system is not working properly. This is the time to make drastic changes.
- Some GAPS children suffer from malnutrition, but may look well nourished. When tested we find multiple nutritional deficiencies. Others look like African children: they are too skinny, with bulging tummies.
- GAPS patients often have colic, bloating/gas (as a colicky baby grows it becomes indigestion and heartburn - in a baby it was called reflux), diarrhea, or constipation - which is more severe than diarrhea because toxins sit inside there a long time and then get into the bloodstream.
- Feeding difficulties are universally present in these patients. They are finicky eaters. (Siblings of autistic children are almost universally picky eaters, too.) Their bodies learn that food makes them ill so they limit the foods they'll eat to the very foods that harm them most - sweet, starchy foods, sweet yogurts, bananas. When the toxins absorb they give the brain a pleasure signal, so the brain wants more and they become drug addicts in a way.
- The trouble is that when you tell them about changing the diet, a lot of parents ask, "how do I change my child's eating habits, they will gag and not eat any of this!" In my GAPS book there is a whole chapter, a structured approach, on how to change a finicky child's diet gradually - you have to pull them out of the vicious cycle of cravings and dependency. They will fight you every step, but you have to help pull them out. One child lived on crackers and they took them to a dietician who said, "it's ok, at least he's eating." He looked like he was from Ethiopia. After 2 months of following the GAPS diet he was eating everything, but the parents have to be determined and strong.
- In some patients we'll discover in an x-ray that there is a fecal compaction with over-spill and inflammation, similar to what you see with Crohns or Colitis, due to multiple nutritional deficiencies. This is when the digestive track is blocked with old compacted feces that are literally glued to the gut wall. It is not completely emptied when they go, so the passage is narrow, and then more gets compacted. It becomes so narrow, food can hardly seep through. When the child finally goes to the bathroom it is so painful, they are afraid to go again.
- In our gut (our intestinal tract), there are many beneficial microbes; they have established a symbiotic relationship with our bodies. 90% of all cells in our body are gut flora - we are a shell to hold this massive amount of bacteria - our health depends hugely on the health and status of this mixture of bacteria.
- The gut flora protects it from invaders, maintains the health and integrity of the gut, provides digestion and absorption, vitamin production, detoxification, and a healthy immune system.
- GAPS patients have what's called Gut Dysbiosis or "leaky gut" They have reduced or absent populations of normal flora.
- The digestive track all spread out would cover a tennis court, and it's the perfect place for anything harmful in the environment to settle, yet the good bacteria there chelate (remove) chemicals and toxic metals - if they can't destroy it, they grab and it take it from the body.
- Two groups of rats were given organic mercury. One group were given a powerful antibiotic, the other group were not. The mercury got into the bloodstream of only about 1% of those without the antibiotic, and 90% of those with the antibiotic. Keep gut flora healthy and strong and it will protect you. (When antibiotics are taken they wipe out bad bacteria AND beneficial bacteria.)
- The government says we should limit our fish consumption due to mercury in the ocean, but yet those who do NOT limit it are in better health (because it promotes healthy gut flora). If you have healthy solid gut flora, it will chelate the mercury and take it out.
- Apart from insuring that food is digested properly, good gut flora also takes part in synthesizing B vitamins - our main source is our gut flora. If someone is pale and pasty it usually can be due to vitamin B deficiencies - no matter how many supplements they take, they are still deficient.
- First thing that has to be done: detoxification. Digestion itself (environmental, etc.)produces dangerous chemicals, nitrates, etc. With beneficial gut flora, the toxins it can't change are taken out.
- Chemical Chelation can be dramatic and cause regression - it pulls mercury or lead out of storage cells (fatty tissue - the brain & nervous system are mostly fat) - she recommends no chelation because a healthy gut is the better way (chelation pulls out good stuff, too).
- If gut flora is compromised, the body tries to compensate and this results in allergies, asthma, and inappropriate reaction to environmental toxins. Even if you were never allergic before, and then allergies begin, soon they'll slide down to being allergic to everything.
- 85% of the immune system is located in the gut wall.
- GAPS Patients & Gut Dysbiosis: reduced/absent populations of normal flora, candida species overgrowth, clostridia species, sulphate reducing bacteria (most are deficient in sulfur as it's necessary to detoxify), viruses (measles, herpes, cmv, etc.)
- A study done in Britain shows clostridia in higher amounts in autistic children than the rest of the population. Antibiotics work, but you can't be on them forever. Only way to fight it is the natural way - with gut flora.
- Birth Control Pill has a devastating effect on gut health, as well as overuse of personal care products on skin & hair and in the mouth.
- Almost 100% of Moms with GAPS children have abnormal gut flora.
- Most autism begins when nursing stops.
- Vaccinations were developed for healthy children with healthy immune systems, but most are not fit to be vaccinated. She doesn't feel these are a direct cause with autism, but it seems to have become a "last straw" in these cases where the gut flora is on the tipping point.
How to treat this condition
"It isn't hopeless, we've treated these children for years with good results."
- Diet (specific carb diet - more on this in the book above) heals these conditions (often misdiagnosed as gluten issues/celiac disease - only about 5% of these conditions qualify as true celiac disease - 17% of true celiacs don't do well on gluten-free diet.
- Effective probiotics. Fermented foods are very important or a therapeutic strength supplement (stronger with more organisms). Regular fermented foods or probiotics are not strong enough for healing, but OK for healthy people to stay healthy. However, a therapeutic dose will have a "die off" reaction - it will kill off pathogens and release toxins, so sudden amounts will cause a serious reaction. To control this, start from tiny amount and build up gradually and slowly - majority patients can move fast through this - it's different for different people. If you have severe problems, start from a bit of powder for 2-4 weeks, then 2 bits, and so on - once therapeutic level reached, stay on it for a while, later they can be gradually reduced and replaced by fermented foods.
- Address nutritional deficiencies - she's not in favor of a lot of supplements - nutrition is always best from food, healthy food. The diet is so nutrient dense that it removes most nutritional deficiencies quickly. She doesn't recommend a multi-vitamin, in late stages maybe, but not in initial stages. Fish oils are essential from the beginning - for fat soluble vitamins & omega 3's - more here on why cod liver oil is so beneficial.
- Detoxification is an important part of the treatment process - "I believe in natural detoxification, in using our own digestive system. More than 80% of anything harmful in your blood is from your own digestive system. That's why keeping it healthy is so vital to us." In GAPS patients, nutrients don't get absorbed. We all have our own detox system responsible for removing toxins that come from the outside or from the gut. The system can get overloaded, like a traffic jam. TWO METHODS: A. The liver gets clogged, so it is recommended that parents introduce juicing - a time proven method of removing all sorts of toxins from the body. Start gradually, 1/3 c. (kids 1 t.) a day to start, in case of a severe die off. This is very effective - juicing provides substances to pull toxins out of storage, but will also provide live enzymes and fatty acids. B. Baths with Epsom or Sea salt, and cider vinegar - alternate those two. This pulls toxins from the skin while the child is happily playing in the tub.
- Your toxic load needs to be reduced - your exposure to man-made chemicals. Re-think everything used in the home, or for personal care. All can be toxic and are absorbed through the skin and end up at the liver.
- Supplementation - probiotic, cod liver oil (for vitamin A, D, & fatty acids), digestive enzymes (not for everyone, these are not needed for children - they can restore them on their own easier.)
More details on all this in her book above. HAS ANYONE TRIED THE GAPS DIET? IF SO, PLEASE COMMENT BELOW AND TELL US ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE!
- Email for Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride: nashcam@lineone.net.
- Website: http://www.medinform.co.uk/
- A great GAPS site
- Cheeseslave has her family on the GAPS diet and posts great info and recipes
Let me know if you have any questions and I'll try to help. Many more topics & recipes along the right in the blue section.
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