CHEESESLAVE

I’m relaxing in our “outdoor living room” in the backyard with a glass of Viognier. Seth is putting the baby down. It was hot today, but now it’s pleasantly cool. I can smell someone barbecuing in the distance.

Tonight’s dinner will be easy. I got a dozen fresh scallops at the farmer’s market today. So fresh, they are still alive! They gave them to me in bags of salt water.

I’ll probably braise them in a little butter. Then we will have some kielbasa and sauerkraut, some spaghetti squash with butter, and a green salad with sliced apple.

Tomorrow night I will make pulled pork. I’ve never made it before but Rocky Canyon had a nice pork butt at the market today. I think I’ll soak it in brine overnight, then slow cook it in the crock pot all day.

Seth had his phone consultation with Dr. Cowan on Thursday (which also happened to be his birthday — Seth’s, not Dr. Cowan’s).

Dr. Cowan recommended the GAPS diet. I knew he was going to say that, but the biggest reason we did the consultation was to convince Seth. He needed to hear it from someone other than me. Better yet, a doctor. I’ve been trying to get him to do the GAPS diet for months. Of course, he just thought it was some wacky think I read on the internet.
The good news is, he’s willing to do it now.

Let me back up — the GAPS Diet was formulated by neurologist and nutritionist, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. GAPS stands for “Gut and Psychology Syndrome”. The idea is that most of the psychological disorders we have are due to digestive disorders. Click here for an overview of the book.

I’m excited because Seth has suffered from anxiety and depression for years. He has also had digestive problems since he was a kid. He said he can remember being constipated when he was a small child, and said the depression started when he was 17. And I have noticed that his anxiety/depression is always worse when he has intestinal pain. Whenever he gets really cranky or anxious, he always says his guts hurt.

Dr. Cowan mentioned a book called “The Second Brain”. Here’s an excerpt from an interview with the author that may shed some light on this for you:

Ever get a gut feeling about someone, or I anxious butterflies in your stomach? That’s because you have a second brain in your bowel, according to Michael Gershon, M.D., author of The Second Brain (HarperCollins, 1999), and a neurobiologist at New York’s Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Gershon recently explained to Psychology Today how an independent network of over 100 billion neurons in the gut not only signals our bodies to stress but causes illness.

Q Why do we need a second brain?

A Most importantly, to control digestion. It also works with the immune system to protect us from hostile bacteria.

Q Does it use neurotransmitters?

A Actually, 95% of all serotonin in the body is in the gut, where it triggers digestion. Nerve cells in the gut also use serotonin to signal back to the brain. This information can train us not to eat certain foods by communicating pain, gas and other terrible feelings.

Q Does the brain in our heads influence the “second brain”?

A Yes. Butterflies in the stomach arise when the brain sends a message of anxiety to the gut, which sends messages back to the brain that it’s unhappy. But the gut can also work in isolation.

Q How does this brain influence irritable bowel syndrome (lBS), which many believe is a psychological problem?

A Irritable bowel syndrome, whose symptoms include abdominal pain accompanied by loose stool, affects 20% of Americans. But doctors often dismiss its severity, attributing IBS to psychoneurosis because they don’t know exactly what it is. I propose that the second brain is the cause. Antidepressants like SSRIs, when used in doses too low to treat depression, are effective immediately in IBS patients. Prozac takes weeks to kick in. This suggests that the drugs work not on the brains of people with IBS, but in the bowel. Source

Anyway… the idea is if you heal the digestive tract, you will alleviate mental/emotional disorders. Dr. Campbell McBride has had much success with this program in her practice in England where she has been reversing autism, ADD, etc. in children.

So here’s the plan:

He has to drink about a quart of bone broth a day, plus 4-8 ounces freshly juiced fruits and vegetables 3-5 times a day. I’m going to give it to him mixed with beet kvass at least twice a day.

In addition to that, he can have meats, fish, non-starchy vegetables, and fruit. No grains. No dairy. He also has to take cod liver oil and a couple of other supplements (including Dr. Campbell-McBride’s probiotic, BioKult, plus plenty of fermented foods (sauerkraut, homemade pickles, kefir soda pop, etc.).

After anywhere from a few days to a few weeks (depending on how it goes), we will start to introduce dairy foods — one at a time. Starting with ghee (clarified butter), then kefir, yogurt, etc. Not sure about the exact order — I have the list Dr. Cowan sent in my purse.

In a matter of weeks or months, we can start to introduce soaked beans, soaked grains, etc. Ultimately, Dr. Cowan says, Seth should eat a “Nourishing Traditions” diet.

Dr. Cowan says he thinks Seth can heal in a couple of months. But he said the longer he stays on the diet, the better, and that it can take up to two years.

I’m going to have to have a stock pot of broth going all the time. And I’m going to have to be juicing all the damn time too. And for any of you out there who have juiced, it is messy. You have to clean that thing every time you make juice.

But it’s okay. I’m just grateful he’s finally doing this. I just know this is going to help him!

So I guess we’re starting tomorrow…

And Aspberger’s, ADD, and ADHD!
On my morning walk with Kate, I listened to the most fascinating and moving lecture by Dr. Mary Megson, MD. She is a pediatrician who has been working with autistic children and seeing absolutely miraculous results with nutrition.

I was literally moved to tears listening to this woman speak. And totally dumbfounded. The connections she is making, the healing that is happening. It’s nothing short of incredible. In fact, I was so entranced by this lecture that I walked for over an hour! Poor Kate was home late for her morning nap.

She was talking about how vitamin A deficiency plays a role in causing autism. She explains physiologically why the lack of vitamin A and other nutrients causes problems with vision and language. She explains how autistic children see the world, and why they behave the way they do (the stimming, the flapping, the lack of eye contact). She explains what the physiological reasons are for those behaviors. She explains how nutritional deficiencies cause these behaviors — every single one.

There’s lots of scientific talk in it (some of it went over my head) but hang in there because the stories she tells are incredible.

She told one story about an 18-year-old girl who went to get her vaccinations for college. After the vaccinations, suddenly any bright light was very painful to her. Her father had to carry her out of the office. She had to stay in bed in a dark room for 6 months. Her father did tons of research and read about the vitamin A connection. He started giving her cod liver oil and within 3 days, she could tolerate light again. (She’s now doing fine — totally returned to normal.)

She told another story of a man she met who was in his late sixties. He said for the first 30-some-odd years of his life, he was autistic — and for the next thirty or so years he was just dyslexic. She said, “What did you do?” He said, “I ate a lot of fish.”

Fish! Vitamin A!

These stories are especially encouraging to me because these people were not children when they recovered — they were adults.

I can’t do her stories justice. You have to listen.

And yes, it fits with what Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride and Donna Gates are saying about how problems with abnormal gut flora fits with autism — because an inability to absorb nutrients causes deficiency! They both say you have to supplement with cod liver oil, too. And Dr. Megson also says you have to heal the gut with probiotics.

Here is a taste of Dr. Megson — this is an excerpt from her website. (You can download the PDFs here)

Our early experience with treatment with natural cis forms of Vitamin A in Cod Liver Oil (CLO) in these autistic children, followed by stimulation of blocked acetylcholine receptors for neurotransmitters affected with a blockage of G-alpha pathways in the cell, is promising. There are dramatic, immediate improvements in language, vision, attention and social interaction in some of these children, as evidenced by the following case reports.

My earliest evidence came from a ten-year-old boy diagnosed with autism by DSM-IV criteria (20). The patient’s parents suspect he has been reading since age four but his inability to communicate made this unverifiable. Over an eight-year period of regular visits I had never heard him speak. Standardized IQ tests revealed moderate mental retardation. His mother developed night blindness and hypothyroidism in college and had responded well to Vitamin A and thyroid hormone replacement. The patient’s mother’s sister was diagnosed in infancy with gluten enteropathy that had improved on a gluten free diet. She has had lifelong dry eyes and is night blind (treated with amber glasses.)

For these and other reasons I started the boy on cod liver oil (5,000 IU of Vitamin A, given in 2500 IU/b.i.d.) and a gluten free diet. After one week, he began to sit farther from the television and to notice paintings on the walls at home. He had always gone out of his way to follow the sidewalk and driveway to meet the school bus. On Vitamin A, he began to run across the grass directly from the front door to the school bus. After three weeks, he was given a single dose of Urocholine, an alpha muscarinic receptor agonist, to increase bile and pancreatic secretions and indirectly stimulate hippocampal retinoid receptors. It has minimal cardiac effect, is FDA approved, has been used safely in children since the 1970’s for reflux, and does not cross the blood-brain barrier, unlike secretin (21). It stimulates post- synaptic cell membranes via receptors for acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter in the parasympathetic system.

Thirty minutes after administration of the Urocholine, the patient, who was sitting in a chair, swung his feet over the side, pointed to a glass candy jar on my shelf and said, “May I have the red Jolly Rancher® please?” He had read the label on the candy in the clear jar. These were the first words he had spoken in eight years, and the first proof that he could read. We took him outside and he said, “The leaves, the leaves on the trees are green! I see! I see!” When I asked to take his picture he looked at the camera, smiled and waved. When he left the office I said, “See you later.” He asked, “What time?”

In this child’s case, after several weeks of treatment with Vitamin A in CLO 3500 IU/day, the Urocholine acted like a switch. When absorbed, he immediately became socially engaged, made excellent eye contact, hugged his mother tightly and said, “I love you so much,” looking at her face.

At that point we both realized that this child had a blocked pathway. The change in language and social interaction was dramatic and immediate. Yet he reverted to the pre-treatment state of silence when the dose wore off. On lower daily doses of Urocholine (12.5 mg bid) along with the Vitamin A, his language and social interactions have continued to progress, albeit slowly. Source

If you have autism (Anna, I thought of you!), have an autistic child or relative, or know someone who is autistic or has an autistic child, you must download this lecture. It’s $13 to download the mp3 on the Weston A. Price Foundation website. (They have it labeled as Dr. Campbell McBride but that is incorrect. It is Dr. Megson.)

This lecture is truly mind blowing. It made me want to go back to school and become a pediatrician.

PS: April (another A!) is Autism Awareness Month. Please spread the word on your blog if you feel so inclined.

PS2: A is also for Anna. And Ann Marie!

I have been reading “Gut and Psychology Syndrome” by Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride. She has had quite a lot of success treating children in her clinic in England, reversing autism, allergies, ADHD, and many other conditions. Her own son was diagnosed with autism. He is now in a regular school and is completely functional.

Dr. Campbell McBride recommends a special diet, what she calls the “GAPS diet”, as well as supplementation with cod liver oil and therapeutic-grade probitoics. I was very interested to learn this, as I have heard of many people having success with diet and probiotics with autistic children.

Including Jenny McCarthy, who, in her book, “Louder Than Words”, wrote about her son’s marked recovery after she changed his diet (to gluten-free, casein-free) and started giving him probiotics. Her son regained his language and social skills, and is now fully recovered.

If diet and probiotics can have this kind of affect on autistic children, what kind of affect can they have on other children? What kind of affect can they have on us? Those of us with food allergies and chronic fatigue and asthma and digestive problems and chronic colds and sinus infections? And auto-immune disorders such as arthritis, lupus, and MS.

How do we improve our immunity, and how do we avoid damaging our immunity?

In her book, Dr. Campbell-McBride made lists of how we can strengthen and weaken immunity. Here they are:

TOP 10 THINGS THAT BOOST IMMUNITY:

1. Cold-pressed oils - olive oil, fish oils (including cod liver oil), nut and seed oils (flax seed, sunflower seed).

2. Fresh eggs, particularly raw egg yolk. (Note: Raw eggs are safe as long as they come from healthy pastured chickens, not sick battery chickens from a factory farms. It is not advisable to eat raw egg whites, however. I usually boil my eggs for 3 minutes or fry them, and eat the yolk runny.)

3. Onions and garlic.

4. Freshly pressed vegetables and fruit juices (this means freshly juiced, not store bought).

5. Regular consumption of greens: parsley, dill, coriander (cilantro), spring onion and garlic, etc.

6. Probiotic supplementation and fermented foods (kombucha, kefir, cultured butter, yogurt, homemade sauerkraut, beet kvass, etc.).

7. Contact with animals: horses, dogs, etc. Having a pet in the family can do a lot for children’s immune status.

8. Physical activity in the fresh air.

9. Swimming in unpolluted natural waters: lakes, rivers, and sea.

10. Exposure to sunlight and sensible sunbathing.

TOP 10 THINGS THAT DAMAGE IMMUNITY:

1. Sugar and everything containing it: sweets, soft drinks, confectionery, ice cream, etc.

2. Processed carbohydrates: cakes, biscuits, crisps (chips), snacks, breakfast cereals, white bread and pasta.

3. Chemically altered and artificial fats: margarines, butter replacements, cooking and vegetable oils (including soy oil and canola oil), processed foods prepared with these fats.

4. Lack of high-quality protein in the diet from meats and fish, eggs, dairy products, nuts and seeds.

5. Exposure to man-made chemicals: cleaning and washing chemicals, personal care products, paints, fire retardants, petrochemicals, pesticides, etc.

6. Exposure to man-made radiation: electronic screens (TV, computers, play station, etc.), mobile phones, high-power electricity lines, nuclear station and nuclear wastes.

7. Drugs: antibiotics, steroids, antidepressants, painkillers, anti-cancer medication, anti-viral drugs, etc.

8. Lack of fresh air and physical activity.

9. Lack of exposure to sunlight.

10. Lack of exposure to common microbes in the environment. Living in a too sterilized environment is strongly associated with compromised immunity. The immune system needs constant stimulation from the microbes in the environment.

Surprising lists, huh? According to Dr. Campbell-McBride, pets, cod liver oil, fresh air, eggs, fermented foods, and sunshine all strengthen immunity. White flour, sugar, vegetable and soy oil, antibiotics, chemical cleaners, personal care products, and vegetarianism all weaken it.

I just read this fascinating article, Going with the Grain by Catherine Kzapp on how she healed her father, a sufferer of celiac disease, or gluten intolerance.

Gluten intolerance has become a serious modern disease, not just among kids on the autistic spectrum (autism, Aspberger’s ADD/ADHD), but among many, many people with chronic digestive problems.

Damage to the intestinal wall causes a condition known as leaky gut or intestinal permeability. This creates all sorts of problems such as toxins being released into the bloodstream and malabsorption of nutrients.

Malabsorpition causes degenerative diseases like osteoperosis in the elderly and can cause failure to thrive in babies.

Most celiac sufferers feel doomed to a life without bread. Complete avoidance of gluten (and often casein — in dairy products) is the only way they can quell a plethora of symptoms and disorders.

Symptoms of Celiac Disease or Gluten Intolerance (from the Mayo Clinic):

There are no typical signs and symptoms of celiac disease. Most people with the disease have general complaints, such as intermittent diarrhea, abdominal pain and bloating. Sometimes people with celiac disease may have no gastrointestinal symptoms at all. Celiac disease symptoms can also mimic those of other conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome, gastric ulcers, Crohn’s disease, parasite infections, anemia, skin disorders or a nervous condition.

Celiac disease may also present itself in less obvious ways, including irritability or depression, anemia, stomach upset, joint pain, muscle cramps, skin rash, mouth sores, dental and bone disorders (such as osteoporosis), and tingling in the legs and feet (neuropathy).

Some indications of malabsorption that may result from celiac disease include:

Weight loss
Diarrhea
Abdominal cramps, gas and bloating
General weakness
Foul-smelling or grayish stools that may be fatty or oily
Stunted growth (in children)
Osteoporosis

The article by Catherine Czapp is very encouraging for the gluten intolerant, as it outlines a protocol for recovery that goes beyond gluten avoidance:

When a patient receives a diagnosis of celiac disease or gluten intolerance, either via laboratory testing or by process of elimination by the sufferer himself, complete avoidance of all gluten-containing foods will often bring improvement of many symptoms in a short time, sometimes as quickly as three days; others may require a month for positive signs to emerge. Finally understanding what was wrong can be a tremendous relief for someone who had likely been struggling with unhappy digestion for quite some time.

It is important to remember, though, that the impaired digestive capabilities of someone suffering from this autoimmune disorder will not automatically return to full healthy functioning by merely excluding gluten from the diet, nor will longstanding nutrient deficiencies be corrected unless they are actively addressed in a recuperation protocol designed with care and insight into the needs of the individual. Celiacs who have been severely afflicted should expect significant renewal of health only after one or more years of concerted effort.

What does she recommend for recovery?

Bone broths! The gelatin in homemade bone broths actually repairs the intestinal walls.

She ventured beyond the average bone broth, though, adding things like kombu, shiitake and nettles — which also help to soothe and repair the gut:

I had been pottering away in my kitchen experimenting with bone broths. I had become entranced by the extraordinary nutritive and recuperative properties of highly gelatinized broth made from the long simmering of bones, and I wanted to have a good storage of it. I improvised my brews by adding astragalus root–a nutritive immune system enhancer–to some pots, and kombu (a brown kelp) to others for its contribution of minerals and soothing mucilage. I added vinegar I’d made from shiitake mushroom stems–another immune system booster–in others, and nettles I’d grown on the burial ground of spent fish bones in another.

Nettles have so many nourishing and energizing attributes that one can barely enumerate them all, but I had been counting on their ability to pull minerals from the soil to augment my bone stocks. I only recently have come across a reference to their ability to actually promote the growth of intestinal villi!

Note: she does not recommend storebought broth. It must be homemade from the bones of chickens, cows, fish, or other animals (or purchased from someone who made it from scratch).

She goes on to discuss homemade sourdough bread and how it may be tolerable by celiacs. She says her recovered dad has been eating it for years with no ill effects.

She describes an amazing study wherein celiac volunteers ate sourdough bread and had no reaction:

A study published in February, 2004 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology with the tantalizing title “Sourdough Bread Made from Wheat and Nontoxic Flours and Started with Selected Lactobacilli Is Tolerated in Celiac Sprue Patients,” describes the results of an Italian research team which, encouraged by preliminary findings of their earlier work in vitro, designed an in vivo experiment to test their findings. The team’s premise was that lactobacilli, chosen for their ability to hydrolyze or sever protein (gliadin) fractions might be key in processing wheat flour so that its toxic properties would be neutralized and therefore not harmful to celiac patients.

Their experiment included 17 subjects, all celiac patients who had been consuming gluten-free diets for at least two years and no longer exhibiting symptoms. The experimental bread was made from a combination of wheat (Triticum aestivum), oat, millet and buckwheat flours, 30 percent of which was wheat. The flour was mixed with a “broth” of four lab-obtained lactobacilli, a dose of baker’s yeast and tap water in a continuous high-speed mixer. When the dough was allowed to ferment at about body temperature for 24 hours, almost all of the toxic peptide fractions in the wheat protein had been hydrolized. The bread was then baked and fed to the celiac volunteers (who also bravely ate breads made with plain baker’s yeast as “controls”). After consuming the simple yeasted bread, analysis of the volunteers’ gut permeability was made, which showed a change in permeability normally associated with celiac response. No such response was noted when the volunteers ate the 24-hour fermented sourdough bread. The authors of the study are cautiously enthusiastic about the results of this “novel bread biotechnology” and its implications for celiac patients.

Note: we are not talking about that faux sourdough bread you find in the grocery store. This is real homemade sourdough made from a fermented starter.

The article concludes:

Rather than condemn celiac sufferers to a life without bread, how much better to offer a healing protocol followed for life with the right kind of bread. In fact, how much better for all of us to take our cue from celiac sufferers and consume only bread that has been prepared by artisans–with attention to detail and lots of time.

The same old refrain. Modern food production is causing health problems that can be reversed by going back to eating foods raised and prepared traditionally.

There is nothing I love better than a house filled with the odors of fresh baking bread and a pot of homemade chicken stock simmering on the stove. To me, that’s home.