Scallops, Spaghetti Squash, and Starting GAPS April 26, 2008

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…

A is for Autism and Vitamin A April 17, 2008

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!

10 Ways to Boost Immunity & 10 Ways to Damage It January 31, 2008

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.

Sourdough and Bone Broth for Gluten Intolerance January 19, 2008

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.

Candida Detox December 10, 2007

Seth was diagnosed with leaky gut a few months ago. He has had a number of symptoms including constant intestinal and digestive problems, an inability to lose weight, inability to concentrate, etc. etc.

Leaky gut is a condition in which your digestive tract is damaged and weakened by a lack of good bacteria.

Good bacteria in the gut kill off toxins. When you don’t have enough, you get an overgrowth of yeast, also known as candida albicans.

I had this condition 15 years ago, when I was in my mind-twenties. I figured it out by putting all the pieces of the puzzle together — since doctors had no idea what was going on with me.

My symptoms were:

Arthritis in my knees, spreading to my hands and elbows
Bad respiratory allergies (constant sneezing, itching, runny nose, watery eyes)
Brain fog, dizziness
Constant fatigue
Thrush (a white coating on the tongue)
Bloating and slight weight gain
Constant cravings for refined carbs, sugar, and alcohol
Sores that would not heal — including open sores inside my nose
Continual sinus infections and other illnesses due to a weakened immune system

I believe what caused the yeast overgrowth was a combination of things:

Repeated rounds of broad-spectrum antibiotics as a child
Repeated rounds of broad-spectrum antibiotics as an adult for my constant sinus infections (caused by the candida!)
Vaccines (I had a recent round when I went back to college)
Eating dead foods lacking in probiotics and enzymes (pasteurized milk and dairy products, no lacto-fermented foods, a lack of raw fruits and vegetables)
Eating meats and dairy full of antibiotics
The birth control pill (I was only on it for a short time in my early 20s but I think it added to the mix)

It took me a while and a lot of research to figure out that it was the candida causing all my symptoms. Western doctors advised me to take pain medication for my arthritis and allergy medication for my sinus problems. They were only interested in treating my symptoms.

I ended up going on a wheat-free sugar-free diet. I was taking anti-fungals like garlic supplements and I was taking high doses of pharmaceutical grade probiotics (prescribed by my chiropractor-nutritionist), as well as a variety of nutritional supplements like bovine adrenal gland and thymus gland to strengthen my immune system.

Within a matter of a few months, I was 90% better and symptom-free. I stayed on the diet and the supplements for a few years until I was completely better — and could eat whatever I wanted with no symptoms. Cake, candy, bread, ice cream — no problem.

It wasn’t until I got on the birth control pill again this summer (prescribed by my doctor after the baby was born) that I started experiencing symptoms again. The biggest clue were the open sores on the inside of my nose. One day I read that the birth control pill contributes to candida — I stopped taking it immediately. I guess I was on it for a few months. Weeks after I stopped taking it, I still had the sores. And my allergies were back!

I tried taking some probiotics I got at the health food store. I’ve also been drinking tons of raw milk and eating lots of lacto-fermented foods. But nothing was helping. Months went by and I still had the sores.

Three days ago I started taking ThreeLac, which I ordered on the internet. I had read about it in Jenny McCarthy’s book, Louder Than Words. It’s what she used to help reverse her son’s autism.

Three days and guess what? Allergies and sores — GONE.

Unbelievable, eh?

Meanwhile, Seth is going through a massive detox. For the past three days since we started the ThreeLac, he is suffering from major yeast die-off. Flu-like symptoms: sneezing, achey muscles, severe fatigue, chills, vomiting.

This happened to me the first time I got over candida — it lasted a couple of weeks.

We reduced his dosage — from 1 packet daily to 1/4 packet. Hopefully it will be a little easier for him.

I’ll keep you posted on our progress.

What to do when you’re sick December 5, 2007

I woke up with a sore throat this morning. A friend with a cold came over yesterday. She figured she was past being contagious but I guess not.

It could have been her, it could have been someone else I caught it from. Doesn’t matter. This is a sign though that I need to get healthier.

The thing is, I’m very susceptible to getting sick right now. My immune system is compromised — obviously more than I realized. Ever since my OB-GYN put me on the birth control pill. Which I promptly stopped taking a couple of months later when I read that the birth control pill causes candida.

You see, I had really bad candida when I was in my mid-twenties. It was from all the antibiotics I got as a child. I had recurring strep throat, and every time I got it, they gave me more antibiotics.

Candida is an overgrowth of yeast in the digestive tract and it is caused by a lack of good bacteria. The good bacteria normally fight of the yeast and other “bad” bacteria. If you don’t have enough good bacteria in your gut, the yeast grows out of control. Antibiotics kill all the bacteria in your gut — which causes candida.

I guess the birth control pill does the same thing. I stopped taking it back in September. I think I only took it for about three months. That’s long enough to cause an overgrowth of yeast. I have sores in my nose that won’t heal — same thing I had when I had candida in my twenties.

Obviously with a shortage of good bacteria, you are more susceptible to getting sick. You don’t have the good guys to help you fight off the bugs.

The ironic thing is, when people get sick, they go to the doctor and the first thing they do is give you an antibiotic!

We live in a backwards upside-down society.

And most of us are living these days with a chronic shortage of good bacteria. Jenny McCarthy (as well as Donna Gates of the Body Ecology Diet, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, and many others) believe that this is what causes autism. I think there are tons of diseases and disorders that can be traced to a lack of probiotics in the digestive tract.

What to do? How do you fight a cold or a flu?

Do what your grandma would have done. Chicken soup.

And I’m not talking about Campbell’s from a can. That stuff is useless. Plus it’s full of MSG.

You need real homemade bone broth. Bones from animals (poultry, beef, bison or fish) that are simmered in water for 8-24 hours. With a little sea salt and parsley for minerals.

I could try to list all the benefits of broth here but it would take too long. Just read this: http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/brothisbeautiful.html

In addition to bone broth, animal organs are one of the best things you can eat. When I had candida in my twenties, I was working with a chiropractor-nutritionist. She had me on a supplement called Congaplex, which is made from bovine (cow) thymus gland, as well as crushed up bone. The thymus gland is one of the main parts of the immune system in the body.

Anyway, even though my immune system was compromised, I still recovered from the flu in a matter of a few days. Everyone else in my office who caught it was out for WEEKS.

However, I looked up the ingredients in Congaplex and it has yucky stuff like soy lecithin (sludge waste product from industrial soybeans). Here is a better product: http://www.drrons.com/organ-delight.htm I think I will order some to help me improve my immune function. I need to get Seth on this, too.

I don’t happen to have any bovine thymus gland on hand, but I do have frozen liver. Liver is chock-full of B vitamins, which help to build and repair immune cells in the body.

The best way to eat liver is raw. You can freeze it for 14 days (this destroys any pathogens) then simply grate it into some milk or broth or put it into fresh vegetable juice.

More information on liver: http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/liver.html

Cod liver oil is another excellent way to take liver. I could go on and on about cod liver oil. It is the one supplement everyone should take. Even Dr. Oz on Oprah said so!

Remember, our grandmothers were always telling us to eat our liver and take cod liver oil.

Another thing that helps is coconut oil. It is antiviral, antibacterial and antifungal and helps to support the immune system. You can put it in a smoothie and also use it as a lotion. The pores in your skin absorb the nutrients. (http://www.mnwelldir.org/docs/nutrition/coconut.htm)

I am going to start taking a high dose of a quality probiotics supplement to battle my candida. I ordered some ThreeLac which is what Jenny McCarthy used to help her son. Regular probiotics supplements you get in the store are not effective on candida because they are only a “maintenance” dose. With candida, you have to bring in the big guns.

However, I think I’m also going to order some Bio-Kult. This is the probiotic developed by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. She reversed her son’s autism as well. Here is their story: http://www.bio-kult.com/nicholas.html

Unfortunately I don’t have any of these yet! My ThreeLac has not come in the mail.

So today I will drink a quart of colostrum kefir (from Organic Pastures — chock full of probiotics). Colostrum is the cow’s first milk which is loaded with antibodies. Kefir is fermented milk.

I am drinking a big glass right now. I added a heaping tablespoon of some over-the-counter probiotics I got at the health food store, as well as some coconut oil. I also just took my cod liver oil.

I am also going to drink at least a quart of chicken stock and take my liver supplements. I have some frozen liver I can also grate into a glass of freshly juiced fruits and vegetables. I have some kale here, as well as tomatoes, broccoli, beets, carrots and strawberries. All high in antioxidants. I know, sounds like a nasty drink but I bet it will taste better than a V-8.

The highest ranking fruits and vegetables are prunes, raisins, berries, oranges, pink grapefruit, grapes, kiwi, spinach, kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, beets, red peppers, carrots and tomatoes.

(http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art29448.asp)

If I feel well enough, I may have to make a trip over to Rawesome today to get some more high-antioxidant fruits, veggies and more colostrum and kefir. I need to stock up on eggs anyway. (They are only open today and Saturday.)

Oooh! I also have my beet kvass. I should try to drink a quart of that as well. Beet kvass is a lacto-fermented beverage that is super high in antioxidants as well as probiotics. All you do is cut up 6 medium sized beets, put them in a gallon of pure filtered water with a little sea salt and some homemade whey. Then you let it sit on the counter for a few days before you move it into the fridge.

Apparently foods that are lacto-fermented have a LOT more vitamins. The fermentation helps increase the vitamins. Here is an article on kvass: http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/kvass.html

I will also drink lots of hot tea with lemon, and do a steam bath. As recommended by Alla, our nanny, who just arrived. The steam bath helps you detoxify.

And rest of course.

I’m actually glad this happened. When you get a cold, it’s just a sign that your body is fighting. And this tells me my immune system is compromised. Now I will take the steps I need to take to strengthen it.

I will let you know how I recover.

Why you should feed your baby butter, raw milk, and sauerkraut … December 3, 2007

… and why you need to eat them too.

This whole series (videos 1-6) is worth watching. They are talking about nutrition for autistic kids… but it is important information for all of us.

Did you know that fermenting foods increases the nutrition hundreds of times? Isn't that exciting?

Did you know that serotonin is manufactured in the gut? Isn't that amazing?

PS: The woman on the right, Natasha Campbell-McBride, reversed her son's autism through diet.

Louder Than Words November 26, 2007

I read Jenny McCarthy's book, “Louder Than Words” last night.

It totally blew me away.

So moving and absolutely gripping. What I love about Jenny McCarthy is how forthright and honest she is. She calls it like she sees it. And she's not afraid to be herself. I really love and admire that in a person.

What she went through with her son's autism was so horrendous — and it makes you so sad to realize that one out every 150 people in America are going through the same thing. I can't even imagine how hard it would be.

And yet it is becoming commonplace in America. How can this be? How can something so horrendous become commonplace?

We think we've got it so good here in America. We're nothing like the poor slobs living in Beirut, sleeping to the sound of bombs going off. We're so lucky to live in America.

Meanwhile one out of every 150 parents is going through a living hell. Seizures, (SIDS? — there is speculation), tantrums and screaming all night long, loss of language and socialization, total inability to function.

I, like Jenny McCarthy, am absolutely convinced that this hell is avoidable and reversible. Not for everybody — some kids can't recover. But I think most or at least many can. They may not be able to cure it completely but they can reverse it. And I think most or many people absolutely can avoid this nightmare.

The thing I loved the best about her book was her sentence (I'm paraphrasing), “This is not a book about autism. This is a book about faith.”

Faith is believing when you have no evidence. Seeing in the dark. Faith is something I have worked on building in myself over the years. I am now an extremely faith-full person. Full of faith. I have total knowing (not just belief — but knowing) that the Universe is conspiring in my favor. Pulling out all the stops for my good. I always know things will work out. And guess what, they always do. It's not always instant (in fact it rarely is), but it is always consistent.

And how cool is it that Jenny McCarthy (a very faith-full person herself) ended up with a guy like Jim Carrey? He strikes me as a pretty spiritual guy. Yes, they are celebrities and what do we really know, but I do know that he wrote a song called “Heaven Down Here” which was recorded by Tuck & Patti. It goes like this:

“Let's bring Heaven down here
I don't want to wait for the angels
Let's bring Heaven down here”

Yes, he really wrote that. I heard Patti say so herself on a local San Francisco talk show. (http://www.tuckandpatti.com/song_lear.html)

The other really cool thing about the book is how much diet and nutrition impacted Jenny's boy. The story she tells is nothing short of staggering.

Within TWO WEEKS of starting her son on a gluten-free, casein-free (wheat/dairy) diet, he said his first sentence. He had been able to say single words before the seizures happened at around the age of two. Words like “juice” and “milk” and “mama”. And after doing some testing, they realized that he didn't even know what those words meant; he was just repeating his mother. Like she would say, “You want some juice?” and he would say, “Juice.”

Then he had the MMR shot and had constant seizures. After the vaccine and subsequent seizures, he lost all language (this is a common pattern).

After just two weeks of being on the diet, he came up to his mom, tugged on her leg and said, “Want to go swimming”.

Aside: Another diet story was in the introduction — a doctor with an autistic son said that two weeks after giving him a daily supplement of cod liver oil, he regained eye contact and language.

After she got her son on the GFCF diet, Jenny learned about candida (an overgrowth of yeast in the gut, the same thing BTW that caused my arthritis and allergies when I was in my mid-twenties) which is common among autistic kids. She started him on Diflucan, which is a drug that kills the yeast. After that he went on massive doses of probiotics (they also kill off the yeast).

Jenny believes that her son was born with a weakened immune system, and the vaccines weakened it even more. Because his immune system was so weak (they found a doctor who had it tested and it was weaker than that of an AIDS patient), he continually got sick and had to take antibiotics, which killed off the good bacteria in his gut. The good bacteria is what kills off the yeast. When you don't have enough good bacteria, you get a yeast overgrowth. Which she believes is what causes the autism in many kids. (I agree with her.)

Anyhow, TWO WEEKS after he started on the Diflucan and was excreting massive amounts of yeast, they were watching a show on TV and he laughed at a joke. He had never done this before. Autistic kids don't “get” jokes.

Then he laughed again. This was the moment she knew she had saved her child. This was the first time, she said, that she had ever seen the real him.

Heartbreaking but joyous. I cried. Because she saved him. She loved him more than anything — and most of all she believed. She had faith. She saw, even in the darkness.

What an amazing woman she is. I think she is going to help many, many people with this book. I think every parent and every aspiring parent should read this book. Everyone who is close to someone with an autistic child should read this book.

Anyone going through a tough time and needs a shot of faith should read this book.

Hurrah, Jenny McCarthy! I'm glad you are alive on this planet with us and I'm glad you are brave enough to be you. You are a wonderful spirit.

Vaccines — responsible for the decline of mortality? November 16, 2007

I got chewed out by the pediatrician today for telling her that I wanted to postpone Kate's vaccinations. She lectured me for what felt like an hour (but was probably 10-15 minutes). Then she made me sign a document that basically said that I am choosing not to vaccinate and that recognize all the DANGERS of not vaccinating.

Jeez. What's the big deal anyway? She was so worried that Kate would get whooping cough. She acted like I was beating Kate. I was honestly stunned — because I never said I wasn't going to vaccinate — I just said that I wanted to wait while we did some more research. Why was I made to feel like a child abuser? I'm a good mother!

Look at this: http://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/index.htm#8

They say on this website (http://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/index3.htm) that for diseases other than smallpox, 90% of the decline of mortality occurred BEFORE THE VACCINE WAS INTRODUCED.

Huh? What?

Just look at the graphs on this page: http://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/index.htm#8

The vaccine for whooping cough was introduced in the 1940s — look how low the mortality rate was by then.

What's this about?

They say on this website (and others) that it's SANITATION that is responsible for the decline of morality from diseases like whooping cough and measles and diptheria.

“…the largest historical decrease in morbidity and mortality caused by infectious disease was experienced not with the modern antibiotic and vaccine era, but after the introduction of clean water and effective sewer systems.”[5] (http://www.whale.to/a/bystrianyk3.html)

So WHY does the medical establishment care so much about whether or not we get our children vaccinated? Why are we being harassed by our doctors?

Because the pharmaceutical companies brainwash the doctors into pushing these drugs. Because the pharmaceutical companies want to make money.

We also highly recommend David D. Kirkpatrick's article entitled “Selling Happiness” in the May 15, 2000 issue of New York Magazine. Mr. Kirkpatrick has certainly done his homework and everyone taking a relatively new prescription drug of any kind would be well served by reading this captivating expose of an industry practice that uses “free gifts, dinners, propaganda and research funds” to “capture the minds of doctors”. There can bee little doubt, if any, that an industry that commands an army of 68,000 sales representatives and spends $9 Billion dollars on marketing to its target audience ($12,000 for each doctor in the U.S.), wants (and gets) much more than just name recognition. In fact, many suspect that the degree to which many doctors now fund themselves influenced by this highly questionable practice borders on the unethical. (http://www.vaclib.org/email/marketing.htm)

Here's another article on money/marketing and vaccines: http://vaccineawakening.blogspot.com/2007/11/canadians-follow-gardasil-money-trail.html

Did you know that China had no Autism until 1999 when the DPT vaccine arrived from America? Now they have 1.8 million autistic children.

Isn't that HIGHLY SUSPECT?!

Japan had their first Autistic children appear when vaccines arrived from America after WWII. They quickly learned babies lacking Myelin Sheath, and they realized to wait 2 years. Vaccination very unpopular, so it's all voluntary.

(Both of those quotes are from this site: http://www.trackingvaccinations.com/)

And you must read this: http://www.trackingvaccinations.com/allfiles/about.htm

And here's something about how there are almost no autistic Amish children (most Amish do not vaccinate): http://www.venusproject.com/ethics_in_action/Children_Autism.html

I could keep posting links and quotes for hours. There's so much information out there.

My question is: How can I vaccinate my baby with a good conscience with all of this information out there?

I can't. So I'm not. Until someone shows me data that proves me wrong.

We're talking LOGIC here. Facts. I'll happily do it if someone can show me why I should. If someone can simply show me that the benefits outweigh the risks. I have not yet seen that to be true.