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BRAIN - GUT CONNECTION 2

by Medilen Singh

“Attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity and without it (ADHD/ADD), dyspraxia (extreme clumsiness), dyslexia, various behavioral and learning problems, allergies, asthma, eczema all have reached epidemic proportions. But more than that, these seemingly unrelated conditions overlap with each other. After years of working with the children in my clinic, I hardly met one child who presented with just one of the above conditions. Every child has two, three or more of these health problems at once. A large percentage of allergic and asthmatic children are dyspraxia and hyperactive to various degrees.

Many of them have problems with concentration and attention span, which affect their learning ability. There is approximately 50% overlap between dyslexia and dyspraxia and a 30-50% overlap between ADHD and dyslexia. Children who suffer severe eczema in infancy quite often develop autistic features later in life. Autism and ADHD overlap with every one of the above-mentioned conditions. When these children grow up to be teenagers, they become prey to substance abuse. Many are diagnosed with schizophrenia, manic depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders and other psychological and psychiatric problems.

I have yet to meet a child with autism, ADHD/ADD, asthma, eczena, allergies, dyspraxia or dyslexia, who has not got digestive problems”.

-Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride

“Over Spill Syndrome”

In the majority of cases of children with gut and psychological problems, digestive problems start at weaning time or times when breast milk gets replaced with formula milk and other foods get introduced. In many cases a child has colic, vomiting (reflux) or other digestive symptoms in the first year and in the second year they suffer from diarrhea or constipation. In the second year of life is the time when most children with gut problems start developing fussy eating habits, refusing a whole lot of foodstuffs and limiting their diet to a handful of foods, usually starchy and sweet: breakfast cereals, crisps, chips, popcorn, cakes, biscuits, sweets, bananas, bread, rice, and sweet yogurts.
Most children would refuse to have vegetables and fruits ( apart from bananas) meats, fish, and eggs. It is also rare for parents to describe their children’s stool as normal especially in autistic children. Diarrhea and constipation will often alternate and in many cases undigested food is clearly visible in the stool with strong unpleasant smell. Sometimes it will be liquid and frothy that the child cannot hold. Sometimes the stool is very acid and may burn the child’s skin. In many cases the stool has a pale whitish color and floats on the surface, indicating that the child is unable to digest fats.

Often the child would have severe constipation, that he or she will not open the bowel for 5-7days or more which then results in large and painful stool. If this is not corrected, the child can go on and have pronounced flatulence and bloating. If gas is not released, the child can wake up screaming in the night because of the pain.

When an X-ray is taken of the digestive tract, the condition is called “fecal compaction with an over-spill syndrome”.

It means large amounts of old, compacted feces are literally glued to the walls of the digestive tract, where they can stay for many months, providing a fertile rotting environment for all sorts of parasites, bacteria, fungi and viruses to breed and thrive, constantly producing a lot of toxic substances which are absorbed into the bloodstream of the child. In this condition new food, eaten by the child, seeps through a narrow channel between these compacted fecal masses. So, whatever stool comes out of these children is an over-spill, which does not empty the bowel, hence the name – an over-spill syndrome.

AUTISTIC CHILDREN's Main Issue

The main issue of autistic children are enlarged and inflamed lymph nodes in their gut wall, which is a clear sign of a fight with some infection going on there. The second issue of these children is Colitis – inflammation of the colon. Dr Andrew Wakefield, a British anti vaccine physician, has found these in the gut of the autistic children and suspects is somehow connected to MMR vaccines.

The major function of the small intestines is food absorption. However, not much food is absorbed in the part of the ilium which connects to the bowel. The walls of the ilium are packed with large numbers of lymph nodes which are important to fight the infection and a very important part of the immune system.

Their job is:

a. To filter the liquid coming from the ilium and to remove the bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, dead cells ( including cancer cells) and various toxins from it.

b. The production of lymphocytes to fight infection. So when lymph nodes are faced with infection, they produce a lot of lymphocytes to fight the infection. This makes the lymph nodes large and inflamed and painful called lymphoid nodular hyperplasia.

During endoscopies, Dr. Wakefield team found various stages of chronic inflammation in the gut of these children - erosions of the mucous membranes of the colon and intestines, abscesses filled with pus, ulcers and plenty of fecal compaction. In some places the gut wall was so inflamed with such enlargement of the lymph nodes, that it almost obstructed the lumen of the gut.

In some ways this inflammation resembled ulcerative colitis, in some – Crohn’s disease. 

Bring up your children to love eating healthy food from the start. Make sure they have fruits and vegetables daily, as well as eggs, meat and fish.

 

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