To the average person, what goes on in the gut is of no particular interest, that is, of course, until something goes wrong. But in fact, with regard to your health the flora in the gut rank as some of the most vital elements in the body. The gut can be considered as a veritable power house and according to Dr. Natasha Campbell- McBride, writing in her recently published book, ‘Gut and Psychology Syndrome’, it is here that gut flora can not only eliminate toxins but they can also actually manufacture many of the vitamins essential to life.
COLONIES OF MICROBES
Without healthy gut flora the digestive system cannot work efficiently and normal digestion and absorption of food is severely compromised. Huge colonies of microbes live in the digestive system, in fact a healthy adult is said to carry between 1.5 kg and 2 kg of bacteria in the gut. It is a symbiotic relationship in a highly organized micro-world.
The bacteria in the gut play an important part in transporting minerals, vitamins, water, gases and many other nutrients through the gut wall into the bloodstream. Beneficial bacteria in the gut actively synthesise nutrients such as Vitamin K2, pantothenic acid, folic acid, thiamine (vitaminB1), vitamin B2, B3, B6, B12 and various amino acids. People who have abnormal gut flora cannot manufacture these nutrients and inevitably suffer from deficiencies, sometimes quite severe, and become prone to a number of diseases.
MICRO-FLORA IN THE NEW-BORN
Dr. Campbell-McBride explains how the gut of the unborn baby is so immature that it is virtually sterile. It acquires its first micro-flora as it passes down the birth canal and is exposed to liquids in the mother’s vagina. Whatever bacteria, viruses and fungi live there will be passed on to the baby. This is an important first step to introducing the vital micro-flora into the baby’s gut. As well as giving the immune system a boost, the gut flora passed on through a natural delivery may act as a barrier, preventing other, more harmful germs from taking hold. In Caesarian sections, the bacterial communities of infants could come from the first person to handle the baby, perhaps the father. The bacteria most commonly found in C-section babies were from the staphylococcus family of skin germs; although most are harmless, some, including MRSA, can cause severe and potentially fatal infections.
FORESIGHT OF LADY EVE (Founder of the Soil Association)
Way back in 1943, Lady Eve Balfour was well before her time when she reasoned in her book "The Living Soil" very much along the same lines as Dr. Campbel-McBride some seventy years later, "I still lean towards my own hypothesis, more particularly since research has provided evidence that the digestive tract of all mammals is the normal habitat of fungus flora, symbiotic in habit, whose function is not confined to assisting the digestion of cellulose, but is also concerned with making certain vitamins available. If the initial source of fungal infection should prove to be the soil, or even natural raw herbage, one is prompted to wonder whethet the inability to digest coarse, natural food, such as raw salads and wholemeal bread, which is sometime exhibited by modern city dwellers who have subsisted for years on sophisticated, processed and tinned foods, may not be associated in some way with faulty fungal activity brought about through the prolonged absence from their diet of those same natural foods."
DIGESTIVE PROBLEMS AFFECT THE BRAIN
As a neurologist and nutritionist, Dr. Campbell-McBride believes that many of the complaints from which today’s children suffer stem from problems in the digestive system. She observed that in a clinical setting she had yet to meet a child with autism, ADHD/ADD (Attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity), asthma, eczema, allergies, dyspraxia (clumsiness) or dyslexia that did not have digestive abnormalities. She is convinced that a child’s digestive system holds the key to the child’s mental development. Many other conditions such as schizophrenia, depression, eating disorders, manic depression, bi-polar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder all stem from digestive problems which affect the brain. One cannot imagine a psychiatrist ever first investigating a patient’s intestinal problems and yet a renowned Japanese professor, Kazudzo Nishi, has estimated that at least one in ten psychiatric conditions is due to self-intoxication derived from the bowel.
DISEASE BEGINS IN THE GUT
This proposition is by no means new. The French psychiatrist Phillipe Pinel (1745-1828) who was known as the father of modern psychiatry, concluded after working with mental patients for many years, ‘the primary seat of insanity generally is in the region of the stomach and intestines’. Indeed, many hundreds of years earlier, Hippocrates (460-370 BC) observed: ‘All diseases begin in the gut’.
The underlying disorder in the gut can manifest itself in different children with different combinations of symptoms. These children do not fit into any particular diagnostic box, so Dr. Campbell-McBride coined a name for the condition, which has been trademarked, calling it the Gut and Psychology Syndrome, or GAP syndrome for short. Children with GAP syndrome often fall into the gap which she calls the gap in our medical knowledge and as a result they do not receive appropriate treatment.
TOXINS AND MENTAL ILLNESS
When the digestive system of a GAPS person is not working properly it can become a major source of toxicity in the body. An unknown number of various neurotoxins are produced by the abnormal flora in the gut of these people, both children and adults, and these toxins are absorbed through the inflamed and damaged gut wall into the bloodstream and transported to the brain where they cross the blood/brain barrier. This can result in mental illness.
Surgeon Captain T.L.Cleave, in his book ‘The Saccharine Disease’, refers to a paper by Dubos and Schaedler written in 1962 in which they said ‘.…we are inclined to believe that the usual intestinal flora is an expression of man’s total environment, and that its control may turn out to have as profound effects on the well-being of human infants and adults as it has on the growth of mice and of farm animals.’ Cleave pointed out that the part of the total environment involved in this matter is, of course, the diet.
A paper published in the Lancet (November 1981) stated, ‘It is likely that many chemical substances originating in the colon might enter the blood stream and reach the breast. .. it is not unreasonable to suggest that potentially toxic substances derived from the colon have damaging or even carcinogenic effects upon the breast epithelium.’
TREATMENT FOR AUTISM
Autism, one of the GAPS disorders, used to be a rare condition. About, 20 years ago the incidence of autism in western countries used to be about 1 child in 10,000. Now, the UK Department of Health reports that in Great Britain, 1 child in 150 is diagnosed with autism and the same for the USA and Canada, while in Finland the numbers are 1 in 483 and Sweden 1 in 141. These figures and the sudden dramatic increase in autism rule out any suggestion of the disorder being genetic in origin. Dr. Campbell-McBride’s own son was diagnosed as autistic and has now recovered, thanks to her determination to find out what caused the abnormal gut flora and then to painstakingly work out a treatment for this distressing condition for which many doctors believe there is no cure.
Dr. Campbell is convinced that autistic children are in fact born with perfectly normal brains and sensory organs, but because the digestive system is damaged, instead of being a source of nourishment, it becomes a source of toxicity. The pathogenic microbes inside the digestive tract damage the integrity of the gut wall, so that toxins and microbes flood into the bloodstream of the child, and get into the brain. This clogs the brain with toxicity and becomes just a noise in the child’s brain, preventing the brain from performing its normal function of processing sensory information, thus the child cannot learn.
While the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine and other vaccines may not actually cause autism, they may well trigger the disorder when they further challenge an already compromised immune system, as in the case of GAPS children.
Unfortunately, the controversy that was stirred up over the MMR vaccine, covered up the pressure being exerted on the government and medical establishments by the pharmaceutical company that manufactures the vaccine. Dr. Campbell-McBride remarks: "Our children are being used as a market for selling vaccines. The children are vaccinated in our Western world, I'm afraid, not for the sake of saving the child but for the sake of making money… It's an extremely sad and worrying situation."
DAMAGING EFFECTS OF THE ‘PILL’
It is known that bottle-fed babies develop completely different gut flora compared to breast-fed babies. This compromised gut flora in a bottle-fed baby later on predisposes a child to many health problems. Having acquired compromised gut flora from the start, a typical modern mother will probably have had quite a few courses of antibiotics in her childhood for various infections. These antibiotics have a serious damaging effect on gut flora, because they wipe out the beneficial strains of bacteria in the gut. By the time a girl reaches 16 years of age and sometimes even earlier, a typical young woman will start taking the contraceptive pill which she may continue to take for quite a few years before starting a family. It is now understood that contraceptive pills have a devastating effect on the beneficial bacteria in the gut, in fact they can so damage the gut flora that this can lead to eczema, asthma and other allergies in a child born to long term pill takers.
GUT FLORA COMPROMISED BY PROCESSED FOOD
Dr. Campell-McBride explains, ”When the beneficial bacteria get destroyed the opportunists (pathogens) get a special opportunity to grow into large colonies and occupy large areas of the digestive tract. A modern diet of processed and fast foods provide perfect nourishment for these pathogens and that is a typical diet a modern mum had as a child and a young adult. As a result of all these factors a modern mum has seriously compromised gut flora by the time she is ready to have children. The most common health problems in mothers are digestive abnormalities, allergies, auto-immunity, PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome), chronic fatigue, headaches and skin problems. Whatever microbial flora the mother has she passes to her new-born child. And indeed clinical signs of gut dysbiosis (abnormal gut flora) are present in almost 100% of mothers of children with neurological and psychiatric conditions”.
HOPE FOR GAPS SUFFERERS
Despite the ravages done to the digestive system of those who suffer from GAPS, Dr. Campbell-McBride offers a beacon of light to anyone prepared to change their diet and scrupulously follow the regime that she has formulated, first to heal the damaged gut lining and then to re-establish normal gut flora. After all, if she could successfully treat her autistic son, then she has proved that her method really is effective.
Depending on the severity of the illness and the amount of damage already sustained in the gut, an improvement can sometimes be quite dramatic whereas with other victims, especially in the case of autism, progress can be painfully slow. Details of changes in the diet and lists of traditional foods, especially animal fats, that should be included, and those to be avoided are described fully in her book, as well as recipes, simple and easy to prepare designed specially for those who suffer from the GAP syndrome.
Gut and Psychology Syndrome -
Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD, MMedSci (neurology),
Medinform Publishing, Soham, Cambridge. ISBN 0 - 95448520 - 2 - 8