Handling Gut Dysbiosis and Leaky Gut Syndrome is an Important Pathway to Better Health

The following entry is based on my notes from a teleconference given by Dr. Bill Hemmer, D.C., a chiropractic physician in Tuscola, Illinois, who happens to know a lot about this subject. This entry is dedicated, in gratitude, to Dr. Hemmer.

“All diseases begin in the gut,” Hippocrates said more than 2000 years ago.

Strictly speaking, this may not be true. It may be that all disease begins with central nervous system dysfunction. There's an area of the brain, for example, called the insular cortex on which is mapped sensory input from different areas of the body, including the gut. For example, if the stomach or intestines become distended, sensory receptors embedded in the walls of these structures communicate such information to the insular cortex. And it is known, for instance that when there is a functional disturbance in this part of the brain, it can lead to an inability to modulate the perception of pain in the gut, contributing to irritable bowel syndrome.

I digress. But it's a digression worth pursuing. The relationship between the brain and the gut as it relates to health is a bit of a chicken-egg conundrum. Does neural dysfunction leading to impaired circulation to the gut cause the gut to be “leaky,” subsequently leading to a cascade of autoimmune-type problems? Or do the autoimmune-type problems that arise due a leaky gut create systemic effects that ultimately affect the function of the brain? Probably both things occur; and from a practical, clinical perspective, to worry too much about such distinctions is sort of silly. 75-80 percent of lymphoid tissue (this is where lymphocytes, key players in the immune system, hang out) resides in and around the digestive tract. No matter what the root cause of disease, it's clear that optimizing gut function is hugely beneficial. When the gut works the way it's supposed to, the immune system doesn't work nearly as hard as when the gut is dysfunctional.

'Tis the Season for Gut Dysbiosis

Dysbiosis refers to an imbalance in the ratio of beneficial to non-beneficial bacteria or flora that inhabit our digestive tracts. During the holiday season, when it's easy to overindulge in rich foods that mess with this balance, dysbiosis is a common result. Our digestive tracts contain 3.5 to 5 pounds of gut flora, which can be separated into 3 different groups:

1. Essential gut flora. The main members of this group are bifidobacteria, lactobacteria, strains of E. Coli, peptostreptococcus, and enterococcus. The composition of your gut flora is specific to you—it's as individual as your fingerprint. This is one reason why some people do really well on a specific probiotic supplement (a source of essential gut flora), and other people don't do so well.
2. Opportunistic gut flora. This include Bacteriods, Peptococci, Staphylococci, Strepococci, Bacilli, Clostridia, Yeasts, Enterobacteria, Fuzobacteria, Eubacteria, Cantenobacteria. All of these microbial agents mutate and become as individual as your fingerprint. In a healthy gut the essential flora keeps these agents under very tight control. In the absence of adequate numbers of essential gut flora, the opportunistic flora cause a lot of the dysbiosis.
3. Transitional Flora. These are typically bacteria from the environment that we take in with foods and beverages. As long as the gut is healthy these organisms don’t cause any problems. However, if there's a change in gut function—especially in the stomach—the transitional flora can cause problems.

The Environment of the Stomach

The stomach's environment is naturally very acidic. It should have a pH of about 2. This is necessary for three reasons—first, to activate the stomach enzymes; second, to digest proteins, fats, and minerals; and third, to kill the bacteria and parasites found in foods. If the environment of the stomach is not acidic enough, you can have problems. In effect, a lack of stomach acid can seed the gut with the opportunistic flora that cause dysbiosis.

Paradoxically, when people experience acid reflux, the root cause typically is not enough stomach acid. The common intervention is to take acid-stopping medication, which typically just exacerbates the problem.

Acid-Stopping Medications: Short-Term Relief, Long Term Problems

In the very short-term, acid stopping medication helps with the symptoms, but over the long term, it can cause real problems.

One problem is that the absence of hydrochloric acid fails to activate the digestive enzyme pepsin, and food starts to rot in the stomach, producing organic acids. This is what you experience when you belch or have acid reflux. Adequate natural acid production is necessary not only to close the lower esophageal sphincter to prevent reflux, but also to allow the pyloric sphincter to open so that food can pass from the stomach into the duodenum (the first part of the small intestine). So, without adequate acid production, you can get slow stomach emptying and bloating combined with reflux.

Another complication with taking acid-stopping medication is that it creates functional changes in the stomach lining that perpetuates dependence upon the medication. The mucosa of the stomach forms a protective barrier between stomach acid and the underlying tissue and smooth muscle. If the stomach's acid production decreases, so does the function of the mucus-secreting columnar epithelial cells. This means that in the presence of an acid, the stomach cannot adequately protect itself—hence the reliance on acid stopping medication.

Yet another complication of acid-stopping medications is that they work by affecting the function of parietal cells of the stomach, which also secrete a substance called intrinsic factor. Intrinsic factor is necessary for the absorption of vitamin B12. Because Vitamin B12 is necessary for the production of red blood cells as well as the proper functioning of nerve cells, a deficiency of this vitamin induced by acid-stopping medication can have serious, adverse affects on one's overall health.

It is possible to wean yourself from acid stopping medications. Doing so involves a regimen of whole food supplementation to rebuild the stomach lining.

The Environment of the Small Intestine

There's a bacterial layer that covers the entire length of the digestive tract, and this layer produces antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal substances which dissolve the membranes of pathogenic bacteria and viruses so that the cells of the immune system can kill the invading microbial agents.

The gut epithelium is estimated to get 60 to 70 % of its energy from healthy bacterial activity. Therefore, if your gut does not have a good bacterial layer, then there is less energy available for the gut epithelium. If there is degradation of gut epithelium, it can lead to leaky gut syndrome, which is covered in more detail below.

The inner surface of the small intestine is lined with projections called villi that are lined with mucus-producing cells called goblet cells as well as enteroendocrine and paneth cells. The enteroendocrine cells produce a variety of hormones that regulate everything from the release of stomach and pancreatic secretions to intestinal motility and contraction of the gallbladder. The paneth cells lysozyme, an antibacterial enzyme whose function, like many of the substances secreted by essential gut flora, is to digest the cell walls of non-beneficial bacterial. The idea is to create a healthy enviroment so nutrients can be absorbed efficiently via hairlike projections called microvilli present on the cells that line the villi.

Major Useful Functions of Essential Gut Flora

Here is a summary of the major useful functions of friendly bacteria found in the gut:

• Producing short-chain fatty acids, which supply a valuable proportion of human energy requirements.
• Producing a number of valuable nutrients notably B-complex vitamins and vitamin K. In fact, the majority of vitamin K is produced by essential bacteria in the gut.
• Participating in the metabolism of drugs, hormones and carcinogens.
• Protecting the host from infection by pathogenic bacteria (through competing for space and production of anti-bacterial substances amongst other methods.)
• Maintaining a healthy intestinal pH.
• Enhancing immune function.

Factors that Disrupt the Balance of Gut Flora

There are a number of factors that can disrupt the balance of organisms in the intestines and lead to overgrowth of the less desirable species. The most important factors are:

1. Antibiotic use 
2. Use of birth control drugs 
3. The use of hormones—especially immunosuppressant drugs such as steroids                    
4. Diet 
5. Alcohol 
6. Stress

How A Deficiency of Essential Gut Flora Contributes to Wheat and Dairy Sensitivities
Milk and wheat proteins are digested in two stages. In the first stage, they are broken apart into peptides by hydrochloric acid in the stomach. However, in the process of breaking down these proteins, some of them are converted into morphine-like substances—casomorphines and glutenomorphines; and these two morphine-like substances move into the small intestine. Here, in the second stage, the small intestine is supposed to break down these morphine-like substances further. But if there's a shortage of essential bacteria to support the cells that line the small intestinal villi, then the morphine-like substances don't get broken down, they make it into the bloodstream, and it can make a person sort of “punch-drunk,” giving them a sleepy, dopey type of feeling after they eat along with bloating.

If babies have a milk or gluten intolerance, for example, they quickly nod off after eating; because they don't have the ability to adequately break down the casomorphines or glutenomorphines, or both. 

The Four Different Types of Gut Dysbiosis and Their Symptoms

The four different types of gut dysbiosis include:

1. Putrefaction dysbiosis
2. Fermentation dysbiosis
3. Deficiency dysbiosis
4. Sensitization dysbiosis

In general, dysbiosis causes fatigue, headaches, and intestinal upsets. It can make it difficult for you to think clearly, and can even contribute to anxiety, depression, or mood swings.

Putrefaction Dysbiosis

Putrefaction dysbiosis is caused by diets high in animal fat and flesh and low in insoluble fiber. This decreases bowel transit time and increases the concentration of bacteriods that kill the healthy flora. This, of course, increases colon cancer risk and, by increasing the number of bacterial enzymes present, it messes with your body's ability to clear hormones. This also produces an excess of ammonia, which has a negative effect on the body's functions in general—but with liver and kidney detoxification specifically. So this is a bad situation. Not only does bowel transit time increase greatly; but the pH of the small intestine is all messed up; you're producing excessive amounts of ammonia ; and your liver and kidneys can't effectively handle the toxic load or clear carcinogens.

The major symptoms of this type of dysbiosis is chronic constipation and bloating with occasional bouts of diarrhea. Flatulence that occurs is...well, putrid.

The way to stop this is to eat less animal fat, increase dietary fiber and take probiotics while also increasing your intake of soluble fiber (prebiotics). The bacteria in your gut use soluble fiber as food. So if you supply the good bacteria—the probiotics—and you also feed it with a prebiotic—soluble fiber—you will create a healthier environment in your gut, and you won't have to take the probiotic for the rest of your life. Standard Process makes a very good product called Prosynbiotic, which has a probiotic and a prebiotic in it.

Often, taking this supplement for two to three months, in conjunction with the appropriate dietary changes, does a lot to handle this problem. Good sources of soluble fiber (prebiotics) include oats and oat bran; dried beans and peas; nuts; barley; flax seed; the flesh of fruits such as apples, pears, plums, and berries; vegetables such as carrots, broccoli, Jerusalem artichokes; sweet potatoes; and psyllium husk, among others.

Fermentation Dysbiosis

This type of dysbiosis is also referred to as Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth or SIBO. The biggest issue is that SIBO is is often indistinguishable from Candidiasis (overgrowth of a fungal yeast). Both types of patients suffer from carbohydrate intolerance, diarrhea, anemia, weight loss (or gain if it's been going on a long time—they'll have toxic issues and retain water), malnutrition, flatulence (typically not putrid as in putrefaction dysbiosis), and abdominal pain.

Differentiating between Candidiasis and SIBO: The Spit Test Procedure

The most common form of dysbiosis is Candidiasis. This is very similar to SIBO and has the exact same symptoms. One way to differentiate between Canidiasis and SIBO is to either rule in or rule out Candidiasis by performing a simple test, called the “Spit Test.”

First thing in the morning, put tap water in a clear glass. Before brushing your teeth or eating anything, generate as much saliva as you can and spit into the glass and see what happens. If there are downward projections from the layer of saliva into the water and little flecks of stuff falling downward, or if everything just sinks to the bottom, chances are you have Candidiasis. The saliva should simple dissipate over the surface of the water.

The Breath Hydrogen Test

If the Candida test is inconclusive, there is a reliable test for SIBO. It’s called the breath hydrogen test. The amount of hydrogen is measured after a sugar solution in given, and an increase in the level of hydrogen indicates a positive test. The reference for this is: www.mybreathtestkit.com

The cost is about $125. If you don't have Candidiasis, and you and your health care provider conclude your problem is bacterial in natural, this one way to find out for sure.

Factors that Encourage Bacterial Overgrowth:

• Decreased stomach acid production. The body's normal production of acid decreases by 30 years of age, and by the time you're 50, it decreases by percent. An astute person who is taking acid-stopping medication will ask, “Then why am I on something that decreases my acid production even further.” This is, of course, a great question. See the discussion above on the environment of the stomach.
• Sluggish bowel motility. This leads to an increased opportunity for fermentation to take place, subsequently leading to bacterial overgrowth.
• Immune deficiency.
• Malnutrition: this is a huge problem, because when people can't afford good food, they eat crap.

How SIBO and Candida Contribute to a Leaky Gut

Any carbohydrate consumed can be fermented by bacteria to produce toxic wastes. Dietary sugars can also be fermented to produce ethanol. With this chronic exposure to toxic waste products and ethanol comes an impairment of intestinal permeabilty, which can easily leads to leaky gut syndrome, allowing larger-than normal proteins as well as bacteria and parasites through the gut into the abdominal cavity.

When someone has an overgrowth of Candida albicans, which is a fungal yeast, it also contributes to impaired intestinal permeability. This is because the Candida creates little tentacle-like projections that burrow through and into the intestinal wall, forming channels that create or exacerbate a leaky gut.

Foods to Avoid in Handling Fermentation Dysbiosis

With fermentation dysbiosis, starch and soluble fiber can exacerbate the abnormal gut ecology. When the small intestine is involved, simple sugars are also not advisable. A diet free of cereal grains and added sugar is recommended.

Patients can tolerate fruits, fats, and starchy vegetables to varying degrees, depending on their situation. It varies by individual. So it's something that you just need to monitor.

One thing that can be tremendously helpful for people with both SIBO and Candida overgrowth is eating carrots, because—despite containing soluble fiber—they contain oligosaccharides that inhibit the binding of enterobacteria onto the mucus that provides a protective covering for the internal surfaces of the intestines.

Deficiency Dysbiosis

Use of antibiotics and low amounts of soluble fiber creates an absolute deficiency of normal gut flora. If you've been on antibiotics once or twice over the last six months to two years, it's unlikely that this would decimate the beneficial gut flora. Chronic antibiotic use, on the other hand, can. But for the most part, if someone has been on a normal course of antibiotics to handle an infection, it's relatively easy to replenish the beneficial gut flora by putting them on a one-to two-month course of a product called ProSynbiotic, a Standard Process supplement I mentioned before. It combines a synergistic blend of four research-supported probiotic strains and two prebiotic fibers to support gut flora and overall intestinal health.

Aside from antibiotic use, it's usually a shortage of soluble fiber in the diet that causes this type of dysbiosis. The shortage of soluble fiber leads to diminished beneficial gut flora, which provide many beneficial functions to aid proper digestion.

Therefore, deficiency dysbiosis is associated with irritable bowel syndrome and food intolerance, because the gut hates undigested food. The bowel becomes irritable, because food is not being digested properly in the stomach and the first part of the small intestine.

Another thing to be aware of is that deficiency and putrefaction dysbiosis are often found together in the same individual. If you have undigested food containing large amounts of animal fat; you're not eating enough soluble fiber; and on top of that, you're somewhat immune challenged due to chronic inflammation from a leaky gut and you're taking antibiotics; chances are high that you have both putrefaction and deficiency dysbiosis.

What's the remedy? Improve stomach digestion, decrease animal fats, increase soluble fiber, and supplement with probiotics.

Sensitization Dysbiosis

This type of dysbiosis occurs when there is an increased immune response to normal gut flora. The abnormal gut flora creates it’s own antibodies to attack normal gut flora. So there's a fight going on in your small intestine when this occurs.

Fermentation and sensitization dysbiosis are often also found in the same individual. With fermentation dysbiosis, there's an increase in toxic wastes and ethanol, and the accompanying SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), or Candida overgrowth, or both, allows increased gut permeability; and the increased gut permeability allows larger-than-normal proteins as well as bacteria, viruses, and parasites to get to places where they ought not be, and the immune system responds accordingly.

Leaky Gut Syndrome

Leaky gut syndrome is essentially an autoimmune problem that manifests when larger-than normal protein particles and harmful bacteria, viruses, and parasites are allowed to cross into the abdominal cavity from the gut. If someone has SIBO, Candida albicans overgrowth, or any combination of putrefaction or fermentation dysbiosis, you have to fix the gut, otherwise you will never handle the autoimmune type problems that occur subsequent to development of a leaky gut.

Great Smoky Mountain lab has a manitol test to check for Leaky gut called the Intestinal Permeability test. This is considered the gold-standard test for gut permeability. You need not necessarily go to the expense of having this test done, however. A good place to start in terms of figuring out what's going on is the test for Candidiasis described earlier. If that's inconclusive, you and your health care practitioner can pretty much tell from symptoms what type of dysbiosis you're dealing with, and you can proceed from there. Actually, as discussed above, the treatment for both Candidiasis and fermentation dysbiosis is very similar. A very popullar treatment is the “Weed and Feed” protocol developed by Australian medical herbalist Kerry Bone. It involves killing off the yeast and the non-beneficial bacteria while taking in probiotics and prebiotics to create a more beneficial environment in the gut.

The bottom line is that anyone with any combination of the forms of dysbiosis and leaky gut needs both soluble and insoluble fiber in their diet. Soluble fiber is food for the good bacteria in your lower small intestine and proximal large intestine and absorbs toxins dumped into the digestive tract from the liver, gallbladder and kidneys. If you don't have enough soluble fiber, then all the toxins can get reabsorbed downstream.

Insoluble fiber has two basic functions:

1. Acting as bulk 
2. Scrubbing the walls of the digestive tract to help prevent buildup of junk and sludge over time. 

You have to be careful with insoluble fiber under some circumstances. If someone has a putrefaction dysbiosis, they have decreased bowel transit time, there's a very good chance they are going to have even more trouble—get even more bound up—if they take insoluble fiber. If, on the other hand, you get some probiotics and soluble fiber into the person, it handles the problem pretty well.

Parasitic Infection of the Large Intestine

Parasitic infection is the next thing to consider if you to have problems that are not resolving. Parasitic infection is more common than you might assume, says Hemmer. “It all comes down to the stomach,” he says. “If you don't have enough acid in your stomach to kill these things, they will pass right through your stomach and small intestine and into the large intestine, where they set up shop.”

Parasitic infection is likely when someone complains of bloating and distension, abdominal pain, and diarrhea—but typically first thing in the morning or right before retiring for the evening (because that's when parasites like to come out to play!). If you do have a parasitic infection, there are some natural remedies that work really well.

How to Conduct a Food Elimination/Food Challenge Diet

Last week, in an email I sent out to my weekly newsletter subscribers titled "Simple Rules for Healthy Eating," I mentioned that there's no one diet that's universally correct for everyone. That's because of food allergies and food sensitivities.

Food allergies manifest as severe physical symptoms such as difficulty breathing or itchy hives. Food sensitivities are far more common. Instead of producing allergic reactions with physical symptoms, food sensitivities provoke inflammatory responses in the body and the brain that provoke mental and behavioral symptoms that can take anywhere from six to 72 hours to appear. Although this is particular concern for parents of children with functional disconnection syndromes such as autism spectrum disorders and attention deficit disorder/hyperactivity disorder (see my blog article titled "Functional Neurology is a Great Alternative to Psychiatric Drugs for Handling Functional Disconnection Syndromes"), anyone can benefit from getting a better handle on his or her food sensitivities.

Symptoms of Food Sensitivity

The gradual appearance of the symptoms can make it hard to discern food sensitivities. However, any of the following symptoms can be caused by food sensitivities (it should be obvious that some are unique to children):

• Irritability and occasional meltdowns
• Inability to focus or concentrate
• Impulsive actions
• Aggressive behavior
• Fatigue
• Bedwetting
• Sleep disturbances, such as bad dreams and frequent awakening
• Learning disabilities
• Hyperactivity

Steps for Conducting an Elimination and Food Challenge Diet

There are three basic options for discovering and eliminating sensitive foods: 1) enlisting the help of a certified nutritionist, 2) having lab tests done, and 3) following an elimination and food challenge diet. This email, of course, explains the third option; and while it takes some effort and discipline, it's free!

STEP1: START A DIET JOURNAL (7-10 DAYS)

Use either a notebook or a formal diet log, which is available in most bookstores, to write down everything you eat for the next 7 to 10 days. At the start, do not change anything in your diet. Simply observe.

Organize the journal by meals and snacks and note the approximate time foods are eaten. Write down everything, because it will help you sort out which foods might be contributing to your food sensitivities. For prepared or processed foods, check the list of ingredients on the box and write them down also if you believe it is necessary.

The other important part of this is writing down all the symptoms you experience—when they happen and for how long.

STEP 2: IDENTIFYING THE SUSPECTED FOOD SENSITIVITIES

Here’s where you get to practice your detective skills! Review the diary and look for patterns. Reactions to problem foods occur anywhere from two hours to three days after they are consumed. Compare the foods eaten to the symptoms observed and see if and how they relate. Use the following list of common food offenders as a guide:

• Anything containing wheat (gluten or gliandin)
• Apples
• All dairy and milk products (casein), including goat milk
• Chocolate
• Tomato
• Corn
• Oranges and all citrus fruits and juices
• Eggs
• Legumes (peas, beans, peanuts, soy)
• Refined sugar
• Baker’s and brewer’s yeast
• Soy

List the foods you suspect could be causing symptoms. If you can’t see a pattern, don’t get frustrated. It’s important to remember that reactions to problem foods can take up to 72 hours to manifest and often don’t produce terribly obvious physical signs.

STEP 3: THE FOOD ELIMINATION PROCESS (4 OR MORE WEEKS)

This step involves eliminating completely from your child’s diet the foods shown in the list above for at least four weeks. Concurrently, you should be taking steps to make your child’s diet healthier in general. Do your best to include the rest of the family in this concurrent effort. It makes sense to do so not only from a health perspective, but also out of solidarity for the child with the functional disconnection syndrome.

This will not be easy. It requires the cooperation of those who help look after your child, such as teachers, relatives, babysitters, etc. If you count on others to look after your child, please have them read this document so that they understand why you are doing this and what’s at stake.

In addition to common food suspects, you must also eliminate:

• Junk food—this includes all fast food, soda pop, candy, etc.
• Processed foods—this includes pressed meets, processed cheeses and cheese spreads, and most packaged fast-to-the-table foods.
• Food additives—this requires careful checking of labels. There are many food additives, and you should familiarize yourself with them. The following website contains an alphabetical list of food additives as well as a glossary of food additive terms:

http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/food-additives

• In general, avoid any ingredients that contain the words agents, enhancer, regulator, gums, and ingredients ending in ant (for example: fumigant, lubricant, humectant, propellant, sequestrant, etc.)
• Other foods—in addition to those listed as common food offenders—detected in step 2 as possible offenders.

It is possible to experience withdrawal symptoms as these foods are eliminated from your diet. These symptoms include the following:

• Irritability
• Depression
• Lethargy
• Difficulty sleeping

If the diet is done correctly, you should see dramatic improvements in general health and behavior within about four weeks. If not, one of the following things has occurred:

• You've cheated and eaten forbidden foods.
• You haven't yet identified all the foods to which you are sensitive.
• You do not have any food sensitivities.
• You may not have designed the elimination diet properly. You may need to do it again and include more foods.

STEP 4: THE FOOD CHALLENGE

Start this step only if the first three steps have resulted in noticeable improvements. The idea here is to reintroduce those foods that you have isolated as suspected food culprits in a controlled way, one at a time (in no particular order). Record which foods you introduce and the results in the food journal.

Here are the guidelines for conducting the food challenge:

• Eat the reintroduced food at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, increasing the amount with each meal.
• Record the quantity of the food eaten and the time at which it was eaten.
• Record all the symptoms you observe, the time they occurred, and for how long.
• At the beginning of each day, make a note in the food journal regarding the quality of your sleep the prior night and general behavior during the day (lethargy, moodiness, stuffy nose, etc.).
• Reintroduce each food for only one day and then remove it again from the diet completely, even if it does not produce any symptoms, until all of the eliminated foods have been tested. Milk should be considered separate from other dairy products.
• Wait three days or until any symptoms are gone for at least 24 hours before reintroducing the next food on the list. Test each food, one-by-one, until all the foods have been evaluated.
• If you become ill with a cold or an infection during this step, suspend the step until after you recover.

STEP 5: DRAWING CONCLUSIONS FROM THE FOOD CHALLENGE

You should have observed that certain symptoms subsided during the elimination diet and returned when a particular food or foods were reintroduced. These are the foods to which you are sensitive, and you should eliminate them from your diet. It is possible that with improved health many of the sensitivities may abate over time. So, you might consider, after a period of time—6 months, one year, whatever—going through the food elimination/food challenge process again.

Functional Neurology is a Great Alternative to Psychiatric Drugs for Handling Functional Disconnection Syndromes

Because of my interest in helping kids with behaviorial and developmental disorders, I was asked by the Oregon Chapter of the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) to make some introductory comments yesterday evening to help kick off Parent's Night at a CCHR exhibit called "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death."  This exhibit is a traveling version of a permanent installation established in 2005 at CCHR International’s headquarters in Los Angeles. The Museum and the Touring Exhibit comprise 14 documentaries, based on interviews with more than 160 experts in the fields of medicine, psychiatry, psychology, law, justice, history, science, education and more. The exhibit's primary concern is the high death rate and abuse in the mental health field.

I was introduced to CCHR about three years ago by friends in Southern, California. I watched a video documentary that had the same title as the exhibit. To put it as politely as possible, the documentary painted an extremely vivid picture of the inglorious history of the psychiatric profession and the shortcomings of its methods of diagnosis and treatment. On the whole, it can leave you with the impression that psychiatrists are, well...evil. The video was hard for me to confront, actually. It messed with my world view. After all, my brother-in-law is a psychiatrist by training; and not only is he not evil, but he's decent and kind and ethical. And I've met other people in the profession who I have also thought to be very decent, well intentioned people.

However, the fact that there are some very decent people out there who happen to be psychiatrists doesn't mean that there aren't flaws in the way that psychiatrists go about diagnosing and treating problems--especially children's problems.

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I have spent the last 17 months studying principles of functional neurology. This discipline makes it possible not only to diagnose problems related to central nervous system dysfunction, but also to devise treatment strategies for their handling without the use of drugs. One of the most promising applications of functional neurology is in the treatment of children diagnosed with what neural scientists refer to as functional disconnection syndromes such as:

• Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• Autism spectrum disorders
• Asperger's syndrome
• Childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD)
• Dyslexia and processing disorders
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)
• Tourette syndrome
• Nonverbal learning disability

What all these childhood behavioral and developmental disorders have in common is an imbalance of electrical activity in the brain, especially between the right and left hemispheres. Because neurons are plastic--or capable of altering their connections based on changes in stimuli received--it is possible to design therapies that rebuild functionally deficient areas of the brain and the neurological pathways that connect them. That, in a nutshell, is the functional neurological approach to treating functional disconnection syndromes.

By contrast, I want to review how I believe these conditions typically get handled. It often starts with a teacher or a school administrator encouraging you to have your child evaluated by a specialist. The specialist is usually a psychologist or a psychiatrist who administers some kind of symptom survey based on diagnostic criteria listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental  Disorders (DSM). Based on subjective interpretation of the survey results, a course of treatment is recommended. In the great majority of cases, the treatment includes psychiatric drugs.

I came across a great passage in the first chapter of Robert Melillo's book, Disconnected Kids, that I want to share with you:

Last year, doctors in the United States wrote an estimated 20 million prescriptions for Ritalin. And this estimate is considered conservative. ADHD is the leading childhood disorder in the world, and Ritalin is the most widely prescribed medication for children. The use of Ritalin increased a staggering 800 percent between 1990 and 1998, even though it has severe side effects and its long-term consequences on the developing mind are still unknown. It is effective in less than 70 percent of cases. The drug is becoming so commonplace it is even being prescribed for children as young as age four.

Melillo's book was published in 2009, so the numbers may actually be higher now. In any case, please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not a fanatical anti-drug crusader. There’s an appropriate time for using drugs therapeutically. It’s just that there’s a toxic burden associated with taking any drug. This is not an opinion, it's a fact; any medical doctor or pharmacist will confirm it. And any responsible medical physician knows that when you prescribe a drug, you have to weigh its clinical efficacy against its potentially harmful side effects. In my opinion, the clinical efficacy of psychiatric drugs is spotty, the severe side effects are very well documented, and the long-term effects on developing young minds are simply not at all well understood.

I have an acquaintance whose child was eventually diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder about five years. Thankfully, he's doing quite well now, but only after being taken off drugs, which transformed him in ways that his mother told me were quite disturbing. I'm hoping that his mom will either make a comment after reading this blog entry or allow me to interview her for a future story.

Drug treatment is so widespread in treating childhood developmental and behavioral disorders due to the widely held but erroneous belief that no cure is possible for these problems. But the problems are, in fact correctable.

They’re correctable, because, as I mentioned earlier, brain cells are plastic--or in other words, capable of altering their connections based on changes in stimuli they receive from the environment. What this means is that if you can safely and objectively evaluate which parts of the brain are functionally deficient--and I know firsthand that it’s possible to do this--then you can design treatment therapies that rebuild the functionally deficient areas and the neurological pathways that connect them, re-balance the brain, and correct the problem.

Dr. Melillo reported in Disconnected Kids that he has data showing successful treatment in about 1,000 children with Functional Disconnection Syndromes. In my own growing practice at Beeson Chiropractic Center in Portland, I've started to have some wins treating kids with these types of challenges.I look forward to having a lot more wins, as well.

The Root Cause of ADHD in Children

I spent a day at Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast this past Labor Day Weekend. I took lots of long walks, enjoying the ocean breeze, the feel of the sand under my feet, and mostly, the sights and sounds of children playing--digging holes, playing catch, running, wrestling, flying kites, riding bikes, and many other activities as well. It occurred to me that it's rather unusual to see kids doing this in their normal day-to-day lives. It takes a trip to beach, I think--away from television, computers, and video games--to get back to the kinds of basic, fundamental activities that are so vital to a child's healthy development.

What a difference a few decades make. When I was growing up in Detroit and Southfield, Michigan in the  1960s and 1970s, I used to spend hours and hours outside. I have fond memories of playing kick the can or capture the flag on warm summer evenings until well past twilight. Summer mornings, before it got too hot, my best friend, Brian Salesin, and I often rode our bikes to the tennis courts on the grounds of the elementary school we attended. Brian, who was already an expert tennis player at the age of eight, taught me how to play well enough not to embarrass myself.

When school was in session, we played floor hockey in gym class and street hockey on the playground version at recess. After school, pickup games of street hockey often lasted for hours. Depending on the season, there were also pickup football, baseball, and basketball games. And if there weren't enough friends available for a pickup game of baseball, for example, no problem; my next door neighbor John could always be persuaded pretty easily to play curb ball. Curb ball is a game with its own intricate rules in which the players take turn smacking a rubber ball against the curb, trying to make hits and score runs.

I'm not just waxing nostalgic here. As I write about these things, they evoke very vivid sense memories. I can still hear the thwack of the rubber ball against the curb. When we played street hockey, we used a hollow plastic puck that was filled with maybe a dozen or so BBs to give it some weight. I can still hear it skittering across the pavement; I can still see the little piece of black electrical tape covering the hole drilled into the puck so that the BBs could be placed inside it; and I can still remember how the chill of the late Autumn air felt against my face and the dexterity of my movements as I moved the puck toward the goal, passed it, or maneuvered to accept a pass from a teammate. There are also olfactory memories I took for granted at the time but that currently surprise me because they evoke the time and place so vividly--anything from the cherry scented pipe tobacco that my father used to smoke to the smells of stuffed cabbage, stew, or roast brisket diffusing through the air from an open kitchen window.

All sensory perceptions are vital to the health of a developing brain. But the sensory perception most critical to healthy brain development is the input the brain gets from sensory receptors embedded within muscles.

For the past 17 months, I've been taking post-graduate courses in functional neurology through the Carrick Institute of Graduate studies. A phrase that is etched permanently in my mind at this point is this: The brain is a receptor-driven system.

As we move through our lives, holding ourselves upright against gravity, sensory receptors called muscle spindle cells monitor the stretch of muscles and provide a constant barrage of electrical stimulation to the brain. The brain's 30 billion neurons requires this input to maintain existing connections and establish new connections among each other. This is the key to survival, development, learning, and adaptation.

When children spend excessive amounts of time watching television and playing video games (in other words providing neural input that completely or mostly bypass normal pathways over which signals from muscle spindle cells travel), it affects the ability to maintain existing connections and establish new ones. Likewise, anything that diminishes the ability to send, receive, and initiate normal cellular responses to such input affects the ability to maintain connections and establish new ones.

Lack of regular play time diminishes stimulation to the developing brain. Injuries during birth can diminish stimulation by inhibiting the motion of the bones and muscles of a child's neck. Anything that negatively affects a pregnant woman's hormone levels and the normal function of her central nervous system can have a negative impact on the brain of the developing fetus. Toxins in the soil, air, and water supply as well as poor nutrition in general can be detrimental to a developing brain. And childhood obesity, which is associated with decreased muscle mass and muscle tone, also results in decreased brain stimulation.

I don't believe it's a coincidence that children's attention spans have grown shorter and classroom discipline more challenging over the past two or three decades as technological innovations and social changes have made us more passive as a society and more susceptible to environmental and emotional stresses. Over this period of time we have seen

• Higher divorce rates
• Increased consumption of processed and fast foods
• Inadequate day care resources available to single mothers or families where both parents work
• Greater numbers of women having children past the age of thirty-five 

Robert Melillo talks about all these influences and more in his excellent book Disconnected Kids. One statistic cited in Dr. Melillo's book that should give you pause: "The average high school graduate will have spent 15,000 to 18,000 hours watching television but only 12,000 hours in school."

The title of Melillo's book speaks to the growing body of evidence from neural science research that attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, as well as many other childhood behavior and developmental disorders, are really just different manifestation of the same basic problem: lack of stimulation to the developing brain leads to imbalances in electrical activity between different parts of the brain. What makes the human species so unique is that our brains are so specialized, with different functions residing in different parts of the brain--often on different sides. But when the various parts of the brain cannot communicate freely, it is, in effect, functionally disconnected and thus cannot integrate its functions properly: thus, you get "disconnected kids."

I encourage anyone with young children to read this book. One of the book's chapters includes a checklist that allows you to identify whether your child has a right brain or a left brain deficiency and the level of severity of the imbalance. Much of the rest of the book from that point on tells you how to go about handling the imbalance. I found it interesting to go through the book from the perspective of what I remember about myself as a child. It was clear to me that although I had some symptoms of disconnection, the endless hours I spent playing outside were a blessing that I had no way of fully appreciating at the time.

In fact, as I grow older and spend more time in front of the computer and less time engaged in physical activity, I notice how much more fragile the state of my central nervous system has become--perhaps in ways that only someone who studies this stuff closely would be aware of--but fragile nonetheless. And that's why I'm turning the computer off now and going out for a run!