Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS)

[Fran]

'Gut and Psychology Syndrome' is a very interesting book that I'm reading at the moment by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD. MMedSci(Neurology). MMedSci(Nutrition). She is the mother of an autistic child herself and she runs a private clinic in Cambridge, UK treating children with autism.

Her theory is that psychological disorders such as schizophrenia, autism, depression, dipolar disorder, ADHD, ADD, dyslexia, etc are linked to pathogenic gut flora and resulting poor immunity. Sounds totally implausible doesn't it?

I'm writing this from memory, so I'm not going to be as comprehensive as I would like. One simple example is that pathogenic yeast in the gut such as Candida albicans convert gluten from the diet into opiates, which cross the blood-brain barrier, and it is these opiates in the brain that cause the symptoms of schizophrenia. Remove the grains that the yeast feeds on, rid the body of the Candida overgrowth (some resides there naturally), use diet to add normal gut flora and provide the body with the nutrients that it needs and the schizophrenia symptoms go.

She explains her theory of the cause for autism as well, but I'll have to add it later.

Poor gut flora comes from a diet of processed foods, not being breast-fed, contraceptive pill, chronic stress, and is passed via breast-milk to the newborn infant - so if the mother has poor gut flora she passes it on to the baby.

In her clinic she mainly uses diet which is designed to remove pathogenic gut flora, heal a leaky gut which leaks toxins into the body and replace it with healthy flora. There are other factors involved and she doesn't claim that it's an easy or quick 'fix'. She advises removing all processed foods, starchy vegetables such as potatoes and yams, sugar, milk and most dairy products and all grains from the diet. Leaving all meats, fish, some cheeses, live yoghurt, most fruit and vegetables in the diet.

I met her and she did look incredibly healthy herself - I know it sounds cliched - but she glowed from within.

Here's an Amazon.co.uk link to the book if anybody is interested:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gut-Psychology-Syn...a/dp/0954852001

I'm fairly convinced by her theory, but I also know that I want to believe her - because I want these kind of disorders to be curable through diet - so this may be clouding my judgement. As I have gullibly fallen for things like this in the past, I am now a wary sceptic, but she does explain herself well (better than I have done here). I would like to read the papers she quotes at the back and see evidence for the results before I'm completely convinced though.

I'd like to hear what anybody thinks to this? (I'm curious to see people's reactions.) I can give a more comprehensive view of her findings if people want to hear them, particularly on autism, as I know that there are autism posts.

Edited September 12, 2006 by Fran

[Dragonfly]

My gut reaction is that it is crap. When I read in the title "...natural treatment for autism...and schizophrenia" alarm bells start ringing in my head. But as I'm no expert in this field you may safely ignore my opinion...

[Paul Mawdsley]

I have to admit, my first reaction is the same as Dragonfly's. However, I do have a friend who is very much into natural therapies. She has been treating her 8 year old boy with ADHD using diet rather than drugs. There has been quite a remarkable improvement noticed by his teachers who did not know about his changed diet. They have commented on his improved ability to stay still and focus.

Another friend has a 9 year old boy with ADHD who has been on Ridlin. The drug makes it possible for the boy to function in a school environment. A recent change in treatment led to him starting school this year off his meds. He was sent out of the classroom 3 times in the first day for being too distracting to the other kids.

While our own children are young, my wife has been running an in-home daycare and offering a tutoring service. The 9 year old ADHD boy spent the summer in her care and received math and social science tutorials while off meds. She runs an educational daycare. It is very interesting that the boy had no problem focussing and learning under my wife's supervision without meds. The key seems to be working with the child's own motives. As I recall, the school system is not particularly good at working WITH a child's motivations.

Bottom line: there is more than drugs and motivational psychology to the functioning of the brain. Diet does seem to play a role.

Paul

[Dragonfly]

I think the case for ADHD (which is a rather vague disorder) is rather different from that for autism and for schizophrenia. I'm skeptical about claims about the latter two. Claims that a certain medical treatment is the solution for many quite different disorders makes me very suspicious.

[Paul Mawdsley]

I think the case for ADHD (which is a rather vague disorder) is rather different from that for autism and for schizophrenia. I'm skeptical about claims about the latter two. Claims that a certain medical treatment is the solution for many quite different disorders makes me very suspicious.

I agree. Diet may be a contributing variable but I doubt very much that controlling diet will control these disorders. Since links have been made between certain chemical balances and behaviour, its not that much of a stretch to say diet can affect the chemical balances that affect behaviour. I just think there is more going on in the causation of these disorders than simply chemical balances. So I think there should be more to the treatment than changing chemical balances, whether by drugs or diet. Other therapeutic approaches or training should also be integrated-- eg: cognitive, motivational, behavioral, etc.

Paul

Chocolate is not recommended for ADHD but it sure works for me... Cadbury's please.

[clarkems]

I find the theory partially plausible but it does not explain the serious imbalances of serotonin, dopamine, etc. and many other chemicals that are present when patients exhibit schizophenia, etc. The plausibility comes from the studies of the effects of LSD, which in some cases induces a 6 hour simulated form of schizophrenia. LSD was first derived from ergot, a fungus that typically is known to grow on grains such as rye. Some think that it contributed to social events such as mass hysteria in witch burning in the early US and even the French revolution. I'm sure that there may be some merit to this theory and may be the cause or a contributing element of such symptoms in some cases but I think it is peripheral to the root causes (imho).

'Gut and Psychology Syndrome' is a very interesting book that I'm reading at the moment by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD. MMedSci(Neurology). MMedSci(Nutrition). She is the mother of an autistic child herself and she runs a private clinic in Cambridge, UK treating children with autism.

Her theory is that psychological disorders such as schizophrenia, autism, depression, dipolar disorder, ADHD, ADD, dyslexia, etc are linked to pathogenic gut flora and resulting poor immunity. Sounds totally implausible doesn't it?

I'm writing this from memory, so I'm not going to be as comprehensive as I would like. One simple example is that pathogenic yeast in the gut such as Candida albicans convert gluten from the diet into opiates, which cross the blood-brain barrier, and it is these opiates in the brain that cause the symptoms of schizophrenia. Remove the grains that the yeast feeds on, rid the body of the Candida overgrowth (some resides there naturally), use diet to add normal gut flora and provide the body with the nutrients that it needs and the schizophrenia symptoms go.

She explains her theory of the cause for autism as well, but I'll have to add it later.

Poor gut flora comes from a diet of processed foods, not being breast-fed, contraceptive pill, chronic stress, and is passed via breast-milk to the newborn infant - so if the mother has poor gut flora she passes it on to the baby.

In her clinic she mainly uses diet which is designed to remove pathogenic gut flora, heal a leaky gut which leaks toxins into the body and replace it with healthy flora. There are other factors involved and she doesn't claim that it's an easy or quick 'fix'. She advises removing all processed foods, starchy vegetables such as potatoes and yams, sugar, milk and most dairy products and all grains from the diet. Leaving all meats, fish, some cheeses, live yoghurt, most fruit and vegetables in the diet.

I met her and she did look incredibly healthy herself - I know it sounds cliched - but she glowed from within.

Here's an Amazon.co.uk link to the book if anybody is interested:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gut-Psychology-Syn...a/dp/0954852001

I'm fairly convinced by her theory, but I also know that I want to believe her - because I want these kind of disorders to be curable through diet - so this may be clouding my judgement. As I have gullibly fallen for things like this in the past, I am now a wary sceptic, but she does explain herself well (better than I have done here). I would like to read the papers she quotes at the back and see evidence for the results before I'm completely convinced though.

I'd like to hear what anybody thinks to this? (I'm curious to see people's reactions.) I can give a more comprehensive view of her findings if people want to hear them, particularly on autism, as I know that there are autism posts.

[Peri]

I find the theory partially plausible but it does not explain the serious imbalances of serotonin, dopamine, etc. and many other chemicals that are present when patients exhibit schizophenia, etc. The plausibility comes from the studies of the effects of LSD, which in some cases induces a 6 hour simulated form of schizophrenia. LSD was first derived from ergot, a fungus that typically is known to grow on grains such as rye. Some think that it contributed to social events such as mass hysteria in witch burning in the early US and even the French revolution. I'm sure that there may be some merit to this theory and may be the cause or a contributing element of such symptoms in some cases but I think it is peripheral to the root causes (imho).

Fascinating theory. I haven't studied any of this, but as science is able to treat more mental disorders such as depression and bipoler disorder chemically rather than the old-fashioned "talk therapy", I think there may a glimmer of truth to the idea that diet may have something to do with other disorders. In the case of ADD and ADHD, perhaps Ritalin causes too drastic a chemical change than the chemicals one ingests naturally.

[mweiss]

Very interesting point about how the boy functioned well in your daycare environment but not in public school.

One could almost conclude that drugs like Ritalin were created to cover up the evils of the public school system. Ayn Rand's "The Comprachicos" comes to mind when thinking of this.

The human mind has a marvelous propensity toward individualism, and when forced into a collective like school, it rebels. I know. I've been there myself. Public schools have only gotten MUCH worse since then and I can only imagine the horrors of today's public schools.

I do believe that diet can play an important role in ADD. Children have lots of natural energy and when compounded with a sugary diet of processed foods, this exacerbates the condition until it becomes a problem.