Detoxification
for Children with Autism
Dr.
Natasha Campbell-McBride
Copyright
Reserved.
We live in a polluted world. Every day we breath in car fumes and industrial wastes. We eat foods containing pesticides, herbicides and other agricultural chemicals. We drink milk and eat meats from animals, which are routinely given antibiotics, steroids and other drugs. We eat a countless number of various chemicals in processed foods. We use personal care products full of various chemicals, shown to be carcinogenic and generally toxic for the humans. Our modern energy conserving homes and offices have become toxic places. Modern building materials, insulation, paints, domestic cleaning chemicals, fire retardants all outgas toxic substances which we breath day in and day out. For example, chemical analysis on outgassing of common carpets and carpet adhesives in modern homes found in considerable amounts such toxic substances as formaldehyde, toluene, xylene, benzene, methacrylate, tetrachloroethylene, methyl naphthalene, pthalates, styrene. All these chemicals are known toxins for a human and we breath them in ample amounts every time we are at home. Hospitals and shopping centres have even higher amounts of toxic substances in the air, that is why so many people feel so tired and drained after a shopping trip or a long visit to a hospital. And as if all these is not enough, we routinely take prescription drugs, drink alcohol and smoke tobacco.
So, how do we survive?! How do we manage to live our lives, go to work,
have children without just dropping dead after a first breath of traffic jam
air in the morning?!
We survive thanks to a very important system in our bodies. A system
which until recently was not known to even the medical profession – a
DETOXIFICATION SYSTEM. It is a system which is like a cleaner in the body, it
constantly cleans out all the toxins, produced as a result of normal body
metabolism, and toxins arriving from the outside. It has got its headquarters
in the liver and departments in every cell of the body. The sophistication and
complexity of this system is staggering to even most knowledgeable biochemists.
There is a lot we still don’t know about how it works so efficiently. But what
we do know is that this system, in order to function well, has to have a
constant supply of certain nutrients: zinc, magnesium, selenium, molybdenum and
other minerals and trace elements, hundreds of enzymes, many amino-acids and
essential fats – all the substances which our autistic children are deficient
in. Due to these deficiencies the detoxification system can not function at an
optimum level in an autistic child. At the same time this system is overloaded
with work, because autistic children are very toxic children. Imagine a worker,
who is being starved of food and drink, and at the same time is given more and
more work to do. How is he going to cope? He is going to put most of this work
into a backlog, hoping for better times when he would be able to attend to it.
That is exactly what the detoxification system does in an autistic child – it
stores various toxic substances in different tissues in the body in order to
deal with them later. That is why when these children are tested for heavy
metals, petrochemicals and other toxins they always test positive. Unfortunately,
a lot of these chemicals have affinity for fats and therefor get stored in body
fats. A human brain and the rest of the nervous system has a very high
proportion of fats in its tissues and become a storage sight for these toxins.
A brain clogged with toxicity can not develop or function well. We see this
very clearly in autistic children.
But why are autistic children so toxic? Is it because of a polluted
environment? Well, the pollution probably accounts for less than 10% of the
toxic load in an autistic child. The rest comes from within – mainly from the
child’s digestive system.
The parents of autistic children always new that there is a connection
between their child’s autism and a whole host of digestive problems, which these children suffer with. Now the medical
profession has been made aware of it through the research done by Dr. Andrew
Wakefield and his colleagues at the Royal Free Hospital in London. Having done
endoscopies, biopsies and lots of other tests on a group of autistic children they
found a pathology which is now named Autistic Enterocolitis. In the gut of
autistic children they found chronic ongoing inflammation with erosions,
blisters, abscesses filled with pus, degeneration of normal structure of the
gut mucosa and compaction with large amounts of stool and undigested food
particles, which are literary glued to the walls of the bowel. Whatever stool
comes out of these children is an overspill, which seeps through a narrow
channel in the bowel between large masses of compacted faeces. These
compactions provide a wonderful environment for all sorts of parasites, worms,
bacteria, fungi, viruses to thrive in and to produce large amounts of various
toxins, which get absorbed into the bloodstream and distributed around the
body. As a result the child becomes toxic. Our digestive systems are the roots
of our health. A tree with sick roots is not going to thrive, it is likely to
die. A child with sick digestive system is not going to thrive and develop
normally either. The digestive system in an autistic child instead of being a
source of nourishment, as it is supposed to be, becomes a major source of
toxicity. Some of these toxins have been well studied, like the opiates from
misdigested casein and gluten, gliotoxins, immunotoxins and others. But, most
of them we still don’t know much about. We can only guess which ones make our
children autistic. We don’t know how all these toxins interact with each other
in our children’s bodies and what results from these interactions.
So, what do we do? How do we lift off this toxic load from our
children’s bodies to allow them to develop and function properly?
The first and most obvious thing to do is to remove the main source of
toxicity, which means cleaning up and healing the gut. In the previous issues
of The Autism File I have described the
diet and supplementation, which I believe to be appropriate for autistic
children. The major purpose of this nutritional programme is to restore normal
gut flora, which our children do not have. The diet and beneficial bacteria in
a probiotic such as Bio-Kult help to break down and eliminate compacted
putrefaction from the child’s digestive system, re-establish appropriate gut
flora and heal the gut lining. In my clinic there are in excess of a hundred
children on this nutritional programme, doing very well, and hundreds more
who’s parents have followed the advice in my articles without a formal
consultation.
However, removing the major source of toxicity is not enough. What do
we do with all the toxins stored over the years in our children’s bodies? What
do we do with all the heavy metals, which these children test positive for?
In recent years a new treatment has emerged – chelation of heavy metals
with chelating drugs, mainly DMSA and
Alfa-Lypoic Acid. It is a group of drugs initially used in the army for
treating acute exposure to heavy metals and other toxic substances. It is a hot
topic at the moment within the circles of parent groups of autistic children.
There are a number of practitioners, mainly in the USA, who will administer
these drugs to autistic children and who claim that there are benefits from
this treatment. We hear stories from parents who feel that chelation has helped
their child. However, there are number of issues here which a lot of people,
including me, do not feel comfortable about. Chelating drugs are drugs. Like
any drug they come with side effects and complications. These are not benign
substances. I have great concerns at the idea of using these drugs without
direct local medical supervision, let alone without regular blood monitoring.
Let’s have a look at some known problems.
1.
DMSA and other chelating drugs cause dose related bone marrow
suppression, which manifests as neutropenia and thrombocytopenia, which can
affect blood clotting and blood immune response to infections and other toxins.
Children, who are on a chelation programme have to have their blood composition
monitored on a regular basis. In some children this reaction was shown to be
serious enough to discontinue chelation.
2.
Chelating drugs cause an explosion of pathological fungal and bacterial
growth in the gut, probably due to the immune system suppression. That is why
doctors who practice chelation advise their patients to deal with their gut
dysbiosis first before trying to chelate. Anybody who has any experience with
treating gut dysbiosis know how difficult it is to deal with it. Autistic
children have gut dysbiosis as their most basic and primary pathology and with
all the experience in treating it we still can not say whether you can
completely get rid of it.
3.
Apart from taking out heavy metals chelating drugs bind essential
minerals as well and take them out of the body. They chelate zinc, for example,
that is why zinc has to be supplemented in very high doses prior and during
chelation. However, doctors who have an experience with supplementing zinc know
that it has a very complex absorption mechanism, which requires normal stomach
acidity. Autistic children do not have normal stomach acidity, which impairs
absorption of all that supplemented zinc. On top of that we know that autistic
children are already deficient in this
essential mineral quite severely. Apart from zinc, chelating drugs chelate
other essential minerals, which our children are already deficient in, like
magnesium, molybdenum and others. That is why chelation protocols include very
heavy supplementation with a large number of different nutrients.
4.
Children on chelating drugs show high amounts of enzymes called
transaminases in their blood, which is an indication of liver damage,
specifically damage to hepatocytes (liver cells).
5.
Chelating drugs are contraindicated in people with any renal problems
because they have a damaging effect on kidneys. Kidney function as well as
liver function has to be regularly monitored during chelation.
6.
During chelation a long list of side effects are reported by the
parents of autistic children: regression in autistic symptoms, anorexia,
fatigue, irritability, nausea, sleep disturbances, diarrhoea, flatulence,
macular-papular skin rash. In some cases such serious complications were
observed by doctors as Stevens – Johnson Syndrome (severe toxic reaction with
high fever, diarrhoea, polyarthritis, erosive skin rash, myalgia,
pneumonitis; usually treated with
steroid medication ), heamolysis (red blood cells destruction), as mentioned
above serious neutropenia (low count of
blood cells, called neutrophyls, which are involved in immune response) and
thrombocytopenia (low count of thrombocytes, which are blood cells mainly responsible
for blood clotting).
7.
A number of children are reported to be better while taking chelation
drugs, but regress back to the previous state as soon as chelation stops. One
explanation for this phenomenon may be that children just re-accumulate heavy
metals from the environment as soon as the chelation stops, because their own
detox system is unable to deal with these metals.
There is no hard or soft data available yet that chelation really
works, only anecdotal evidence. There are a few studies on the way, which are
trying to assess any improvements from chelation, but the success rate is still
unknown. If children do improve after chelation, we do not know yet to what
extent they improve to justify putting your child through all the risks and side
effects of this treatment, not to mention the expense.
So, what do we do about all these heavy metals and other toxins lurking
in our children’s bodies? We can’t just forget about them. Well, there is a
time proven way of detoxifying, taking out of the body not just heavy metals
but a lot of other poisons without any side effects or harmful complications.
And a very tasty way too. Children love it! This way is JUICING. Thousands of people all over the
world freed themselves from the most deadly diseases with juicing, dozens of
books have been published on this subject full of testimonies and hundreds of
wonderful recipes. Some very big names
in natural medicine strongly advocated juicing and used it actively in treatment
of their patients – people like Dr. Gerson and Dr. Norman Walker for example.
Hundreds of scientific studies have been published on health benefits of fresh
raw fruit and vegetables. Juices provide all the goodness from these fruit and
vegetables in a concentrated form and in large amounts. For example to make a
glass of carrot juice you need a pound of carrots. Nobody can eat a pound of
carrots at once, but you can get all the nutrition from them by drinking the
juice. On top of that juicing removes the fibre, which impairs absorption of many
nutrients in fruit and vegetables. The digestive system has virtually no work
to do in digesting juices, they get absorbed in 20-25 minutes, providing the
body with a concentrated amount of vitamins, minerals, very valuable
phytonutrients, enzymes in a natural form which the body can recognise and
utilise efficiently. With juicing you can consume kilograms of fresh vegetables
and fruit every day in the most digestible and pleasant form. A lot of autistic
children would not eat fresh vegetables and fruit due to their texture.
Drinking juices can solve this problem very efficiently. A lot of autistic
children would not drink enough liquids either. Juices, being so tasty, can
provide a good solution to this problem too. Drinking at least 2 cups of freshly
extracted juice will provide your child with all the essential vitamins,
magnesium, selenium, zinc and other minerals, amino-acids and lots more
nutrients, which autistic children are deficient in. A combination of
pineapple, carrot and a little bit of beetroot in the morning will prepare your
child’s digestive system for the coming meals, stimulate stomach acid
production and pancreatic enzymes production. A mixture of carrot, apple,
celery and beetroot has a wonderful liver cleansing ability. Green juices from
leafy vegetables (spinach, lettuce, parsley, dill, carrot and beet tops) with
some tomato and lemon are a great source of magnesium and iron and good
chelators of heavy metals. Cabbage, apple and celery juice stimulates digestive
enzymes production and is a great kidney cleanser. There is an endless number
of healthy and tasty variations you can make from whatever fruit and vegetables
you have available at home.
What about fibre? Drinking juices doesn’t mean that you stop eating
fresh fruit and vegetables. Your child should carry on eating fruit and
vegetables as usual. Treat the juices like a supplement of concentrated amounts
of nutrients in a glass. They should be taken on an empty stomach 20-25min
before food and 2-2,5 hours after a meal.
But can’t we just buy juices in the shops? The answer is a big NO!.
Juices in the shops have been processed and pasteurised, which destroys all the
enzymes, most vitamins and phytonutrients. They are a source of processed sugar
which will feed abnormal bacteria and fungi in the gut. In freshly extracted
juice the natural sugars are balanced with enzymes, minerals, and other
nutrients which turn them into energy for the child. When you make your juice
at home you know what you put into it, you know that it is fresh without any
contamination and oxidation, and you can have great fun by mixing different
fruit and vegetables together, making different tasty combinations. There is a
large number of books on juicing with wonderful recipes for every health
problem and every occasion. A simple and good introduction to juicing you can
find in a book “Juicing for Health” by Caroline Wheater, £ 6.99 through www.amazon.co.uk .
So, what do you need to start juicing? You need a lot of fresh,
preferably organic fruit and vegetables and a good juicer.
Triturating juicers operate at a slow speed with much less exposure to
air. They have a high nutritional rating because they slowly crush the fruit or
vegetable, ripping open the cell membranes and exposing the nutrients for
extraction. They are more expensive than centrifugal juicers, but extract far
more juice and nutrients.
In my opinion, a very important point in choosing a juicer is how easy
it is to use and how easy it is to assemble, disassemble and clean. If your
juicer is a pain to use and a pain to clean then you probably won’t use it. In
my experience the second group of juicers is the most practical one. They are a
pleasure to use, very easy to assemble and clean. The juicer which we use in
our family is called the Samson Multipurpose Juice Extractor. You can extract
juices from fruit, vegetables and wheat grass with it, make ice-cream and fruit
purees, make noodles and pasta, mince seasonings and pate, grind coffee, nuts
and seeds. My children love making their own juices, mixing different
combinations of fruit and vegetables. It amazes me sometimes what flavours
children will tolerate when they have mixed it themselves.
On a final note it is important to reduce the environmental toxic load
on your child’s detoxification system as much as possible. Try to keep your
house as chemical free as possible by using minimal amounts of domestic
cleaning chemicals, paints, carpet pesticides and other toxic substances. Try
not to use any personal care product on your child. They all contain harmful
chemicals which absorb very efficiently through children’s’ skin loading their
detox system with more work to do. This means no bath and shower soaps and
bubbles, no shampoos. Their hair can be washed in a centuries old folk way with
an egg yolk. Separate an egg yolk from the white and rub on wet hair, rinse and
you will have perfectly clean and shiny hair. Generally children’s’ hair
doesn’t need much washing, particularly short hair. In cases of severe allergy
to eggs or when you can’t do without a shampoo get one from a health company
without a harmful substance, called Sodium Lauryle Sulphate. Most toothpastes
contain this substance as well. You can get some shampoos, toothpastes and
other personal care products without harmful chemicals from a number of
companies:
1.
Green People. Tel: 01444 401444, www.organicguys.com, www.greenpeople.co.uk
2.
Logona UK. Tel: 01986 781782, www.logona.co.uk
3.
Country life. Tel: 020 8614 1411, e-mail: consac@clara.net
4.
Amalgam Blocker Toothpaste. Best care Products, Tel: 01342 410303, www.bestcare-uk.com This one is suitable
for adults and children with amalgam fillings.
5.
Samson Juice Extractor. Tel:
01353 723234
To assist elimination of toxins through skin, give your child a bath
every night before bed. Instead of bath soaps, add a cup of cider vinegar to
the bath, it will help to normalise the pH of the skin and encourage
appropriate skin flora, as well as assisting the detoxification process. On
alternate days add a cup of Epsom Salt
to the bath, which will also assist in the detoxification process. Air your house regularly and let your child
spend as much time as possible in the fresh air.
Washing powders and liquids all stay in
the fabric of your child’s clothes, bedding and towels and also contribute to
the toxic overload. A good solution to this problem appeared on the market
recently, called Eco-balls. These are three plastic balls which you put inside
of your washing machine together with the laundry. They ionise the water and
allow it to wash your clothes without any laundry detergents and fabric
softeners. It sounds too good to be true, but they work very well. You can get
them from Ecozone, phone 020 8662 7200, www.ecozone.co.uk
. When you get Eco-balls, it is a good idea to go through all your
child’s bedding, towels and clothes and wash out accumulated detergents by
putting them through 1 -2 washing cycles with Eco-balls. A similar product can
be obtained from a company, called The Healthy House, www.healthy-house.co.uk
, Tel: 01453 752216.
In conclusion I would like to say that detoxification has to be an essential part in helping an autistic child. Most parents understand that very well and try to do their best. Yet in our desire to help our children we have to keep in mind that for every procedure involving potent drugs there are much safer natural alternatives. It is always worth trying those first. But, if you decide to do chelation make sure that you have local medical supervision with regular blood tests to monitor any changes in blood composition as well as liver and kidney function in your child. You also have to keep in mind that chelation will not address all the toxicity problems in your child. An autistic child has a detoxification system which does not function well because it is starved of nutrition and overloaded with work. To restore and build a strong detoxification system we have to deal with the gut problem, reduce general toxic load and provide good nourishment, which is easy for the body to absorb and assimilate. Juicing can be a very efficient source of nourishment and powerful natural detoxifying substances. A real intensive care for the overtaxed detox system of an autistic child.
Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD
May 2002