WHAT IS GAPS SYNDROME?

WHAT IS GAPS SYNDROME?  (My notes from the talk…) Kelly the Kitchen Cop

• In children it can be diagnosed as: autism, ADHD/ADD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and the largest group are those with these three: learning, behavior, & social problems.
• Unless something drastic and serious is done to help the above children, they become adults with these problems: more prone to substance abuse (and higher chances of reacting adversely to drugs), depression, obsessive/ compulsive disorder, manic-depressive, and schizophrenia.
• The numbers are growing, and it can maim the lives of not only these children and adults, but of whole families for the rest of their lives. The medical community doesn’t offer any cures; all that is offered is symptomatic treatments.
• In a clinical setting, one feature unites all these problems: they all have digestive problems as well.
• In chidren, digestive issues are usually the first symptom. Sometimes they are severe, but other times they’re not so severe and you only find out later, after talking more about their history, that they have these problems.
• Sometimes GAPS patients have allergies, asthma & eczema (those two usually alternate), thrush, or chronic cystitis (bladder infection) – but have you ever heard of a doctor who would ask them about any digestive problems when they show up with these symptoms?
• Chronic Cystitis: through the urine is how toxins are moved out of our body. If they build up in the blood instead, it causes chronic inflammation and symptoms of cystitis. They test the urine but don’t find an infection, so they don’t know how to help.
• Thrush/yeast overgrowth in the vagina or any sweaty, warm places. A healthy body is populated by beneficial flora that live in harmony with us in the skin, mucus membranes, vagina, bladder, urethra, everywhere in the body. But if you’ve been on a lot of antibiotics, if there are environmental toxins, stress, a bad diet, or all these things, your body flora changes. Good bacteria are gone and it opens the gate for pathogens. The first thing you might see is oftencandida and other yeasts that cause thrush.
• If your body is well equipped, yeast can’t settle in your body and cause harm. If it has already settled and started causing problems, it is an alarm bell that yourimmune system is not working properly. This is the time to make drastic changes.
• Some GAPS children suffer from malnutrition, but may look well nourished. When tested we find multiple nutritional deficiencies. Others look like African children: they are too skinny, with bulging tummies.
• GAPS patients often have colic, bloating/gas (as a colicky baby grows it becomesindigestion and heartburn – in a baby it was called reflux), diarrhea, orconstipation – which is more severe than diarrhea because toxins sit inside there a long time and then get into the bloodstream.
• Feeding difficulties are universally present in these patients. They are finicky eaters. (Siblings of autistic children are almost universally picky eaters, too.) Their bodies learn that food makes them ill so they limit the foods they’ll eat to the very foods that harm them most – sweet, starchy foods, sweet yogurts, bananas. When the toxins absorb they give the brain a pleasure signal, so the brain wants more and they become drug addicts in a way.
• The trouble is that when you tell them about changing the diet, a lot of parents ask, “how do I change my child’s eating habits, they will gag and not eat any of this!” In my GAPS book there is a whole chapter, a structured approach, on how to change a finicky child’s diet gradually – you have to pull them out of the vicious cycle of cravings and dependency. They will fight you every step, but you have to help pull them out. One child lived on crackers and they took them to a dietician who said, “it’s ok, at least he’s eating.” He looked like he was from Ethiopia. After 2 months of following the GAPS diet he was eating everything, but the parents have to be determined and strong.
• In some patients we’ll discover in an x-ray that there is a fecal compaction with over-spill and inflammation, similar to what you see with Crohns or Colitis, due to multiple nutritional deficiencies. This is when the digestive track is blocked with old compacted feces that are literally glued to the gut wall. It is not completely emptied when they go, so the passage is narrow, and then more gets compacted. It becomes so narrow, food can hardly seep through. When the child finally goes to the bathroom it is so painful, they are afraid to go again.
• In our gut (our intestinal tract), there are many beneficial microbes; they have established a symbiotic relationship with our bodies. 90% of all cells in our body are gut flora – we are a shell to hold this massive amount of bacteria – our health depends hugely on the health and status of this mixture of bacteria.
• The gut flora protects it from invaders, maintains the health and integrity of the gut, provides digestion and absorption, vitamin production, detoxification, and a healthy immune system.
• GAPS patients have what’s called Gut Dysbiosis or “leaky gut”.  They have reduced or absent populations of normal gut flora, or healthy bacteria.
• The digestive track all spread out would cover a tennis court, and it’s the perfect place for anything harmful in the environment to settle, yet the good bacteria there chelate (remove) chemicals and toxic metals – if they can’t destroy it, they grab and it take it from the body.
• Two groups of rats were given organic mercury. One group were given a powerful antibiotic, the other group were not. The mercury got into the bloodstream of only about 1% of those without the antibiotic, and 90% of those with the antibiotic. Keep gut flora healthy and strong and it can protect you. (When antibiotics are taken they wipe out bad bacteria AND beneficial bacteria.)
• The government says we should limit our fish consumption due to mercury in the ocean, but yet those who do NOT limit it are in better health (because it promotes healthy gut flora). If you have healthy solid gut flora, it will chelate the mercury and take it out.
• Apart from insuring that food is digested properly, good gut flora also takes part in synthesizing B vitamins – our main source is our gut flora. If someone is pale and pasty it usually can be due to vitamin B deficiencies – no matter how many supplements they take, they are still deficient.
• First thing that has to be done: detoxification. Digestion itself (environmental, etc.)produces dangerous chemicals, nitrates, etc. With beneficial gut flora, the toxins it can’t change are taken out.
• Chemical Chelation can be dramatic and cause regression – it pulls mercury or lead out of storage cells (fatty tissue – the brain & nervous system are mostly fat) – she recommends no chelation because a healthy gut is the better way (chelation pulls out good stuff, too).
• If gut flora is compromised, the body tries to compensate and this results inallergies, asthma, and inappropriate reaction to environmental toxins. Even if you were never allergic before, and then allergies begin, soon they’ll slide down to being allergic to everything.
• 85% of the immune system is located in the gut wall.
• GAPS Patients & Gut Dysbiosis: reduced/absent populations of normal flora,candida species overgrowth, clostridia species, sulphate reducing bacteria (most are deficient in sulfur as it’s necessary to detoxify), viruses (measles, herpes, cmv, etc.)
• A study done in Britain shows clostridia in higher amounts in autistic childrenthan the rest of the population. Antibiotics work, but you can’t be on them forever. Only way to fight it is the natural way – with gut flora.
• Birth Control Pill has a devastating effect on gut health, as well as overuse ofpersonal care products on skin & hair and in the mouth.
• Almost 100% of Moms with GAPS children have abnormal gut flora.
• Most autism begins when nursing stops.
• Vaccinations were developed for healthy children with healthy immune systems, but most are not fit to be vaccinated. She doesn’t feel these are a direct cause with autism, but it seems to have become a “last straw” in these cases where the gut flora is on the tipping point.