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BEHAVIORAL, AFFECTIVE, AND MENTAL DISORDERS IN CHILDREN
DR. DORIS RAPP
Aggression can be due to dust, pollen, molds, foods, and chemicals. Any of these things can turn an absolute angel into a tyrant in seconds. A frequent clue to an allergic reaction is that affected children develop red earlobes, wiggly legs, red cheeks, a red nose, and sometimes a spacey look in the eyes. At times they are very nasty and aggressive, and develop a frightening demonic look in their eyes. They throw out their lower lip and their eyes are half-shut and they look as if they are going to kill you. I've seen this in three-year-old children who eat the wrong food, or if we just put one drop of an allergy extract containing a substance to which they are sensitive in their arm.
We have videotapes of all of these things. However, the insurance companies are very reluctant to pay for this kind of medical care, even though many times specialists in environmental medicine can see patients and relieve symptoms that haven't been helped by all the other medical specialists they have seen before. Insurance companies say environmental medicine is experimental and anecdotal. If we take two hours taking a history and do extensive patient or parent teaching to show them how to figure out answers so they can finally detect what's causing the problem, on a long-term basis, it is time well spent. That individual stands a chance of being well and not needing drugs, medicine, and hospitalization. The insurance companies should be delighted because, in the long run, this approach will save an enormous amount of money, as well as illness and heartache.
Insurance companies are reluctant to pay the environmental specialist, but will very quickly pay the hospital. Every time you go in the hospital it costs around $1000 a day. The total cost for environmental treatment would be much, much less than a week in the hospital.
I have seen a number of children who have been so difficult in school that they have been singled out by the school officials. First, all the usual quieting drugs were tried, and when nothing helped, they were told that they would have to be institutionalized. We have videotapes showing that these same children can be turned around. They act great, until we give them a particular food to eat or skin test them with one drop of an allergy extract solution containing the item that bothers them. Within minutes, they are absolutely uncontrollable. Four people have to hold them down. They are spitting, hitting, kicking, and then we give them the right one drop, the correct dilution of that same substance that caused the problem, and they are right back to normal. This newer, more precise, allergy detection is called provocation/neutralization allergy testing.
I have a number of patients who were going to be institutionalized and who did not need to be. I have seen many other children who were put in classes for the learning disabled because they've been classified as learning disabled or as having conceptual understanding problems and disorders of various sorts. Many times they fall between the cracks. The school doesn't know how to classify them, if, for example, they display "autistic-like" behavior. Some (but certainly not all) of these children have responded beautifully to allergy care. Their grades go up significantly. One child's IQ changed from 57 to 125 in a period of 19 months. Some of the children have been mainstreamed. Many of them can switch from home teaching to school if the parent can pay to have an air purifier put in the school.
BRITTANY: A PATIENT OF DR. HAROLD BUTTRAM
I am Brittany's mother. Just after she was born, when she was about three weeks old, she started having recurring ear infections. She was always going on antibiotics--literally every two weeks--until she was about two years old. At that time a friend introduced us to an allergist in Massachusetts, who put her through allergy testing and treatment. We changed our daughter's diet after finding that there were certain foods to which she was severely allergic, such as chicken, sugar, and dairy.
After a year of allergy therapy, she is doing much better. She is a relatively calm child; she can play nicely by herself and has a very good temperament. She is one of these kids that, if you have to give her an injection, she'll just sit there and maybe giggle. But when she has sugar or chicken, she turns into a little animal. She becomes extremely cranky, gets almost violent. She will want to hit you; she will cling to me and to her father.
We didn't understand what was happening until we started to see a pattern. When we found out she was allergic to these things, we started to understand that her eating these foods was what caused the tantrum-like behavior. Also, her infections completely stopped during the treatment. When she went off of the allergy treatments for a little while, because of our insurance, she immediately got back her ear infections and the other symptoms, even if we just gave her a little bit of these foods.
Before we went to the allergist, I had talked to several doctors. We had gone to the best doctors and to different children's hospitals. Their answers were operations for her ears and medication to help calm her down if necessary. After a while the doctors started to treat me like a neurotic mother, implying that I must be doing something wrong for my child to be doing this. Or else they said she was going through a phase and would grow out of it. That kind of attitude got very frustrating.
This experience has taught me to trust myself. As a mother, you absolutely know your child, and if you feel that the physician you are talking to isn't correct, then you should question it, and go with your gut instinct because chances are, you are right. As a parent, you know your child best. Since we've been working with Dr. Buttram, Brittany is doing much better, staying on the diet and avoiding foods she's sensitive to. The main thing I would say is, "Trust your instincts and keep looking until you find what works for you."
DR. MICHAEL SCHACTER
Attention deficit disorder is the term used to describe children with all kinds of learning problems and hyperactivity. These conditions are frequently improved by cleaning up children's diets and removing fluoride. A lot of these kids are sensitive to fluoride; they get headaches, are hyperactive, have problems with attention, and often they're on fluoride, which is not only in their drinking water, but is also being given to them in pills and fluoride treatments. Some of these kids benefit from coming off fluoride, and some from taking particular vitamins and minerals, such as magnesium.
Homeopathy can also be extremely helpful for these children. I saw one little boy who suffered from recurrent ear infections and was hyperactive. When we gave him the proper homeopathic remedy, got him off sugar, and gave him a little cod liver oil, the pediatricians and specialists who had been following him for his ear infections and asthma were amazed at how beautifully he did; he turned out not to require surgery for his ears, which they had recommended. Also, his attention deficit and concentration span improved.
TIM: A PATIENT OF DR. HAROLD BUTTRAM
I am the mother of Timothy, who is five years old. For five years I had been trying to find out what was wrong with Timothy. It's really been a personal battle. Many people looked at me cross-eyed and said that he is a normal little boy; he is just growing; or he is immature; or it was my fault because I wasn't disciplining him properly; I wasn't stern enough and it was time to introduce corporal punishment. Since Tim was my first child, I had nothing to compare his behavior to and since I was coming out of the corporate world, I didn't really know with whom I could share my doubts and insecurities. I felt very vulnerable exposing myself to other mothers and saying, "I can't do this. What's wrong with my child?"
By the time Tim was three, there were times when I just couldn't stand being a mother. All I did was say no, no, no all the time. He started doing dangerous things to his younger brother, such as pushing him down the basement stairs in a walker. And I thought, "This is not Timothy. He knows that that is not allowed." There was a look in his eye, and I thought, "What has possessed him to do this?" I just knew that something wasn't right and I was told that the reason why he was acting out in this way was because of his new brother, that this was typical, and not to worry, to discipline him as necessary.
When he was four, his schoolteacher said, "I'm having a difficult time with this child. He is extremely bright. He is conceptually aware of wrinkles and God and stars and things like that, but he can't color in the pictures and he doesn't know how to socialize with other children." So I decided that it was time to go to a child behavior specialist who said that when he could sit still, he demonstrated a high IQ. However, they also said he was extremely immature and needed to be observed.
By the time he turned five, his pre-kindergarten teacher said, "He's a problem child and I suspect that he has an attention-deficit disorder, with hyperactive tendencies. I suggest that you get some medical care." We brought him to the hospital and the behavior specialist said that Ritalin would be necessary at this point, along with some counseling.
Based on our family history of chemical dependency, I felt that Ritalin was not a good option. So I started looking for other possibilities. That September, just two weeks after the diagnosis, we had a birthday party, and I served my boy ice cream, chocolate cake, and a glass of milk. And he went totally off the wall. In order to try to control him, I had the children play school because they all loved it. I asked him to recite his ABC's and he stopped at "D." Now he had known the whole alphabet for a year and he just panicked. He looked so scared, absolutely horrified. He said, "Mommy, I don't know what to do. What comes after 'D,' what comes after 'D'?" I knew it was the food, and that from there I needed to find an answer.
I happened to see a program with Doris Rapp on the Phil Donohue Show, and I picked up her book and read it. I gave my son the multiple-elimination diet that she suggested and the results were unbelievable! Even the pediatricians and the other doctors were surprised. In fact, the chief of the pediatric staff, who is also a personal friend, was extremely intrigued, but because of his position in the medical field and the way he was trained, he, at this point, wasn't able to offer me any medical support. But he did support my going to Dr. Buttram until he could learn more himself in this field. So here was the chief of the pediatric staff who was interested but unable to help me.
I've done a lot of reading and now realize that the majority of our MD's have no nutritional background. Now that I have figured out that my son's problem is food allergies as well as allergies to environmental substances such as pollens, it really bothers me that medical doctors don't have this fundamental knowledge of nutrition on which to build. It would have been wonderful if, during those first five years, my doctor had been able to say, "What do you feed your child? Have you noticed a pattern?"
Now, in reviewing the first five years of Timothy's life, I notice a pattern. since he was one, during July and August, he has always been at his worst. There was absolutely no dealing with him. I remember that because it was always before his well check-up, and I was always going to the pediatrician and saying, "I can't deal with this child. What is wrong with him?" And they would say that we would work out some behavior modification rules together. Now I realize he is severely allergic to ragweed, to the grasses, and to dairy and corn. When he came in contact with these substances all at once, it just gave him a full-barrel effect. In the summertime we would eat fresh corn on the cob, and after, as a wonderful treat for the whole family, we'd jump in the car and go the Dairy Queen, with all the ragweed blowing around. Now that was why I was dealing with a monster. As soon as the frost hit, he was much better.
Now, after six months under Dr. Buttram's care, Timothy is a totally changed child. The school system is extremely interested and is keeping a file on him in the clinic, and they're suggesting to other parents that they go this route, because Tim now shows no symptoms of attention-deficit disorder. The kindergarten program he will be entering next year has already tested him and, in their opinion, he is a normal child and shows no evidence of an attention deficit. Plus there is no hyperactivity and has been none for at least four months.
DR. LEANDER ELLIS
Autism is a collection of symptoms usually characterized by a child's inability to use words for language, an absence of eye contact, and an inability to relate to people--or even objects--that well. Little kids don't play with toys; they are in a foggy cocoon of their own.
An infant's brain is sort of like a do-it-yourself kit that has to be built over a period of about 25 years. If you stop him at any point along the way, particularly in the first three years, you are going to have what we call an autistic child. If you stop him substantially beyond that, then you get some attenuation of a child that is on a level that is much higher. If you stop the ones below the age of about three years, they tend to actually regress and lose some of the functions that they have already learned.
I saw a couple of four-and-a-half year olds recently. Their medical history showed that they had ear infections and multiple exposures to antibiotics, and that regression started around 11 months in one instance, and 15 months in the other instance. After we put the one who regressed at 15 months on a milk- and wheat-free diet, with no sugar and no obvious sources of mold or yeast, he began to talk and play with toys, to make eye contact, and relate to other people within two weeks. I put him on a mild anti-fungal and he regressed markedly. His mother cut it down to about a quarter of how much I had given him, which was already a small dose, and in about ten days he brightened up. When he came back five weeks after the first evaluation, he walked in with a little spaghetti machine that he was pushing play dough into and cranking out play dough spaghetti, and he said, "I'm making spaghetti." He acted like a typical child, asking numerous questions of his parents about everything in the place. He had become a toy fanatic. They joined a toy-lending service, to meet his insatiable desire for toys.
The child, who is now about six, is reading, drawing, and can sound out some words. He is still mildly hyperactive because he's reacting to the mold in the air, especially in the spring, but he is markedly improved. We also use nutritional support and his mother has him in an intensive tutoring program.
DR. SIDNEY BAKER
All doctors are taught that if you get the right diagnosis, then you'll know the treatment for that person. My patient Jamie illustrates an essential problem with this belief. He was originally diagnosed as being autistic, and there was relatively little discussion as to the accuracy of that picture in Jamie. He really exhibited the classic symptoms of autism. But to say that, because we know the diagnosis, we know the treatment for all the people in that group, is not a very useful approach. In Jamie, the pattern of biochemical abnormalities was not especially characteristic of all people in that group. Jamie had a subset of problems that may go with that group, including disturbances of digestion (probably a disturbance of the germs that live in his digestive tract, which may be the mediators of the sugar response) and a bunch of other biochemical markers. My approach to treating him was simply to find everything that was out of balance and, keeping an open mind, to say, "Let's measure as many things as are reasonable to do, step by step, and fix the imbalances where they occur."
I don't think that we entirely understand autism, even using this approach. I think that it is the most elusive diagnosis in my medical career, at least in terms of finding the key to it. But when you approach children with these problems with this naive approach, and fix imbalances where you find them, it really works quite well. Part of it means staying away from things that the child is bothered by--either foods to which he is allergic or sugars--and getting things that he seems to have a particular biochemical need for. Early intervention really helps a lot in the future of such children.
JAMIE: A PATIENT OF DR. BAKER
My son Jamie is now three-and-a-half years old. When he was about 15 months old, he began to lose a lot of the qualities seen in normal children. He stopped talking, he stopped interacting, and he stopped making eye contact. All of this began to point toward autism. Prior to that time, he had been very, very healthy and had developed well ahead of his milestones, except for a very long strain of ear infections, which were treated by an equally long strain of antibiotics. Over time, we became more and more concerned about him. At about 18 months, he was diagnosed with severe language delay, meaning that he was not doing anything that the average 18-month-old child does to communicate. Also, he had developed a number of rather bizarre behavioral traits, including spinning and staring at the walls and only playing by himself.
We saw a child psychiatrist in Maryland where we live, who suggested that we did have a very serious problem but that he wasn't sure that it was autism. He wanted us to look into the possibility of allergies and yeast infection. So we found various people to address those issues and Jamie began to improve. As the improvement continued, he began to speak again, after about six months. But the improvement was somewhat limited. He still didn't interact with other children, even though a lot of the bizarre behavior had receded and he had perked up quite a bit.
We were looking for further help with the allergies and the developmental problems because it still seemed as though there was a missing piece. So in April 1992, we went to Princeton to see Dr. Baker. Dr. Baker has very thoroughly investigated Jamie's biochemistry and provided treatment and a lot of suggestions and support. Jamie experienced another big jump forward to the point that now his allergies are of relatively little concern, his development is almost on track, (about six to eight months behind), and his behavior and his speech are vastly improved. In the fall, he will go to a normal nursery school, although the children will be six to eight months younger than he is. Aside from this, he will be back on track.
We realize that we are able to turn his symptoms on and off by simply modifying his diet, so we try to be careful with what we feed him. Sugar is the biggest offender. He can take it in very small amounts periodically. But if he gets too much of it, it is like shooting a rubber band across the room. He just flies around the house, becomes totally unreasonable, somewhat destructive, and very aggressive. He also becomes overly emotional. He realizes that we are going to try to discipline him for acting out, even though he is aware that his behavior is not really within his control. So I think he feels unjustly persecuted when he is punished.
Dr. Michael Schacter
There is some really good research, especially in France, that shows that magnesium and B6 will help considerably--though not cure--autism, much more than some of the drugs that are commonly used, and with fewer side effects. Up to 10 or 12 double-blind, placebo-controlled studies have shown that magnesium and B6 are helpful. I'm working with one young man now who's autistic, and we seem to have run up against some interactions with some of the drugs that he was on (including Indoral and Haldol). But the controlled studies indicate that autism can be helped with magnesium and B6. DMG, dimethylglycine, also seems to be helpful, not only with autism but with reducing aggressive behavior.
DR. HAROLD BUTTRAM
If you spend an hour in a room with a full-blown hyperactive child, you will never forget it. These kids are literally off the wall. They are constantly moving, as they are incapable of spending concentrated attention on any given task, even playing. They're irritable and very often aggressive and hostile. Doris Rapp has shown pictures of some of these children biting their mothers, trying to destroy toys, and this sort of thing. These are extremely disturbed children.
Parents often use the term Jekyll-and-Hyde to describe their children. When they're doing well they may be sweet and lovable little children. Then, if they eat something to which they're allergic, very often a junk food, you get the Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation. They become ugly and belligerent.
What actually happens here is the cerebral cortex, the higher center of the brain, literally shuts down and gets thrown back to the more primitive centers. There is a center at the base of the brain, for instance, that has been shown to be a center for anger. What stimulates this center? Chemicals.
Environmental Chemicals and Drastic Increases in Behavior Disorders
It is important to point out that there has been a drastic increase in behavioral disorders in children since World War II. Doctor William Crook, a retired pediatrician from Jackson, Tennessee, commented in a talk that when he went into practice as a pediatrician in the early 1950s he never saw a hyperactive child. I think people of my generation--I went to school in the 30s--in thinking back don't remember seeing a child with the hyperactive syndrome. If they were there, I would certainly remember.
It is really an ominous situation. I talked with a psychologist consultant for our school district not long ago and mentioned this subject. She stated that she has noticed among children increasing evidence of autistic tendencies. This is something that she has never really seen before. Thinking it might possibly be just local to this area, she called other school districts and found they were observing the same thing.
What has happened in the past 50 years that has brought about this increase in behavior disorders? According to published reports, before World War II, less than one billion pounds a year of organic chemicals were produced in the United States. By 1963, it has increased to 163 billion pounds per year. This figure is now somewhere around 250 billion pounds per year.
According to an official publication, approximately 70,000 chemical compounds are now in commercial use, with the exception of pharmaceuticals. Of these, only about 10 percent have had any testing at all for neurotoxicity. Among this 10 percent, only a handful have had thorough testing.
Another study I want to bring up was performed on residents of North Carolina, North Dakota, and New Jersey. The investigation assayed the chemicals in indoor air, drinking water, and exhaled breath of 400 subjects. Ten volatile chemicals were found to be present in the exhaled breaths of most patients. These chemicals are therefore extremely prevalent.
Organic volatile chemicals are lipid or fatty soluble. Therefore, they have an affinity for the fatty or lipid tissues of the body. The brain is a primary target because it consists largely of lipid or fatty tissues. It is also a target because of its rich blood supply.
The primary symptoms of volatile organic compounds are therefore cerebral. They include headaches, dizziness, difficulty with concentration, memory lapses, feelings of fogginess or spaciness, drowsiness, and fatigue.
It's important to point out that, in your standard text of neurotoxicology, one of the earliest signs of chemical toxicity is that of behavioral changes. Therefore, I think there are very good reasons for tying this in with the epidemic we're having of behavioral problems such as attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity. It is largely tied in with the massive increase of environmental chemicals to which these children are exposed.
A combination of subtle brain damage from environmental chemicals, nutritional deficiencies, a crippling of the detoxification systems of the body, food allergies, and an overgrowth of candida in the system produces a very sick child. The manifestation of this will be a crippled immune system. This means the child will have more allergies. He will be sick a lot of the time and on antibiotics. The brain function cannot possibly be normal; it would be a miracle if it were. The hyperactivity, attention deficit, and behavioral problems, in my opinion, are all actually a continued spectrum of the same thing.
Chemical Culprits
Environmental chemicals fall into two general categories. One consists of toxic heavy metals, of which lead, of course, is the most well-known. This category would also include mercury, cadmium, aluminum, and others. Our concern here is more with the volatile organic compounds, which are made up of carbon molecules. The commercial uses of volatile compounds break down into three major classes:
Formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is present in many, many commercial products. It is present in new homes in the building materials, paneling, floors, and ceilings made of plywood or particle board. It's also present in the carpets, fixtures, and furnishings.
The bad thing about formaldehyde in a building is that it is very slow to dissipate. Its half-life may be six, seven, or even ten years. It takes this long before it is dissipated to the point at which the building is safe to live in.
Formaldehyde is also used in fabrics and is found in many forms of clothes.
Organic Solvents. Organic solvents are present in hundreds, if not thousands, of forms. They are commonly used in commercial products, in things we use all the time at home. They're found in perfumes made from synthetic musks, for instance, and in caulking, paint, varnishes, and cleaning solutions, which are often very toxic.
Pesticides. This last category may be the most dangerous of all. Pesticides are used, of course, to exterminate in homes or out of doors. If you live in a farm or orchard area you may be subject to pesticide drifts. There are also often significant residues in foods, especially in foods imported from countries where there is no regulation in the use of pesticides.
Treatment
The pioneers in this field used to be called clinical ecologists, but they've now changed their name to the American Academy of Environmental Medicine. These are the people who have really broken the ground in this area. They're leagues and leagues ahead of the more conventional people, and they've set the standards for several of the following approaches to treatment we now take:
Education. First, we educate parents on how to avoid chemicals. For virtually all of them this is a first, because nobody has ever talked to them about these things before.
Identifying and eliminating poisons in the home is not usually that difficult. We take a history of the home environment in regard to the building of the home and other possible sources of chemical exposure to the child. We teach parents how to reduce exposure to the more toxic chemicals, such as formaldehyde and volatile sprays.
The problems that arise are usually in conjunction with the school. If you have a cooperative administration, usually the problems can be solved. But from what I have seen, school is often a major source of difficulty because the school staff and the administration don't usually recognize the potential hazards to children of chemical exposure.
Nutrition. We do nutritional counseling in which we emphasize just plain simple food without chemicals. I detest the term "health foods" because it's so misleading. I think "plain foods" is a better term.
I ask parents, who are now in their 30s and 40s, to think back about how their grandparents ate two generations ago. In many instances it wasn't ideal, but it was vastly superior to the way people eat today. It was mostly plain, unadulterated food.
So the prime emphasis in diet is the avoidance of chemicals. I attended a meeting in Dallas one time where William Rea was the speaker. He is certainly one of the most highly respected men today in the field of environmental medicine. Dr. Rea said that it's secondary whether a person is a vegetarian or a meat eater. What is far more important today is the avoidance of chemicals--both chemical additives and residual chemicals.
In our area there are new markets called Fresh Fields that specialize in organic foods. If you're fortunate enough to live near one of these markets you can shop there, especially for organic fresh fruits and vegetables.
Doctor's Data has some very good studies showing that organically grown food compared to market food has significantly higher levels of nutrient minerals and lower levels of toxic metals. Eating organic food, then, may be the most important thing of all. Beyond that, you need to focus on balanced nutrition.
For children I think it is imperative to get organic fruits and fruit juices even if you can't do anything more than this. From the figures I've seen, fruit and fruit juice tend to be more highly contaminated with pesticide residues than other classes of foods. Children eat more fruit and drink by far more fruit juice than adults. From this source alone, they could very easily ingest toxic levels of pesticide residues.
There was a book published recently called Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children, sponsored by the highly prestigious National Research Council, which is one of the highest government scientific advisory boards. This book, although scientifically written, really raised Cain with our present screening processes for pesticides and didn't mince any words about it either. It claimed that the uncontrolled exposure of our children to these pesticide residues is highly prevalent.
Nutritional Supplements. For practically all children we recommend a high-quality hypoallergenic multiple vitamin. We use one by Clear Labs, which makes vitamins separate from minerals. We don't recommend giving large doses.
The other thing we use is a high-quality flaxseed oil. This provides the essential fatty acids for the development of the brain, nervous system, and cell membranes.
We offer other nutritional supplements in special situations. When candida is present from antibiotic overuse, lactobacillus acidophilus and bifidus are given. When lead and other toxic heavy metals are found, we add a very simple detoxification component to the program, which includes vitamin C and garlic. Garlic is added because it is high in the sulfhydryl amino acids.
We emphasize nutrient minerals such as calcium and zinc since we know that these minerals can replace the toxic metals in the body.
We particularly recommend beans and lentils, which are also high in sulfhydryl amino acids, because of their detoxification potential. The sulfur in these amino acids actually binds with the lead or other toxic heavy metals and helps to carry them out of the body.
Food Allergy Testing
Most of these children are allergic to certain foods and some of their major symptom complexes can be related to this. We can approach this either through elimination diets or else, as we very commonly do, by skin testing. We find neutralizaing doses and treat with sublingual drops. Whis can work very well. When it does work you have some very grateful parents.
JOAN, MOTHER OF MARIA, ONE OF DR. HELEN SCHLEAGLE'S PATIENTS
My daughter has been helped in a dramatic way by alternative medical approaches. A couple of months ago, my daughter, Maria, became wildly out of control. She's only nine years old, but she was going out at five and six o'clock in the morning to shop with homeless people. She would go into violent rages and would sleep only about four or five hours a night. Finally, I couldn't keep her home any more and so I put her into a psychiatric hospital where they determined that she was suffering from manic depression. They started her on lithium but she wasn't herself; she wasn't conversational the way she usually is, and she was still depressed. She had elevated liver and enzymes which, at the hospital, they failed to follow up on. She also had elevated levels of thyroid hormone, which they also failed to follow up on. After three weeks in the hospital, she had calmed down somewhat, and I was able to take her home. She still wasn't well.
I had been consulting with Dr. Schleagle while Maria was in the hospital because I have the utmost respect for her and knew that if anyone could figure this out, she could. As soon as my daughter came out of the hospital, she had several blood tests done, which showed she had antibodies against her thyroid and that her thyroid levels were fluctuating up and down. Also, she had probably had some sort of liver virus that had precipitated this auto-immune reaction in her thyroid. Dr. Schleagle prescribed amino acids, B vitamins, and several other vitamins, as well as a homeopathic cortisone and baby aspirin to help shrink the swelling of her thyroid.
On the second day of her taking the aspirin and the homeopathic cortisone, her behavior became completely normal. It was a miracle. For close to a month and a half, my daughter had been completely out of control, unable to have a conversation, just going from being hysterical to being quiet. I was so terrified. It was as if I had lost her. And on the second day of the medication, she began to be able to hold conversations; she was completely normal--like herself again. I know that had I not gone to Dr. Schleagle, she would have continued on lithium and been somewhat controllable, but not herself.
Dr. Schleagle also found that she was highly allergic. My daughter had very allergic reactions to various foods that she was eating on a regular basis. It was clear that her problem had been her immune system and not a psychiatric disorder, which never would have been taken care of had she just stuck with traditional medical doctors, even though she was being seen by some of the best in the country. So thanks to Dr. Schleagle and the alternative medical field in general, I have my daughter back.
DR.LENDEN SMITH
Today there are more children who are chronically depressed than there were in the past. Our chemistry seems to indicate that chemical deficiencies are involved, e.g., magnesium deficiencies.
Dr. Kitkowski has spent a lot of time studying the function of electrolytes in the human body. He figured out that we all need the right amount of electrolytes to act as a buffering capacity for the blood. The electrolytes--sodium, potassium, bicarbonate, chloride, a little bit of sulfur, a little bit of magnesium, and some calcium--are all the things that become electrically active when they are dissolved. Electrolytes have to do with controlling the pH, the acid/base balance, which controls what the minerals are doing, which brings us back to magnesium levels.
I think that all the artificial chemicals that are in our environment and food are simply creating a toxic overload on children. It's not just lead, but all the things that we are inhaling and eating, that are in our water, and all the things that are both in our food and removed from our food. All these things are having an effect on our children.
For example, I've seen classes of 25 or 30 children sitting there, restless, shuffling their feet, and I ask, "How many of you have headaches once or twice a week?" and every hand goes up. I look around and see this sea of pale faces with circles under their eyes, as if they had just been hit in the stomach. I ask them what they had for breakfast, and while they all said that they had eaten breakfast, it turns out to have been a donut or other cake or pastry because there was no time to fix them a decent meal. Or, if the parents did have time to fix them a decent meal, they wouldn't eat it anyway because they can get some candy on the way to school.
I used to speak at the Reading Teachers Association meeting in California every year. Three thousand reading teachers would get together and have a meeting to decide what textbooks and what reading method they would use. They always had their meeting the first week in November because they all knew they couldn't teach any of the kids until all the Halloween candy had been eaten. The kids were just...gone! So the teachers certainly know about children's poor eating habits.
Steven Shoenteller, a sociology professor at the Department of Justice in California, did an experiment from 1979 to 1984 with almost a million New York City school kids. The kids were given breakfast and lunch, without sugar, color, or flavor additives. Over a period of five years, the achievement scores of the children went up significantly--without a change in the teaching methods. Only the diet had been changed. The kids who were getting the best grades at the end of those five years were the kids who were eating the school foods, so the researchers knew they could have a positive impact with diet. Obviously diet isn't the whole answer to educational problems, but it's a start.
DR. HAROLD BUTTRAM
It is a known fact that pesticides are toxic to the nervous system. Most of our knowledge in this area comes from reports on occupational exposures in adults. What is not known--and all the texts say this--is how toxic the continual low-dose exposures are that are commonly incurred from the environment, nor how toxic they are to children. The evidence suggests that there is sufficient toxicity, such as residual pesticides in foods, air, and water, and in homes and yards, to cause neurotoxic damage--particularly to children or to the fetus during pregnancy.
All the scientific literature emphasizes that the fetus and young children are much more vulnerable to toxic chemicals than adults are. And yet the government standards for limitations of pesticides are set by adult standards, which do not take into account the heightened susceptibility of children.
In order to assess the damage caused by pesticides and other toxic chemicals to the nervous and immune systems in children, you should read Neurotoxicity: Identifying and Controlling Poisons of the Nervous System, a government publication that every educated person, in fact, should read. It points out that behavioral problems are one of the earliest signs of chemical toxicity, which is what we are seeing in children today. In fact, researchers in the field of chemical toxicity are extremely concerned about the impact of environmental chemicals on children.
ALISON: A PATIENT OF DOCTOR BUTTRAM
As Alison's mother, I can honestly say that Alison was born crying. She cried for the first two years of her life. I took her to a clinic at the time and found out she was allergic to corn, wheat, and bananas, which caused her to cry every day, all day long. I took her off those foods, and she became a normal, happy two-year-old. She did well for quite a while until she got a problem with a vitamin deficiency, which caused her to be uncontrollable. I couldn't do anything with her. If I wanted her to get dressed she would scream, rant, and rave. It would take me three hours just to get her dressed. After reading an article on vitamins, I put her on vitamin supplements. That's when we realized that she hadn't smiled in six months. Then she was fine again, until two years ago, when she started to scream at me all the time, day in and day out, no matter what I wanted her to do, over absolutely nothing. She would scream at me that her shoes were wrong, her hair was wrong. It would take me all day long just to get her into the shower. At this point she was ten years old. She should have been bathing on her own. I would go pick her up at school and when she was 70 feet away from me, she would scream, "Mom, you are early!" And she would go on and on about why I was early. The next day she'd look at me and she'd scream, "Mom, you are late!" And she would scream the whole way home, until she went up to her room and I would go off somewhere else to get away from her. She got worse and worse all summer, and in the fall, almost two years ago, I took her to Dr. Buttram.
Dr. Buttram diagnosed my daughter as having food allergies: to corn, potatoes, chicken, egg yolks, rice, and chocolate. They put her on these sublingual drops and now I have my normal, happy daughter back again. It was just a dramatic change. She had become extremely difficult to live with. She would just scream at me about the most ridiculous things. Nothing was ever right. If she got out of bed--Why didn't I wake her up?--Why didn't I let her sleep?--And she would shriek at the top of her lungs. Some days were worse than others. Now I know that on the days she had a combination of foods or a lot of the foods she was allergic to that she was at her worst. The way that I figured out it was food again was because every once in awhile we would have a great day or two and every once in awhile her diet just happened to not include these things. Then she would be fine. But the next day she'd be right back again with the behavior--totally out of control for long periods of time.
When my mother found out about Alison's behavior, she told me that I myself had been an absolutely horrendous child. Now that Alison had been diagnosed, she understood that I had had food allergies. Now I understand that children's behavior problems are not always due to what the parent is doing with the child, as far as discipline is concerned. I've had a lot of children; I've been a foster parent for years. When Alison first started this behavior I tried everything in the book and nothing worked. And the thing that told me that something was controlling her, instead of her doing this, was the fact that we would have good days. And it didn't matter what we were doing on a bad day. If I would sit and play with her all day long, and it was a bad day, we would have a bad day. And discipline meant absolutely nothing, because something was controlling Alison. It was a chemical imbalance in her brain that was controlling her because she had absolutely no control over what she did. It was like the food was controlling her. I related it to the behavior of a manic-depressive or a paranoid schizophrenic who has no control over what they are doing.
Now, when I go to the shopping mall, I see kids who I know have food allergies by the way they are crying. My husband used to say I was crazy, but when Alison was two years old and she would cry, I could tell if it was a food-allergy cry or a two-year-old cry by the sound of her voice. It was a different kind of crying. I have friends who complain about their kids constantly and one child in particular I know has food allergies. And the mother will not take him in to be tested. She'd rather complain about it. The biggest obstacle I see to helping children with behavior problems caused by allergies is making parents understand that there is an alternative. You don't have to live like this. You have to ask yourself, do you really want your child to live like this?
I feel bad that Alison was so miserable for so long. There are hundreds of kids out there that are this miserable. There are kids in learning disability classes and the parents just don't look any further than their nose. Some parents do make an effort and take their kids to standard allergists who test them, but they may not be able to locate the problem. A friend of mine did take her child to a regular allergist who tested him for all the standard things and said he was fine. But he never tested him for half the things to which Alison is allergic and the doctor never questioned the mother about the child's diet.
DR. DORIS RAPP
When people think of child allergies they think of hay fever, asthma, eczema, and hives. But there are many other areas of the body that can be affected by allergies. For example, allergies can cause headaches or stomachaches; they can affect the bladder, causing your child to wet the bed or to have to run to get to the toilet in time. Allergies can cause leg aches, muscle aches, joint aches, sleep problems, and behavior and learning problems. Some children will become tense, nervous, and irritable. Others will become withdrawn and untouchable, hiding in corners and pulling away when you go to touch them. Others will become very hyperactive and aggressive, but more often they will bite, hit, scream, and do all kinds of nasty things.
Most allergists--including myself for my first 18 years in practice--would not recognize this host of physical and emotional symptoms as having been caused by allergies. But I now recognize that dust, molds, pollens, foods, and chemicals can affect almost any area of the body and can cause all of the problems mentioned above in some individuals.
Now it would be going too far to suspect that every time a child has a headache it's an allergic reaction, or that every time an adult has a bellyache that it is due to food sensitivity. But this diagnosis is never even considered and is therefore missed too many times. People will have headaches for years and never once ask if there is some underlying reason for the headache.
Environmental medicine wants patients to start to take more command of their health. We want you to pay attention to how you feel. If you don't feel well, or you suddenly can't think correctly; if you're confused, or unusually irritable, or emotionally volatile; if you cry or become upset or angry for no reason; you have to start to ask, "Why am I having this reaction now? What did I eat, touch, or smell?" Our whole society is geared to go to the medicine cabinet for a painkiller or an antihistamine when we should be geared to a pencil and paper to record what could be causing this problem at this time.
After we have educated the parents, they often come in to see us knowing exactly what is causing their child's problems. They can tell if it's something inside or outside the house, if it's a food or a chemical. They can pinpoint the cause.
Basically, why would a child have allergies or environmental illness? One of the main reasons is that their immune system is not up to par. If the immune system is inadequate, we can develop allergies and environmental illness. One way to strengthen the immune system so that your child is less prone to environmental illness or allergy is by using various nutrients. One book that's a helpful resource, Super Immunity in Kids, says, basically: If you take the correct nutrients in the correct amounts, you can strengthen the immune system so that you are less apt to become ill from natural things such as pollen, dust, and mold exposures. You will also be less apt to become ill from exposure to infections.
Now how can a parent tell if their child's learning problems are related to environmental factors? Think back. Does your child say, "When I go to school in the morning I feel great!"? Or does he say, "I feel great when I leave the house and by the time I get to school I don't feel right"? Or does he say, "I feel nervous, or tired, or irritable, or I have a headache"? If that happens, you have to think, it might be the fumes in the school bus, or what he ate for breakfast, or what he uses to brush his teeth, or the soap that he uses. You've got to think of everything that he came in contact with before he got to the bus, and then what happened when he was on the bus.
One way for parents to figure out what's causing the problem is to drive the child to school. If you find he can eat, bathe, wash, and do everything else in the usual manner in the morning and you drive him to school and he's fine, then it's probably the bus that is causing problems. And you can check back and forth a couple of times and try to confirm or negate your suspicions. Now, children who are sensitive to things in the school will frequently notice that their headache starts within an hour. And the headaches frequently become more intense during the day. By Friday afternoon, the headache will be much more intense than it was on Monday morning or on Sunday night. At first the headaches may disappear one to four hours after your child leaves school, but later on, if there are too many exposures during the week, you may notice that they don't get better at night and that it might take a whole weekend.
Another clue that certain exposures are making your child feel worse is when your child can smell everything before anybody else. She smells natural gas, or smells that perfume across the room, or she can smell food cooking before anybody else. She can smell disinfectants. If these odors bother your child and she can perceive them faster than anybody else, it means that she is probably becoming sensitized to the abundance of chemicals that we have now managed to put in our food, water, clothing, homes, schools, and workplaces.
What else so you notice if a child is sensitive to something in school? The child may get an A one day, and an F the next day in the same subject. It isn't that your child lost brain calls within 24 hours, but it does indicate to me that you should investigate that school to try to find out what could be causing the problem. Is the school dusty or moldy? Does it smell worse on damp days? Was the basement or the upper part of the school ever flooded? There is nothing worse in present-day schools than the synthetic carpets. They are made of chemicals that cause problems. In addition, they use adhesives that are full of other chemicals that cause even more problems. Many of these chemicals are neurotoxic, which means they damage the nervous systems of individuals.
Here is a list of symptoms that can be caused by an environmental illness. Your child's ability to hear, talk, or speak clearly is impaired. Your child suddenly speaks too fast--is hyperactive--or he doesn't make sense when he talks. An environmental sensitivity can alter children's ability to write, or read, or see clearly. Some children develop blurred vision or double vision by the end of the day because of the chemical exposures at school.
If you suspect that your child may have been exposed to neurotoxic substances--those that actually damage the nervous system--ask your doctor to send you to specialists who can tell you whether the nerve conduction time in your child's body is normal or not. They can do a variety of blood tests to find out if the chemicals that are in the carpets and the adhesives are in the blood.
You can even make an allergy extract of the air in a room that smells of chemicals. Sometimes if you're exposed to just one drop of the allergy extract of the air of a room--a particular room in your home or school--you can actually reproduce a headache or a stomachache or problems thinking. You make the allergy extract the same way you would bubble air through a fish tank: You use a pump to bubble the room air through a salt solution in a tiny test tube. Let the air bubble for about eight hours and at the end of this period you have a solution that contains some of the chemicals that were in the air. Then you can prepare an allergy extract from this solution so that it can be injected in the skin, or else placed under the tongue. If it causes you to have numbness in the arms, tingling in the fingers, a headache, stomachache, problems with remembering, or a change in activity or behavior within 10 minutes, you have probably collected the chemical from the air within the solution.
Using the new and more precise method of allergy testing called provocation/neutralization, you can then make dilutions of that chemical solution and probably eliminate those same symptoms with one drop of the right solution. In other words, if you develop a headache in a certain room, you can put a drop of the air allergy extract under the tongue and provoke the headache. Then you can give the patient a five-fold weaker dilution of that same solution and often you can eliminate or neutralize the headache.
After you have done a skin test with the allergy extracts, and shown that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between your child's behavior or physical symptoms and a chemical in the school, the next thing you have to figure out is what the school can do to eliminate the problem. One of the things they can do is not put carpets in schools. If they do have carpets and they're causing problems, they can take the carpets up and put in hard tile--but insist that they use adhesives that are safe.
Another big problem in schools is poor ventilation, especially in the winter. Due to the energy crunch we had several years ago, many schools closed down the ventilation system to save money and to cut down on the cost of heating. Many schools never reopened the ventilation system, so dust, molds, and chemicals have been accumulating at very high levels in these schools. The windows don't always open, and the result is that there has been a gradual build-up, so that more and more children and teachers seem to be adversely affected when they go to school.
One of the things that you can insist that school officials do is check the ventilation system. There are ways of going into a room and measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in it, which can tell you whether the ventilation is good or not. The level should be 800 ppm or less. Relatively simple tests can be done to measure for certain chemicals, such as chlorine and formaldehyde. Sometimes they don't clean the ventilation systems in schools, so the problem is dust and molds, not chemicals. Sometimes they put chemicals in the ductwork when they clean it, which really causes trouble because the chemicals then circulate throughout the school, causing illness. Sometimes the intake for the ventilation system is too close to the area where all the school buses line up. The bus drivers let the engines idle for long periods, resulting in all the gasoline fumes and hydrocarbons entering the ductwork intake and circulating throughout the school.
In one situation I've encountered, the school had a printing press, and the exhaust pipe from the printing press was at exactly the same level as the ventilation intake on the roof, with the result that all the chemicals from the printing press were going right back in and circulating throughout the school. Some printing press chemicals are toxic to the nervous system and can cause cancer.
A patient I saw last week has three sons who came home smelling of mop oil, which is used to clean the school. The mother said that the children's clothes smelled so badly that she had to use very hot water to eliminate the smell. One of the boys developed a headache and a burning sensation in his throat. So I asked her to bring some of the mop oil and I just put it underneath his nose and let him take one whiff of the odor. Within seconds, he was complaining of a headache around his forehead on both sides of his temples and he said it was throbbing and that his throat was burning. I gave him oxygen for about ten minutes and the headache, throbbing, and burning in his throat gradually subsided. We videotaped this reaction.
There was another child who had trouble only on the two afternoons a week when the child went to school. He would be weak and tired, hardly able to stand; he couldn't hold a pencil, clung to his mother, but only on the two days that he went to school. I sent the mother to school and said try to figure out what's different in the schoolroom that might be causing your son problems. It turned out that they used a very common disinfectant aerosol in the room, six times a day on the tabletops, to reduce infections. Then they used the same solution on the cot that he napped on. All she had to do was ask the school to stop using that disinfectant and install an air purifier, and the child improved remarkably.
Then the mother noticed that he had similar problems when he went into the gym, and it turned out that they were using a certain kind of floor wax in the gym. We suggested that they use something that had fewer petrochemicals in it and the result was that he can now be in the gym for 20 minutes. That child had tics and twitches, which is another thing that you see in some children. These disappeared after environmental allergy care.
I have seen children from all over the country who have school problems. Some of these children who come to see me don't come in complaining of allergies. But the teachers and the children almost uniformly have a history of hay fever, asthma, or eczema. And they have relatives that have these same conditions. Their immune systems are not up to par, or they wouldn't have allergies to start with. But they are the canaries--the first ones to become ill when a school is chemically contaminated, or is too dusty or too moldy. Many children who have school problems also find that their typical allergies become worse after the school has been remodeled, repainted, newly carpeted, or refurnished with furniture made of materials that release formaldehyde into the air.
Children who wheezed a little now wheeze a lot. Youngsters who were stuffy once in a while are now congested all the time. Not only do they get nose problems, but they start having infections in the sinuses and their ears. Many of them feel tired and weak when the schools are chemically contaminated. One parent said that their child was too tired to turn the pages of his book. Another said that her child was crying because he couldn't play football anymore because he was just too weak. These are some of the things that are happening in some schools throughout the country, mainly because of dust, molds, and chemicals.
Schools also serve foods, and many of the foods are contaminated with chemicals. Ideally, your child should eat only organically grown foods because they are less contaminated with pesticides, food coloring, or other chemical additives that may be causing your child's adverse reactions. However, in some places, it is still difficult--and expensive--to buy foods uncontaminated by chemicals. Organic foods may be readily available in New York City, but they certainly aren't in many other cities. I encourage people to grow their own vegetables so that they will have their own source in the winter and they can be sure they do not contain any chemicals.
There is one very important and simple thing you can do to tell which area in a school or in your home, or which food might be causing your children a problem. Ask your children how they feel before they eat a meal, or before they enter a particular room. Also ask them to write their name and to draw. You should do the same thing. And then, if you have asthma, blow into something called a "Peak Pocket Flow Meter," which is a plastic tube with a gauge on it. If you blow 400 before you eat and half an hour later you blow 200, one or more of the foods that you ate is causing asthma or spasm of your lungs. Check out each food separately five days later and find the culprit.
Another thing to do is to take your child's pulse before eating. If the pulse is 80 and suddenly after eating it is 120, a food has set off a silent alarm in her body, which has caused her pulse to increase. So check the writing, the drawing, the pulse rate, the breathing, and how your child feels before a meal and then a half hour later. If any of these variables is decidedly worse, one of the foods your child ate may be the cause of the problem.
Wait for five days before the attempt to find the problem food. It is very critical that you wait for five days to get all that particular food out of the body. So for five days, if you have noticed your child had a reaction after eating corn, don't feed your child corn (and tell her not to eat any at school either). Then at 8 a.m. on a Saturday, give her one of the foods she may have been reacting to, and at 10 the next one, at noon the next one, and at 1 p.m. the next. In this way, you check each food all by itself. Check also the breathing, the pulse, the writing and drawing, and how your child feels before and a half hour or so after each food.
You can apply the same principles of food isolation to every room in your house and at school or every room at work. Check your breathing (or you child's breathing) before you enter a room, do all the things that I suggested above, and then do them again a half hour or an hour later. If you find that a particular room is a problem, then you have got to ask, "Why? What do I smell in this room, what am I touching in this room, what is in this room that could be bothering me? Is it the heating system, the covering on the furniture, the carpet, the floor wax, the furniture polish? Are there items that have been dry-cleaned in this room? Is there an odor?" You'll be surprised at how much you can figure out.
Also check out the car. Notice how you and your children feel before you get in the car, then check again half an hour later. Compare indoors with outdoors and you'll be able to tell whether it's the outdoor pollution, the lawn spray next door, the mold, pollen, or pollution in the air that is causing problems outside versus inside. You can easily figure out many, many answers by checking your child's pulse, his breathing, and how he writes, draws, and feels. Check these same parameters on yourself as well. If you have high blood pressure, you can even use a blood pressure cuff and check your pressure before and after each of these exposures and you'll come out with answers. By keeping detailed records, you can often figure out the answers as to why they are ill, and many times you can get rid of the cause and make them feel much better.
Don't forget to check lavatories. Many children go into the lavatories at school feeling fine, and when they come out they can't think at all because of the chemicals in the disinfectants and deodorants that are used in the lavatories. Don't forget the garage, which has many chemicals in it. Don't forget the attic, which is dusty, and don't forget the basement, which is dusty and moldy.
Keep in mind: The indoor and outdoor factor that causes more problems than any other is molds. If you live in a moldy house and you are always wheezing, on cortisone, always sick and in and out of the hospital, it could be the moldy house that you are living in that is causing the problem. Sometimes if you live in too much mold, it doesn't matter what kind of treatment you take. You have to move or get away from the thing that is causing the problems.
In the workplace, don't forget all the areas that have chemicals which could be affecting your brain. Remember: Excessive chemical exposures alter the body. If they can't be excreted, they can be stored in the fat, and sometimes these fatty tissues can be adversely affected and develop cancer. When you breathe something, these chemicals can go straight through your nose, right up into your brain. There is no barrier there to protect your brain. And the brain is, to a large degree, fat.
There are some new ways of doing brain imaging that can actually show changes in the brains of some of the people that are exposed to neurotoxic substances. For example, if a child sniffs glue or hair spray or aerosols, you can actually show a characteristic pattern of change in the brain imaging-pattern on the particular individual, which will look different from somebody who has epilepsy or someone who has schizophrenia or depression. They actually produce different brain pictures. I'm sure in a few years, many people who say they are always depressed, or tired, or nervous will be able to have a brain-image pattern taken that will show that specific areas of the brain have been affected by certain exposures or foods.
Ask your children to write down or tell you their five favorite foods and beverages. The five foods and beverages that they write are probably the foods that are most likely to cause them difficulty. If they wrote down chocolate, cocoa, and cola--which are all different forms of chocolate--it means that chocolate could be the cause of their problems. If they wrote down bread, cake, cookies, pasta, and macaroni, chances are the problem is wheat. If they wrote down ice cream, yogurt, milk, cheese, and pizza, they are probably sensitive to dairy products. In fact, the food that causes more chronic and acute illness in all of society, to my mind, is, unquestionably, milk and dairy products.
DR. LENDEN SMITH
The man who discovered the paradoxical effects of stimulant drugs on hyperactive children was Charles Bradley from Portland, Oregon. In 1937 and 1938, he found that most children with "hyperactive syndrome" came from difficult pregnancies, especially troublesome deliveries. They were the second twin or born with the cord around their neck. They were premature, or born with a collapsed lung or too much bilirubin. A number of things might have interfered with the oxygen supply to the brain. It was not enough to hurt the child's intellect but just enough to hurt the part of the brain that has to do with self-control. This was his original concept.
Then, in 1938, a mistake was made. Charles Bradley was in charge of a home for problem children when he asked a nurse to give an overly active girl some bromide. The nurse accidentally used the next bottle, Benzedrine, and the girl promptly went to sleep. The doctor commented to the nurse that the bromide sure worked well and the nurse responded by saying, "What did you say?" The doctor asked, "What did you give her?" It turned out that this was the first time anybody had ever used a stimulant drug on somebody who already seemed to be overstimulated. That started the seemingly paradoxical treatment approach of giving stimulants to hyperactive children.
Researchers have since found that the part of the brain primarily affected is the limbic system. Hyperactive children don't seem to have enough norepinephrine, a brain neurotransmitter, in their limbic system in the little cells that have to do with inhibitory control. That's why Ritalin, Dexedrine, Benzedrine, caffeine to a certain extent, and some other stimulant drugs have a calming effect on these children. They prevent the reuptake of norepinephrine at the synaptic cleft. This is something all neurologists know about.
I was working with a lot of hyperactive children in my practice in Oregon. One of my children was affected by this syndrome. We found that speed, methamphetamine, was helpful to her. Teachers would send children they suspected of having the syndrome to me.
I began to notice that these children had certain commonalities. They had short attention spans and they were unable to disregard unimportant stimuli. Everything came into their nervous system from their eyes, their ears, their skin, and their muscles with equal intensity. They were unable to selectively respond to certain stimuli and to ignore others. They couldn't just pay attention to the teacher, the board, or what was in their workbook.
We found that many of these children would calm down after being placed on 5 or 10 mg of Ritalin or Dexedrine. If they responded we diagnosed them as having the hyperactive syndrome. If that didn't work then we believed something else to be wrong.
We had trouble ruling out psychological problems or disorders at home. You can imagine these children disrupting not only the classroom but the home environment as well, resulting in their parents either beating them or finding some other rigid disciplinary measure to try to get these children to settle down and pay attention.
Over a period of ten years I saw seven or eight thousand of these children and I noticed a pattern that interested me. I found a ratio of 5:1, boys:girls. This rules out Dr. Bradley's theory that hyperactivity was a result of a hurt to the nervous system. If he was right the ratio would have been 50/50.
I also found these children to be fair most of the time. They were blue-eyed blondes and green-eyed redheads. We did see some Afro-Americans but in general they were blue-eyed blondes and green-eyed redheads. I concluded that some genetic factors were involved here.
I also found that these children generally were very ticklish, goosey, sensitive. When I shined a light in their ears to check their eardrums, the light would bother them as if they could hear a light and see sounds. It was incredible how sensitive they were. The stethoscope was always cold on their chest even though I warmed it up. My gentle hand on their abdomen to feel for liver and spleen was an irritant and made them giggle and jump off the examining table. They noticed everything.
As time went on, I started to incorporate nutritional testing and discovered that every child had low levels of calcium and magnesium.
I became interested in controlling behavior with diet after I noticed how my daughter responded to foods. If she ate sugary stuff she'd have trouble, but if she ate complex carbohydrates or protein, her level of activity was fairly even. I noticed that hyperactive children did well when eating five small good meals a day.
I was hoping to discover a sugar causation and not a hurt to the nervous system. I found that about 15 percent of these children did have some hurt to the nervous system, but that most of them came from family backgrounds of alcoholism, diabetes, and obesity, all sugar problems. I thought, "Aha, I've got an answer here for hyperactivity. We should just stop the sugar." It worked in a few cases, but not all.
Then I noticed that most of these children had ear infections as babies. We know that ear infections in general indicate food sensitivity, usually to dairy products. I discovered that their present diets were usually laced with milk, cheese, ice cream, and lots of other dairy foods.
Stopping all dairy helped another percentage of these children but it still wasn't the whole answer. It showed that some of these children had trouble absorbing calcium from dairy products because they were allergic to them.
Almost all these children had circles under their eyes and had had their tonsils taken out. They had retracted eardrums and would constantly clear their throats. That indicated a sensitivity to dairy products. Their intestinal tracts prevented the uptake of calcium from the milk they were drinking. Their blood and hair levels of calcium and magnesium were very low. Also, they weren't getting the calcium and magnesium they needed. We all know that calcium and magnesium have a calming effect on people.
I concluded, after many years of investigation, that these children have the characteristics of being ticklish, goosey, and sensitive. They come from a family that has diabetes, obesity, or alcoholism. Generally, they're boys. Their teachers say they're in trouble. An especially important point is that they are usually okay one to one with their mother or father at home alone, but in a class of 30 other kids they cannot function. These children do better in small groups or one-on-one situations. That is ideal for them.
Drug therapy helps them disregard unimportant stimuli. I found I could produce the same effect in most children by giving them the right dose of calcium, usually 100 mg a day, and the right dose of magnesium, usually 500 mg a day. After receiving these minerals, usually 60 to 80 percent could manage without the drug.
It all seemed to fit. There is good evidence to indicate that hyperactive syndrome was related to food allergies, sensitivity to sugar, and not having enough calcium and magnesium.
The next thing I noticed was that parents and teachers would report that many of these children were off and on, like Jekyll and Hyde. They would latch on to that little phrase as being almost diagnostic. That to me meant that it was not a psychiatric condition but a blood sugar fluctuation. It could come from eating sugar or from eating foods to which they were sensitive. We know that if people are sensitive to dairy products, for instance, the blood sugar will rise and get up to maybe 180 mg and then drop precipitously down to 60 mg. Then they crave these same dairy products again. They go up and down, up and down.
If a teacher reports that a child is fine on Monday morning, doing his work and sitting still and then for no good reason on Monday afternoon he is all over the place, falling asleep or being disruptive, we know his behavior is related to something he ate for lunch. We have to carefully monitor the meals he eats and make sure the child doesn't get any particular food he is sensitive to. Along with milk it is usually corn, wheat, soy, and eggs.
The diet we emphasize incorporates good foods as much as possible. Too much fruit may be detrimental due to the sugar. We recommend whole grain foods. We eliminate white bread, white rice, and empty-calorie foods. We don't have candy bars around. We don't have white soda crackers. We don't offer desserts to these children. We suggest good foods, complex carbohydrates, and vegetables, cooked as little as possible. Nibble, nibble, nibble is the rule we have these people use. The whole family has to change their way of eating. Many of the parents find that they feel better on this diet.
Once people change the diet, they find they can get off drugs, the Ritalin, Dexedrine, or whatever else they are on, or get smaller amounts of it, or just take it on tough exam days.
My results showed that 80 percent of these children were 60 to 100 percent better. Most people would notice a change for the better but still feel that something was missing.
Then I found, as I got more into a nutritional approach, that I needed to incorporate more vitamins. I was missing vitamin B6, pyridoxine. I found that 50-100 mg of pyridoxine was very helpful, especially if the child had trouble with dream recall. This is also good for children who can't seem to concentrate.
So there were two parts to this. I would ask teachers or parents of these children, "Is he goosey, ticklish, sensitive?" If they were, I would know it had something to do with calcium and magnesium. If they said, "He has a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality. He's on and off, good and bad," then I knew the problem was related to diet.
As I became more nutritionally aware, I found out that many of these people had trouble with their intestinal tracts. I gave them vitamin shots, which they perceived as being stingy. If it really stung and really made them hyper, that was because they weren't absorbing enough calcium. That was another clue. If you have enough calcium in your muscles then the stingy shots aren't so painful.
Many people said the vitamin shots were very important and that they really made a difference to the child, but I had no way to figure out how much B12 and B6 to give. It was helpful to me to find out that that could make some difference.
In the past ten years I have been working with a chemist from Spokane who has discovered that most people in North America are somewhat alkaline. This may be the key as to why this condition had become more common in the past couple of decades. The earth is aging and has become more alkaline. The increased incidence of this condition, even though obstetrical management had gotten better, is because our foods have gotten worse and more processed.
This alkalinity, from which many of us are suffering, is often the key to this problem. If people are somewhat alkaline, the minerals, like calcium and magnesium, are less soluble. It's more difficult for the minerals to work with the enzymes to do all the things that they're supposed to do for the body if the minerals--especially the calcium and the magnesium--are not soluble enough to be usable.
This is the way we figure out whether someone is alkaline: When we evaluate the blood test, we add the levels of sodium and potassium in the blood, the alkaline elements, and we get a certain sum from that. Then we add the CO2 and the chloride; these are acidic elements. That sum we subtract from the sum of the sodium and potassium. We should get a value between 6 and 12. Most people are above 12. This accounts for aches and pains, a narrow face, crowded teeth, certain allergies, a spastic colon, trouble absorbing foods. They could be eating the best food in the world, but if they're somewhat alkaline they won't work.
This is why many people have found that becoming vegetarian has made a difference for them. Vegetarianism tends to make people more acidic because vinegar is produced. Most vegetarians don't have trouble with high blood pressure.
We can sometimes spot these people. Say a child of nine or ten is somewhat hyperactive. He has circles under his eyes and he's got a nose full of junk. He's got a nasal sound. We look at his jaw and it's narrow. His front teeth are crowded. We know that this child probably was not breast-fed and that he probably is alkaline and probably drinking cow's milk, to which he is sensitive. Therefore, he's not getting the calcium/magnesium he needs.
He's probably craving calcium and magnesium because he knows somehow that he needs it. He doesn't know, however, that he won't be able to absorb it.
It's been pointed out that most prisoners drink five times the amount of milk that ordinary people do. It may be the same phenomenon. They're looking for the calcium that they cannot absorb because their bodies are telling them they need this.
So it's a whole bunch of things; it's never just one thing. We were trained in medical school to make a diagnosis and to treat with a drug. The drug Ritalin is a standard for this. If it works that's a clue to me. If a stimulant has a calming effect then something is wrong with this person's ability to manufacture the right amount of norepinephrine for his limbic system. Therefore I can work on the diet and at the same time slow down the use of the Ritalin, which has side effects, such as leading to shortened stature. As this child grows up he is going to have to face the fact that he has got to change his diet.
DR. ALAN SPREEN
I have seen particularly hyperactive children who have an attention span of about two seconds. Often they are called autistic because they can't linger on any subject matter long enough to even begin to learn anything, much less give their parents a moment's peace. Often they are irritated by chemicals in their food that their system wasn't designed to handle: artificial color, artificial flavor, highly refined sugar, and flours and sugars that have had the nutrients required for their assimilation completely removed.
My approach to hyperactivity is to try to get the individual biochemically in the best nutritional shape, and we usually get really nice results. Some people can have a very slightly sluggish thyroid that might not show up on blood tests. But with very low doses of thyroid, they feel so much better, even though their blood levels still remain normal on blood testing. Their whole emotional make-up improves. Their concentration gets better, and their fatigue gets better, along with their ability to perform on the job.
Learning Disorders and Dyslexia
DR. HAROLD BUTTRAM
Allergies are becoming a rather prevalent problem in today's children. I always make a point of asking those patients who are schoolteachers and have been teaching for 20 or 30 years whether there has been a change in the behavior of children during that time. The replies that I consistently receive are emphatic, that there has been a drastic change in children. There are more hyperactivity and attention deficit problems, more learning disorders, and more behavioral problems.