Nutrition and the Mind - Behavioral, Affective, and Mental Disorders in Children edited by Gary Null, Ph.D.

Nutrition and the Mind - Behavioral, Affective, and Mental Disorders in Children

edited by Gary Null, Ph.D.

Aggression 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 tome 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." Attention Deficit Disorders 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. Autism 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 15months 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 12double-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. Behavioral Disorders 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. By1963, it has increased to 163 billion pounds per year. This figure is now somewhere around250 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 inorganic 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 neutralizing doses and treat with sublingual drops. This 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. Chronic Depression 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.