The occurrence of gluten intolerance in the Finnish population has doubled in the past twenty years. In the early 1980s, about one per cent of adults in Finland had gluten intolerance, but the figure has since gone up to two per cent by the 2000s.

“We’ve already seen a similar trend emerge earlier on where allergies and certain autoimmune disorders are concerned. Screening has shown that gluten intolerance occurs in 1.5 per cent of Finnish children and 2.7 per cent of the elderly. The higher figure for older people is explained by the fact that the condition becomes more frequent with age,” says Professor Markku Mäki. Mäki has set up an internationally acclaimed research team on gluten intolerance, developing screening tests for gluten intolerance. Mäki is head of a research project in the Academy of Finland’s Research Programme on Nutrition, Food and Health (ELVIRA).

According to Mäki, gluten intolerance may often be symptom-free, and people may be unaware that they have the condition if their symptoms are mild or atypical. Three out of four people with gluten intolerance have not been diagnosed, which also means that they are as yet going without treatment.

Better diagnosis methods needed

Mäki’s research team has concluded that the criteria for diagnosing gluten intolerance must be rewritten, since early stages of the condition do not meet the criteria, yet is important to treat. The current criteria for diagnosis focus on damage to the intestinal villi and the small intestine, established in a tissue sample from the small intestine. However, early stages of gluten intolerance are not identifiable from tissue samples.

People may suffer from gluten intolerance, yet have no intestinal symptoms. They may, however, have symptoms unrelated to the intestinal tract. Serious problems with nutrient absorption have become rare; instead, sufferers generally have anaemia due to iron deficiency or folic acid deficiency as their main symptom. If researchers manage to develop sensitive, accurate antibody tests, it will become possible to identify people with early stages of gluten intolerance, who are in need of further treatment. At present, there is no single test to reliably identify early stages of gluten intolerance.

Sufferers are hoping for a diagnosis method that does not involve endoscopy. Researchers are hard at work, looking for new and better markers for gluten intolerance to allow for easier diagnosis of the condition.

Patients are also hoping for an ‘anti-gluten pill’. Mäki says that some form of pill with enzymes that break down gluten may prove feasible in the future.

Literature: Academy of Finland, Gluten intolerance in Finland has doubled, March 5, 2010

Early Saint Louis University research points to promising area of research

ST. LOUIS — The extract from a vegetable that is common in India and China shows promise in triggering a chain of events that kills breast cancer cells and prevents them from multiplying, a Saint Louis University researcher has found.

Ratna Ray, Ph.D., professor in the department of pathology at Saint Louis University and lead researcher, said she was surprised that the extract from the bitter melon she cooks in stir fries inhibits the growth of breast cancer cells.

“To our knowledge, this is the first report describing the effect of bitter melon extract on cancer cells,” Ray said. “Our result was encouraging. We have shown that bitter melon extract significantly induced death in breast cancer cells and decreased their growth and spread.”

Ray said she decided to study the impact of bitter melon extract on breast cancer cells because research by others have shown the substance lowers blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Bitter melon extract is commonly used as a folk medicine to treat diabetes in China and India, she said.

Ray conducted her research using human breast cancer cells in vitro – or in a controlled lab setting. The next step, she says, is to test bitter melon extract in an animal model to see if it plays a role in delaying the growth or killing of breast cancer cells. If those results are positive, human trials could follow.

While it’s too early to know for sure whether bitter melon extract will help breast cancer patients, the question is worth studying, Ray said.

“There have been significant advances in breast cancer treatment, which have improved patient survival and quality of life. However women continue to die of the disease and new treatment strategies are essential,” Ray said.

“Cancer prevention by the use of naturally occurring dietary substances is considered a practical approach to reduce the ever-increasing incidence of cancer. Studying a high risk breast cancer population where bitter melon is taken as a dietary product will be an important area of future research,” Ray said.

She cautioned against seeing bitter melon extract as a miracle cure for breast cancer.

“Bitter melon is common in China and India, and women there still get breast cancer,” Ray said.

Reference: Saint Louis University, Bitter melon extract attacks breast cancer cells, 23-Feb-2010

Picture: St. Louis University

If your baby were suffering from colic, would you treat him with artificially dyed and sweetened simethicone (the chemical in drugs such as Mylanta and Mylicon) or first try an emulsion of fennel seed oil?  If your young daughter developed a persistent rash, would you prefer the doctor to prescribe antihistamines or a diet rich in omega fatty acids?

More and more, it’s likely you’d give the second choice a try. The big news is that mind-body pediatrics has come of age over the past generation. It’s a trend that seems very appropriate for a generation of parents looking for foods without pesticides and cosmetics without solvents.

A major symptom of its acceptance is the publication of the first textbook book on Integrative Pediatrics, edited by the avuncular and reassuring Dr. Andrew Weil, the U.S.’s best known non-conventional medicine practitioner and spokesperson.   The august National Institutes of Health has set up a center devoted to its study while the American Academy of Pediatrics has formed a practitioners’ Section.  And you can now find pediatricians across the nation who will use integrative practices to care for your children (click on hyperlink to members, select Section on Complementary and Alternative, for a listing by zip code; also www.aaemonline.org).

This kind of medical care works to keep children well by instilling a long-life pattern of healthy living and by treating simple problems such as ear aches without resorting to the overuse of drugs.  It particularly lends itself to caring for children with chronic illnesses, such as cancer, juvenile arthritis, obesity, asthma and developmental disorders such as autism and ADHD, where conventional medicine hasn’t a great track record of cures.  In fact, there’s been a major increase in the number of prescription medications used to treat symptoms of childhood chronic illnesses, despite the absence of data that they are effective in curing the underlying problems.

If the incidence of chronic childhood illnesses continues the upward climb it has taken over the past two decades, and as more families understand the link between prevention and treatment, integrative pediatrics may very well become the standard practice of the future.

Probably only grandmothers like me remember when revered New York Times journalist James Reston, returning from a 1972 reporting trip to China with President Nixon, wrote about his surprising experience in undergoing an emergency appendectomy with acupuncture as the only sedative.  That launched our nation’s first timid and by now vast interest in alternative medicine, from acupuncture to meditation, massage and body manipulation, biofeedback, exercise, nutrition and the use of botanically-based supplements.

Now that these techniques are no longer “alternative” to conventional western medicine but have become pretty much an accepted part of it, they are called “integrative” (meaning they’re integrated into standard practice) or “holistic” or “complementary” or “environmental” (a term especially acknowledging the effect of toxic exposures).

In my interviews with integrative pediatricians, they explain, first and foremost, that the power in holistic practice is their relationship with the child and her family, that healing is inexorably bound to the connection between practitioner and patient.

To create that connection, they spend lots of time meeting and talking and educating.  They build a team with the parents; the pediatrician acts like a quarterback helping the parents navigate the health care system.  In the first months of a child’s life, they focus on frequent well-baby care where they also design individualized schedules for vaccinations and treat problems that may arise, such as colic. These conversations with parents and patient continue as the child grows, so different from the usual harried, cookie-cutter 15-minute consultation.

If you visit Dr. Lawrence Rosen, a 43-year-old MIT grad and Mt Sinai-trained integrative pediatrician, you’ll find his pleasant office in New Jersey a paragon of green construction – the flooring, cabinetry and paint were chosen as the safest, least toxic (his website offers resources on green pediatrics construction based on his research and experiences). Even the staff’s dishware is either glass or nontoxic plastic made from recycled materials. Dr. Rosen explains that “the build-up of low-level toxic exposures is responsible for more illnesses than one-time higher exposure.”  He’s given him practice a name: The Whole Child Center, and he blogs when he can about natural parenting practices.

One of his patients is a ten-year-old girl (let’s call her Jenny) with asthma so severe she was using several different inhalers and several different allergy medications every day. Some of the steroid-based drugs were affecting her appetite and causing weight gain, while their continued use could have threatened her long-term development. Yet she still found it hard to participate in school sports. Jenny also had eczema and food allergies. “Rather than prescribing more medicines to suppress her symptoms, I looked for ways to balance her immune system response,” Dr. Rosen explained. He didn’t remove her from her medications immediately, to avoid an attack, but slowly over time worked with Jenny to integrate complementary therapies.

He started her on a daily probioitic, –which are supplements or foods like yogurt, rich in beneficial live microorganisms such as lactic acid bacteria.  He told her mom to ensure her diet included lots of fruits and vegetables with their healing antioxidants as well as foods with high levels of omega-3 fatty acids. Jenny was encouraged to build up her physical strength by swimming and walks outdoors in nature.  Dr. Rosen also worked with her on relaxation techniques including guided imagery and breathing (“Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting,” by Jon Kabat-Zinn.and his wife, Myla). After careful monitoring, she’s now mostly weaned from her prescription meds, uses an inhaler infrequently, and has achieved her dream of participating in sports. Whereas last year she had missed 40 days of school, this year it was down to five.

A young patient with cancer in remission might be treated with similar practices, to support his immune system and his body’s overall strength and resilience.

“Conventional Western medicine is about fixing disease, mainly acute illnesses. It’s oriented around disease labeling and treatment,” Dr. Rosen says. Integrative pediatricians focus on wellness and innate balance of health.

Author: Alice Shabecoff for CSN – Chemical Sensitivity Network, January 9, 2010

Alice Shabecoff is the co-author with her husband Philip of Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on our Children, published by Random House last year.  See their website, www.poisonedprofits.com

Related article from Alice Shabecoff:

• Our planet, our children – How are your children doing?
• My mother made me fat

Information Sources:

• A membership association of environmental physicians: American Academy of Environmental Medicine
• For families and practitioners; has a member directory: Holistic Pediatrics Association
• A practitioner group: Integrative Practitioner

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To my readers: I’m working on a related article that will focus on the way that nutrition can heal developmental disorders such as ADHD and autism.  And another article on how today’s health care system impedes the use of integrative pediatrics.

Even though Germany recognizes Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and has coded it for doctors billing with T78.4 in the ICD-10GM, there is another emergency case who cannot find adequate help.

44 year old Geli H. from Essen (Ruhr region) suffers from severe MCS. For weeks she and her husband have been desperately seeking medical aid. He was allowed to take off from work to care for his wife. Geli’s food intolerance left her with only one food.  Everything else causes a dangerous closing of her throat. She’s hit by vertigo, a choking fit, severe headache, and gastric spasms. The Inside of her mouth looks like raw flesh. Even if she eats a tiny little bit, all of her body may turn red and she cannot breathe.  An air purifier runs all day and night. After a few sips of water, she collapses. Without competent help, she faces death.

Because of her reactions to chemicals, she should not leave the house. In her despair she tried to get help in a local clinic. At the entrance she was already exposed to disinfectant fumes, perfumes, scents from inside and cigarette smoke from patients smoking at the entry. The severe reactions of her body led her husband to bring her back home.

They asked several clinics all over Germany. The last spark of hope, a nearby anthroposophic clinic in Witten-Herdecke, was fully booked. Another declared it could not take responsibility for such cases. Doctors didn’t make things better. One environmental medicine doctor said he cannot help because there is no environmental clinic near her. Another recommended a hotline in Berlin that operates only twice a week. There seems to be no need for emergency help in Germany.

One doctor topped it all with the well known psychosomatic theory of MCS. He recommended a university hospital. Geli has pathological blood results and her immune system is down and this doctor recommends psychotherapy where she has to get used to substances which ruined her body. Is there no way to sue such doctors?

Geli is in grave danger. She might not survive a flight to the Environmental Health Center in Dallas. She quickly needs special hypoallergenic nutritional infusions. It takes only a licensed doctor sympathetic to environmental medicine for diagnosis. A willing general practitioner could apply the IV’s at her home.

If you read this in the UK, please remember Sophia who died in 2005 in a mental hospital because doctors refused to accept the organic nature of ME/CFS.

Is that the cure for all environmental disease cases?

Author: BrunO for CSN – Chemical Sensitivity Network, December 11, 2009

• German Article about Geli’s Case
• Japanese Translation of the article

German Article about Geli’s Case

Chemical Sensitivity – MCS is recognized as a disease and as a physical disability in Germany. The disease is coded at ICD-10 with T78.4 as an organic disease. One might think that people with MCS get proper medical treatment, are treated with fairness like other disabled people, get special workplaces and receive help. Sadly all of this is still lacking in Germany. People with MCS are left without medical attention and accommodations. If their families are unable to take care of them they are lost. For the very sick this sad and unacceptable situation can end in disaster as in the following authentic case.

The last few months of the life of Angelika S.

Six months ago Angelika S. was still doing fairly well. She lived with her family in a suburb of a German town. She loved animals and had a small animal hostel. She also cared deeply about other people.

I got to know her through my cousin who often visited her and mentioned four months ago that Angelika too had strange symptoms similar to my own. Suddenly, she didn’t tolerate fabric softeners – the shower gel of her family, the deodorants and a lot more now made her sick. My cousin told her about me and so we got in touch, first writing letters. She was looking for informational material about chemical sensitivity and I was sending it to her. About the same time I heard that she couldn’t tolerate the furniture and the flooring anymore and was sleeping on the kitchen floor on blankets. From now on everything went incredibly fast…

Nearly every day my cousin called me to report new intolerances. Because of the heat in August, she could only sleep outside on the patio on a kind of futon mat made from compatible materials. Then even this wasn’t possible anymore for her…

Calling an environmental doctor she was told, she would have to wait several weeks (vacation etc.). Then I could contact to her on the phone too. She was able to talk only five or seven minutes, because in addition now she had become electromagnetically sensitive.

Then I gave her the advice to drive to a nature area in her neighbourhood. She did so with her husband each morning between 7 and 8 o’clock. There she did much better. But it speeded up:  difficulty in breathing… heart palpitations …. decreased muscle tonus in the arms and legs …. pulmonary problems …. everything took a turn for the worse.

Since she couldn’t use the phone anymore, I talked to her husband instead. In September he brought her to an abandoned campsite of his club and they slept in the car…in small cars…she in her car and he in his car because his one was contaminated with chemicals from his work. During the daytime he had to drive 25 kilometres to his workplace and to leave her alone there. In the evening he was cooking the meals for her and brought them to her… again 25 kilometres … The nights in the car… bad for the joints.

Then her husband called the environmental doctor again and got the advice to arrange a clean room for her in their house. He should tile the room and keep her in it. So he removed the floor, tiled the room and painted the walls with safe chalk paint. Angelika still was at the campsite, alone during the daytime and it started to get colder…Two air purifiers where bought from PureNature, oxygen for the ride to her home… and then the attempt to bring her back to the new safe room. During the whole time her husband had to take time off from work which got more and more difficult. They had to worry that he would lose his job too.

When she was back at home, my cousin couldn’t come for a visit anymore. Also no one from the family could come to see her. When her son came, she had to escape, and had no contact to her beloved grandchild.

I have had Multiple Chemical Sensitivity for over ten years now, but I had the chance to grow into the situation and I know what isolation means. The soul suffers…tears come…sometimes depression…and when there is no or little hope and you do not really know what will happen to you…then everything is even worse.

But Angelika was learning fast and tried to avoid everything which made her sick; she ate organic food and changed everything.  But it takes time until all smells are out of a general household.

I supported her as much as I could by calming her down and providing her with information…Then the appointment with the environmental doctor came…He said that she has full blown Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and suggested a therapy only of B12 shots for six weeks daily with added B1 and B6. She started his therapy, but everything got worse.

Angelika had reached the end stage of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity in only six months.

When she still wasn’t doing so badly – that was in September this year – I had offered her a invitation to come to my place and try it here, but she wanted to try first the tiled room at home.

Last Saturday her husband called me to tell me that they had to drive to the forest or to a graveyard each night.  Otherwise she wasn’t able to breathe…The heating period made the air in the town intolerable for Angelika. Each night she suffered from heart palpitations, shortness of breath and many more symptoms.

I told them to try to come over to me and so they arrived at nine o’clock Saturday, October 25th.

The last days of the life of Angelika S.

She arrived totally exhausted with a mask and heavy use of oxygen on the ride. We placed her on the porch.

For me her clothes were totally contaminated from her environment. I had to keep distance. Then she wanted to change her clothes.  I offered her some of my clothes, but she couldn’t tolerate them. I had used an unscented safe washing powder which I tolerate very well.

To let her into the house we had to shower her in the evening. I found old jogging pants of my husband’s and a cotton pullover; both had not been washed for a long time, and socks…

But on what should she sleep? She couldn’t tolerate wood anymore, no natural wood furniture. It didn’t matter if it was old or not. She even couldn’t tolerate the very old closet in the room we arranged for her. She wanted to sleep on the floor on linen which had not been washed for a long time and on a blanket which had been hanging in the attic for a long time too.

The windows to the forest were open all night and all day…

We live here in Germany in a wide forest area at Vogelsberg and so she was doing well with the clean air. However, last Monday it got damp and foggy and we had bad weather.

Her hope vanished that she would slightly recover here, but she wanted to try.  She didn’t want to go back…

Either she lay or sat on the porch …. I cooked for her, gave her much water to drink …. tried everything possible to help her to restore her soul and mind …. told her about CSN and other sufferers who had recovered by avoiding substances and by isolating themselves. Each day we left for a walk in order to get some fresh air. So far she was still able to walk for an hour.  On Tuesday, though slowly, she was able to walk until a car passed by and left exhaust emissions, which affected her in spite of her mask.

Then she said she couldn’t live a life as I do, without people around her and in isolation for such a long time and then it got worse and worse.  She had no hope that she could stay here any longer because she couldn’t tolerate the damp air especially during the nights.  She refused to eat or drink anymore.  She was in despair and her mucous membranes were – as in her home – bright red and swollen.

She had to leave, but where to go????

We were considering many possibilities: Switzerland, North Sea…back to the campsite because there is not that much forest in its neighbourhood…setting up an aluminium shed…but how to heat it…and so forth…

On Wednesday at 3 o’clock p.m. the son of my cousin came with a big car which was safer than her car. Her husband and we said goodbye…

They didn’t know where to go…they didn’t know…what to do….so they first drove back to her tiled room and then to the close-by nature site.

She survived the ride at five degrees Celsius inside the car and then I heard nothing from them anymore.

On Thursday afternoon when her husband had to go to work and go shopping for food, she put an end to her life!  I did not learn of it until Friday evening because it was the wish of her husband.

We are in deep grief about this lovely person…a human…who still could be living if there was accommodation for cases like hers in Germany. If there was just one clinic to go to which had clean rooms as at the Environmental Health Center in Dallas / USA. If we just had doctors who could diagnose chemical sensitivity in time.  If we just had support for the relatives who don’t know why all this happens.

This ignorance and intolerance about environmental diseases MUST stop. These are diseases that have been described by scientists like Prof. Martin Pall and others.  It’s well known what these diseases DO exist.

I have seen two suicides since last July.

• Two precious humans who didn’t know what to do because of their boundless despair.
• Two humans who felt as a burden to their families.
• Two humans who had worked hard all their lives.

We lament Angelika S. and we are shocked because of the lack of help for people with severe Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

May the God of solace comfort the suffering of the relatives and may they find hope that their suffering is not forever…

That it will not be like this forever…

That the suffering stops some day…

And that some day there will be a recovery of all things lost…

Authors: Wolfgang and Mona B., Silvia, CSN – Chemical Sensitivity Network November 2009

• Japanese Version: “The last few months of the life of Angelika S.”
• Italian Version: “The last few months of the life of Angelika S. ”
• Spanish Version: “The last few months of the life of Monika S.”