I came across this article quite by chance regarding certain epidemics of coeliac disease occurring in various countries without anyone appearing to know why. I thought some of you may find this interesting - I did and I have never heard of anything like this before ..
interesting I remember when they first introduced the follow on formulas when my son was a baby 15 yrs ago and my health visitor advised against the milk as it was a marketing ploy and nothing more and the best thing for our babies was to introduce them to fruit and veg as we should do and they will get all the things they need from their food.
I had my second child only 2 years ago and the same thing was said to someone during baby clinic by another health visitor.
This may be happening due to how cheap some foods are compared to others and possibly some parents are making a few bad choices because of this thinking that they have never caused them any problems so it won't to their children,unforchently there are a lot of people who simply do not reaslise that their babies can not digest foods like they can and needs time to adapt to solids.
theres also that age old thing of being stubborn and not liking others telling them what they should and shouldn't do with their children and they know better. some things like that will never change.
this article reminds me a bit of the the vaccination and autism which was as far as I am aware was proven to not be the reason for children being autistic.
I think many babies were and perhaps are given rusks and other baby solids for one reason. Going back a few centuries wives, mothers and grandmothers realised that solid food made babies sleep through the night more peacefully. I was told when I had my children that it prevented colic like symptoms. (This is probably both true and false - as a hungry baby or baby that isn't fully satisfied would have caused difficulties in times when men worked excessively long hours in hard laborious jobs - sometimes working days and sometimes on the night shift. They needed sleep and crying babies prevented sound sleep .. so women did their best to ensure a quiet and peaceful household. This idea was passed on from generation to generation. The problem we face today may be not that grains may be introduced to our off-spring far too early - it is also the type and quality of the grain. The grain we have today is said to contain much more gluten than it did in the 1950's and no doubt that grain from the 1950's most likely contained more gluten than grain in the 1800's.)
Regarding vaccinations - I think there is probably much still that we do not know and it may not be wise for any of us to assume that autism link has been soundly put to bed. I think only time will tell, probably a long long time before we can assume one way or the other.
There has recently been an article written by a lady doctor called Dr Jennifer Craig, who was born in Yorkshire but moved to Canada. She wrote this about vaccinations - I found it very interesting:
vaccinationcouncil.org/2012...
No. The autism link has definitely been 'soundly put to bed'. If you've ever read the original Wakefield paper then it's fairly obvious that the whole issue should never have been 'awake' in the first place. The pseudoscience surrounding the MMR scare frustrates me incredibly (not to mention the fact that even theoretically it makes no sense to anyone who understands the basics of immunology).
I'm based at the Royal Free Hospital where Wakefield conducted his research (and where his name is derided by every member of staff as a sort of running joke) and I've seen the impact that his fraudulent bullshit has had on vaccination rates amongst a certain group of people. A couple of months ago I saw a woman who was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer and had a particularly bad prognosis. Her son contracted measles because she didn't give him the MMR as a child and was admitted to hospital with a superimposed bacterial pneumonia. He then passed it onto her daughter. As a result, she has to spend several weeks away from her children because being in contact with them means that she risks contracting measles (which can be catastrophic in someone who's immunologically suppressed) when she probably only has months to live. Fantastic. Wakefield should be proud of himself.
I won't even get into congenital rubella syndrome (which ironically can actually cause autistic features in the surviving children it has affected).
Oh and your article is not written by a medical doctor. Clearly not, when she writes stuff like 'Cancer is not a communicable disease. Yet a politician signed an order compelling the vaccine to be given to Texas youngsters. Why?'... Hmmm. If you're going to read literature about vaccination then you might as well read something that's based on peer-reviewed scientific study: nhs.uk/news/2007/January08/...
NorthernSoul, I am really sorry if the link that I added upset you so. Manufacturers of medicines of all kinds do make very high profits and patients are often at the battle end in the health system when costs are so high and they are keen for a hefty profit. In this link it showed how some companies are allegedly using money to assure use of their products. In the case of what Jennifer Craig stated, I agree that in some instances she is wrong because cancer, in the form of leukemia is passed on through members of the cat family having bodily contact with each other. Thus in one particular animal, cancer is caught and passed on.
The link in question referred to a politician being in an influential position and signing off mass medication to girls and boys in the form of Gardasil, without either their or their families consent and in return funds being paid allegedly to his party. This cannot be right. According to several articles referring to the same vaccine there have been deaths through use of this vaccine and many other health issues which may mean it is not advisable for blanket use.
When I was a child, it was beleived that once a person had been vaccinated they were protected for life against a particular disease. As I have grown older, I have seen several incidences where this has been proven wrong. It can be dangerous to assume that we are safe from catching something because we have been immunised. It is always wise to be precautious. I remember being quite afraid when visiting a relative many years ago - I had been vaccinated against smallpox as a baby but there had been an outbreak where the local authorities had chosen to mass immunise residents of a city - on the other hand they had said it was safe for people to visit the city. I was a visitor. Was I really safe? If I was safe, why were residents not safe? Measels is particularly nasty and if a child has a bad case of it they can be almost comatose, their eyes rolling, their breath shallow, violent ear pains and most thoroughly ill but I have seen children like this that have been immunised and I found it frightening.
No, that wasn't the point I was making- a disease not have to be communicable to be vaccinated against. But cancer immunotherapy aside, the reason girls are being vaccinated with Gardisil is because cervical cancer is almost entirely caused by HPV which is communicable. Cervical cancer is effectively a preventable disease.
The vaccine is safe. If you'd actually read the link that this woman provides with that article from the FDA and CDC, it states that there are no deaths that have been causally linked to it via the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Jennifer Craig has not even looked at them herself, apparently.
Even with the current cervical smear screening programme, giving the vaccine to all girls at the age of 12-13 will save 400 lives a year at least. It is not given without consent, either, obviously.
I have no idea what you're talking about with your experience of the smallpox vaccine but I think the fact that it's been eradicated is evidence enough for the vaccine's efficacy...
And with regards to measles- do you mean children have caught measles after being vaccinated? The MMR vaccine is 99% effective after three courses so it is possible to contract measles after having the vaccine if you're incredibly unlucky. But how is that an argument for not giving it...?
Measles can do an awful lot worse that what you describe. In developing countries mortality rate can be up to 25%. Even in this country a couple of children a year die from it. Unvaccinated children, of course.
my comments about children being fed solids was to modern day only with our over refined flours that are more like dust than flour where formula milk with most babies tends to help with a night sleep now and even have milks for very hungry babies clearly to try and stop solids unless a dr or health visitor advises to be fed to very young babies.
I met someone while my daughter was weaning who's sister inlaw had angered them by force feeding their baby at 3 weeks old when the poor thing probably had wind to try and stop them from crying,and it didn't work and I'm sure just cased more pain for the child.
trapped wind is a common problem stopping young babies from sleeping in modern day which I myself have encounted and i surpose along the years where formula milks are common use many may have thought it was something else. I am in no way refuring to times and countries that had or have only breast milk to give their babies as it is much more understandable as to why they may have fed solids to their babies.
Everything, especially in food, food processing and ingredients change over the years. I can remember reading about infant formulas in the 1970's. Where it was claimed by a nutritionalist that a lack of pantothenic acid in formal milk appeared to be the main cause of 60% of allergies in bottle-fed babies. Ref: Let's eat right to keep fit by Adelle Davis - page 64. I was reading this book when I was carrying my first child. Not everything that we read either in a book or on the net is 100% accurate but it is good to gather knowledge like a squirrel gathers nuts and eventually and possibly with a little help from our friends we find that we discover the truth or as near to it as we possibly can.
I fed my first child whilst heavily pregnant with my second (I was told it was impossible to conceive whilst breast feeding - a technique, I was advised often used in Africa .. of course this was obviously wrong! Lol!!) - At the same time my first child cried at about 10 pm every evening - I tried everything and was advised as many mothers were at the time that it would be best to give a little solid food - big mistake but we are often steered by the advice of others. Over the years I have read many nutritional offerings - some have been excellent and others a little shall we say 'wanting' - but it is the only way to learn. Just following advice of people who may or may not know because the are an authorative figure in some instances can really be bad for our health for the one thing that none of us should ever forget is that we are all individual and all different - and all we can ever do is our best - it may not be good enough but in the end it is all that we have to offer.
Thankfully, most little babies now are given just milk - no longer Evaporated milk as was once the practice but those that cannot have breast milk are given as near as is currently possible that manufacturers are able to make to human milk.
Hi Lynxcat, a very interesting article (as usual) This may also interest you as it says about 'modern wheat' being different to wheat eaten 50 years ago;
drhyman.com/blog/2012/02/13...
And here's an excerpt:
Celiac Disease: The First Problem
Celiac disease and gluten related problems has been increasing and now affects at least 21 million Americans and perhaps many millions more. And 99% of people who have problems with gluten or wheat are NOT currently diagnosed.
Ninety eight percent of people with celiac have a genetic predisposition known as HLA DQ2 or DQ8, which occurs in 30% of the population. But even though our genes haven’t changed, we have seen a dramatic increase in celiac disease in the last 50 years because of some environmental trigger.
In a recent study comparing blood samples taken 50 years ago from 10,000 young Air Force recruits to samples taken recently from 10,000 people, researchers found something quite remarkable. There has been a real 400 percent increase in celiac disease over the last 50 years (3). And that’s just the full-blown disease affecting about 1 in 100 people, or about 3 million Americans. We used to think that this only was diagnosed in children with bloated bellies, weight loss and nutritional deficiencies. But now we know it can be triggered (based on a genetic susceptibility) at any age and without ANY digestive symptoms. The inflammation triggered by celiac disease can drive insulin resistance, weight gain and diabetes, just like any inflammatory trigger – and I have seen this over and over in my patients.
I found this article very interesting. We know that coeliacs have been around for a very long time but they are definitely increasing in numbers. I think he is right too about the gluten free food that is being offered in the shops, it can be most fattening. When people are first diagnosed it is so, so easy to be pushed to the 'free from' range aisle and if you don't do a little research I suppose that is where you would be inclined to linger! One particular point I have never come across before was a possible link with gluten consumption and dementia. If there is proof of this, there may well be attempts to stifle the information as many more people may have thoughts of reducing the amounts their wheat consumption and this could impact on profits throughout a wide portion of the food industry. Though perhaps it would also prevent the need for the NHS to purchase too many 'jumbalances' (the extra large ambulances used for transporting morbidly obese people to and from hospital appointments) as they are called in the US.
I have found some gluten free toothpaste and am giving it a whirl - along with some SLS free shampoo. Remember the old washing around the eyes with baby shampoo? Well, shock horror -- I found that it had SLS in it. So fingers crossed I may have found a solution - only time will tell. But and a very big but - how can they say it is just like water when it contains a substance like SLS? I am so annoyed - it appears that not only do we have to check out for possible sources of gluten we also have to check out for sources that lead to eczema!!
Some very good points here and I was not aware of SLS in baby shampoo so thanks for pointing this out to me.
Here's another link that may interest you it's about children with ADHD being triggered by these plug in air fresheners used in classrooms! and the home. I came across this a few years ago after chatting to a coeliac mum with a child with ADHD:
special-needs.families.com/...
In reality all that air fresheners do is ameliorate the bad odour!
Going back to your comment on Jumbalances, I wonder how some young people are going to 'outlive' us as there are so many obese people with associated issues like diabetes and then having to work until they are 67.
Lynxcat we'd like to make it clear as on previous posts - for any newbies reading - that all toothpaste sold and produced in the UK has been approved as Gluten Free by the British Dental Association.
Fiona, I haven't yet found any posts that mention that every toothpaste sold in the UK is gluten free - so thank you for pointing that out to me. It is a shame that they do note state it on the packets though, don't you think?
The actual reference, in reply to Jerry, should have stated that I have found some that is both SLS and gluten free. I was keen to find some toothpaste that was free from SLS as I have often experienced mouth ulcers and as this is known to cause them and also encourage recurrent breakouts of them I have been checking the ingredients in the hope of finding a suitable make. SLS is apparently used in toothpaste to both make it foamy and to reduce sweetness. I have now found some that does not contain Sodium Lauryl Sulphate and I wasn't sure whether it would also be gluten free too so I did check before purchasing. Just in case you may not have come across SLS before, as I found out through someone else's problems with toothpaste this explains a little about its uses etc: greenpeople.co.uk/info_feat...
And it appears it is not just coeliacs but a increase in autoimmune diseases of all sorts see article
aarda.org/press_release_dis... I think it is important for coeliacs to understand that they have an autoimmune disease and therefore they may have a much wider set of effects due to their immune system being compromised
I also think that this is something that none of us should ever forget. It makes common sense to avoid problems before they arise if at all possible.
I have now heard of several people not all of which are coeliac or gluten sensitive that have problems with SLS. Some websites advise that this lasts in the body for at least five days and as toothpaste comes into contact with the delicate lining of the mouth and gums as well as tongue and occasionally throat, uvula, lips and the occasional blob that finds its way onto the chin or cheek - it could for some of us present a health problem. I get mouth ulcers, tongue ulcers, etc so I have taken a particular interest in this. I have written to the British Dental Association and asked if they could supply a list of toothpastes that are free from both gluten and SLS and am awaiting their reply.
However remember that the mouth ulcers etc might be that other autoimmune problem herpes simplex and actually it might be an autoimmune reaction to the virus as I always get them when I am run down
Well the British Dental Association have emailed me back and here is their reply:
"Thank you for your email. The British Dental Association is the professional body and trade union for dentists. We are unable to respond to specific queries from patients and/or non-members.
The British Dental Health Foundation (BDHF) provides patient information on a broad range of dental issues such as dental terms and treatment procedures, oral hygiene, current UK legislation and regulations, NHS and private dental charges and complaints procedures. You can submit your query via email through the BDHF's website dentalhealth.org.uk, or via their confidential helpline (0845 063 1188) which you can ring from Monday to Friday between 9am-5pm. For written queries, address to: British Dental Health Foundation, Smile House, 2 East Union Street, Rugby, Warwickshire, CV22 6AJ.
The BDHF also maintain a list of approved products: dentalhealth.org/approved-p...
Kind regards
Charlotte Booth
Media and Public Affairs Assistant"
Well - I contacted The British Dental Health Foundation too and they also appear to be unable to help and even added more issues by making the following statement in their reply to me:
"Xanthan gum can be commonly found in dental products but this is classed as gluten free."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanth...
*Health and *Allergies
A little note about xanthan gum on the Celiac.com website ..
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