Monthly Boost October 2005

Good day to all our readers and visitors, I hope this new season finds you happy and healthy. This month I am focusing on the health of our children, the new generation of leaders, politicians, health care practitioners, designers, consumers, basically the next lot of ‘movers and shakers’.

If you do not have children, don’t switch off, you may just want to Tell a Friend who has children and then switch off if you are truly not interested.

I am not going to go into the importance of diet, as to be honest either me or you will end up yawning and asleep on the key board (can’t have your boss walk in on you like this eh?). It is a given that I will address the child’s diet and their lifestyle, yes children have a lifestyle too. I will ask questions about their school, their friends, and if they are babies or toddlers, much will be covered on the mum’s pregnancy and the birth of the child, whether the child had colic, or ear infections, or cradle cap, vaccinations, etc. It is like getting a full service with a huge saving at the end of it all.

This month, I am focusing more on children who may be diagnosed as having ADHD (attention deficit hyperactive disorder) through to autism. Although there is a huge distinction between these ‘conditions’, they have many similarities.

I ‘take my hat off’ to all those parents who are bringing up a child with such ‘challenges’, many have changed the way the whole family eats to make it easier on the child, others have moved from ‘toxic’ locations (such as near electric pylons, or air ports, mobile phone base stations (hhhmmm am I getting too controversial here? only time will tell)) to less ‘toxic’ environments, some have even moved their children into different schools, where the teachers are more aware that different children learn at different paces and in different ways and therefore it does not make your child ‘weird’ (for more details check out www.thelearningsociety.com.

The more and more I am in practice, the more and more I see these children’s systems burdened with what we call ‘heavy metals’ (no, not the music) such as lead, mercury, cadmium, excess copper, aluminium etc. Such metals can still be found in food, water, industrial sites, cooking utensils (especially some of those fancy ‘non-stick’ pans), certain medications, garden chemicals, paints, the list is endless as you may have gathered.

And of course, I nearly forgot to mention, in the UK they are deciding whether they should increase the cost of cremations of deceased people that have mercury fillings (that’s the silver/grey ones). You may ask why? Because cremating these bodies increases the mercury that is released into the environment! So why on earth are they still dumping them in our mouths? This is where, I have to warn you that reading these monthly boosts may seriously improve your health, so be prepared.

So of course, I will encourage all parents that if their children have to have fillings in the future ensure that they are not mercury based, no matter what your dentist tells you, even if he/she has been your family dentist for decades. So apart from educating ‘mum and dad’ on the importance of avoiding heavy metals, I work on reducing the current heavy metal load in the body.

Primarily the diet is fine tuned, then we support the detox organs such as the liver, kidneys, bowels, lungs etc. This is done through supplements such as probiotics (not the sugar laden ones that are advertised on prime time t.v), digestive enzymes and various other naturopathic approaches, such as Epsom salt baths, breathing exercises, etc. These heavy metals must be ‘cleared’ as they antagonise the much needed minerals. Without these minerals the body is not able to function efficiently, and such deficiencies show up in infants/toddlers/children much quicker than in adults. In adults it can manifest as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease for example.

Also what I see more and more is the lack of bowel movements. We can not detox anyone, be they adult or child/infant if they are not emptying their bowels at least twice a day. Although the average person does not like talking about their bowel habits, we need to know this in clinic so that we can make sure that these ‘toxins’ are not just re-circulating in the body and being dumped elsewhere, for example the skin! Have you ever been to see your doctor about a skin complaint? If so has he/she asked you about your bowel habits? Probably not and why not you ask?

This is because traditional medicine does not necessarily address the ‘root cause’. In fact, many of these children also have poor skin conditions, be it dry or patchy, spotty in places (especially the upper arms and upper legs). All in all, addressing the detox organs includes improving their digestion and elimination systems too. Once the detox organs are working more efficiently we move onto chelating the heavy metals out of the body.

I hope that I have not over-loaded you with information but that it has given you some ‘thought for food’. I will continue with this subject next month, I am sure you have other things to enjoy other than just my Monthly Boost!

To your family’s health!

Khush Mark