Preventing Schizophrenia & Mental Disorders – A “Must Know” Before Pregnancy

Can Pregnant Mothers Unknowingly Put Their Child at Risk?

Babies are in a bath inside their mothers’ wombs for 9 months. The ‘water’ can be nourishing or toxic. A recent study in June from the American Journal of Psychiatry discovered that women who are gluten sensitive and continue to consume gluten during their pregnancy put their babies at risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders later in life.

The researchers, from Sweden and the United States, found that babies born to mothers with high circulating anti-gliadin antibodies (antibodies are substances made by the immune system as a reaction to something it considers toxic to the body. In this case the gluten protein.) suffered a risk factor of nearly double for developing schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders later in life.

What Mom Eats DOES Transfer to Her Unborn Child

The circulating high number of antibodies in the mother’s blood is transferred to the developing baby and can act as a type of programming for what will occur in the child later in life. In this case gluten was seen to inflame the nervous system and serious mental diseases were the result.

During pregnancy an interesting phenomenon occurs whereby the immune system is less aggressive than it is normally – this is called down regulation. This is a good thing because it allows the mother’s body to not reject the foreign entity (the fetus) that is growing within. The downside of this is that women who had trouble tolerating certain foods find that they can ‘cheat’ with relative impunity.  In fact, I always have cautioned my pregnant patients against cheating while pregnant and have explained that just because they don’t ‘feel’ the effects of having cheated, it doesn’t mean that their body and their baby’s body isn’t being negatively affected.

This research certainly corroborates the point in a dramatic way. Imagine having the ability to create or prevent mental illness in your child!

Prepare Before Pregnancy - Both Mom and Dad Need a 'Get Healthy' Program

Here at HealthNOW Medical Center we love to prepare women for getting pregnant. It’s gratifying to know that by ensuring every mom knows whether or not she is gluten intolerant we are not only improving mom’s health, but also that of her future child. Depending on the woman’s level of health, our program may take a few months or longer. But when you appreciate that a healthier mother strongly influences the health of her child, it’s all worth it. And dads are not ‘off the hook’ here either. It is very important that the genes that the father is contributing to the child are healthy also.

More and more we are coming to appreciate that genes can be altered as regards their expression. This means that just because a disease runs in your family, you don’t have to pass it along to your children. But, unfortunately, with no effort towards improving your health, you can very well subject your children to a worsened health state, and this is what we are currently experiencing in this country.

Please share this information with those you know. While it is critical to discover if you are gluten intolerant, there are several other aspects of health that should be addressed prior to conceiving. 

Need Help? We're Here for You! 

If you felt as if I was describing you above, you are not alone. As I mentioned earlier, adrenal fatigue/exhaustion is almost epidemic. If you would like assistance and don’t have a clinician whom you feel can assist you, consider contacting us for a FREE Health Analysis. We are a Destination Clinic and treat patients from across the country and internationally. We would be delighted to help you as we have been doing so for over two decades.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”

Celiac Disease Risk: Why an Emergency C-section is Healthier than an Elective One

When it comes to celiac disease risk, an elective or planned C-section creates a much greater incidence of celiac disease than an emergency one.

A natural, vaginal birth is probably every mother’s plan, but C-sections, at an increased rate, have become a fact of life.

In a recent study (October 2011) published in Gastroenterology, titled “Pregnancy outcome and risk of celiac disease in offspring: A nation-wide case-control study”, Dr Ludvigsson, an avid researcher in the field discovered a rather unexpected result associated with children delivered by cesarean section.

The study of over 11,000 patients with biopsy-proven celiac disease and close to 54,000 controls, were examined based on the type of birth they experienced. The study showed an outstanding 15% increase risk in those born through elective or planned C-section over those born via an emergency cesarean.

In fact there was no increased risk found for those individuals born from an emergency C-section.

Why the vast difference? The reason for the disparity lies in the vital exposure to the health-promoting probiotic organisms present in the birth canal that occurs in vaginal births as well as those who experience emergency C-sections.

Babies born after an emergency C-section typically reside in the birth canal for some time prior to the decision being made to perform the surgery.

Elective or planned C-sections afford the baby no time in the birth canal, in fact they are designed to occur before any major progression of labor has occurred. Therefore these babies are given no exposure to the healthy probiotic population that has recently been appreciated to be capable of keeping the celiac disease gene from expressing itself.

It is as if there is a switch for a disease that one is genetically programmed to be susceptible to, and it has an on and off position. Healthy probiotics can keep that switch in the ‘off’ position, despite the genetic tendency. Conversely, a lack of healthy probiotics allow that switch to move to the ‘on’ position, thereby allowing the disease to be expressed.

Let’s compare two children who both:

1.       Possess the genes for celiac disease

2.       Are exposed to gluten in their diet

The child born with exposure to the good probiotics in the birth canal won’t necessarily develop celiac disease, despite their genetic predisposition. The probiotics, if healthy and abundant, will suppress the expression of the celiac disease genes.

On the contrary, the child born via elective C-section and having no exposure to the probiotics, will not have the defense against the genetic predisposition to develop celiac due and will, therefore, be 15% more likely to develop the disease.

While avoiding a planned C-section is perhaps not a viable alternative for every expectant mother, this knowledge does seem vitally important for any expectant mother, who has celiac disease or any other autoimmune diseases present in their family.

If there is absolutely no recourse to a planned C-section due to whatever circumstance, I would strongly suggest that the mother takes all steps to optimize the health of their digestive tract and probiotic population such that when they nurse their newborn they can at least share their good bacteria through breast milk. This is, I believe, an extremely important practice for all newborns, but most especially in this circumstance.

If you need assistance in determining the best course of action to take to improve the health of your own small intestine such that your probiotic population provides the optimal health benefits to your future unborn children, or if you already have a child and want to ensure that their probiotic level is optimized, please feel free to contact me for a complimentary health analysis – call 408-733-0400.

The benefits to be obtained from keeping the 100 trillion probiotics (also known as the microbiome) in your small intestine healthy are quite remarkable. This is an emerging science, but one we know quite a bit about already.

Ensuring a healthy microbiome in yourself and your children is not difficult and the program is a natural  one. But each individual is unique and therefore the program must be designed on a personalized basis in order to achieve the greatest success.

I hope this was informative. We are here to help you, your children and family. Our destination clinic treats patients from across the country and internationally.

To your good health,

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”

Gluten Sensitivity & Infertility

A reader who is a clinician himself writes: “I believe that gluten sensitivity may be a risk factor in pregnancy contributing to complications such as miscarriage, preterm labor and even stillbirth. Have you seen anything to support this concept?”

I have seen a great deal of information supporting this. Studies going as far back as 1996 speak of the association between gluten and fertility. While most of the studies were done with celiac patients we have seen clinically that this association appears to be true for gluten sensitive patients as well.

In 2001, Gynecologic & Obstetric Investigation presented an article entitled: “Celiac disease: fertility and pregnancy”. The authors noted that celiac disease may manifest clinically with an array of non-digestive symptoms such as dermatitis herpetiformis; dementia; depression; various neurological symptoms, osteoporosis; dental enamel defects, and anemia of various types. They also stated that important data have accumulated regarding the association between celiac disease, fertility and pregnancy.

The critical observation was made that: Many primary care obstetricians, gynecologists and perinatologists are not aware of these important relationships.

The authors made a review of the scientific literature and what was revealed was that patients with untreated celiac disease sustain significant delayed menarche (age when a women begins menstruating), earlier menopause, and increased prevalence of secondary amenorrhea (absence of menstrual bleeding).

They continued to state that patients with untreated celiac disease incur higher miscarriage rates, increased fetal growth restriction and lower birth weights.

Their conclusion was that improvement of celiac, with implementation of a gluten-free diet, may decrease miscarriage rates, improve fetal nutritional support and overall prenatal (period from 20 weeks of pregnancy to 1 month old) outcome.

In the Italian medical journal, Minerva Ginecologica, an article entitled: “Celiac disease and spontaneous abortion” was published in 2002.

The authors very correctly pointed out that celiac disease is only diagnosed in a small percentage of adult cases compared to the real situation because it is manifested with few symptoms, is in an atypical form, or occurrence is completely silent.

The aim of their study was to investigate the association between celiac disease and abortion, and evaluate whether patients suffering from recurrent spontaneous abortion might present an atypical or subclinical form of the disease.

Five women were positive for celiac disease. Four of these women formed part of a group of patients with a positive history of spontaneous abortion and one was from the control group.

Analysis of the cases from this study and those reported in the literature shows that tests to identify celiac should be extended to the population with a risk of developing spontaneous abortion.
These subjects should include those with a family history or clinical symptoms, in particular women with a history of multiple abortions.

In 1996 the European Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology published an article entitled: “Gynaecological and obstetric disorders in celiac disease: frequent clinical onset during pregnancy or puerperium” (period after birth continuing for 6 weeks).

The author’s aims were to determine:
1. The prevalence of gynaecological and obstetric problems in patients with celiac disease and the influence of strict gluten restriction on their occurrence,
2. The effect of pregnancy on the clinical course of celiac disease, and
3. The clinical features of those patients with onset of celiac during pregnancy and puerperium.

As mentioned in earlier research findings, this study also found that untreated celiac patients exhibited significantly later menarche, earlier menopause, increased prevalence of secondary amenorrhea and increased incidence of spontaneous abortions.

Patients who had adhered, in the long term, to a gluten-free diet had gynecological and obstetric history indistinguishable from controls.

They summarized by stating that the early diagnosis and treatment of celiac disease may avoid significant gynecological and obstetric complications.

And finally, an article just released a couple of weeks ago, May 25, 2010 in Fertility & Sterility, “Primary infertility as a rare presentation of celiac disease.”
The authors reported a case of a 30-year-old woman presenting with primary infertility who on investigation was found to have celiac disease. After being on a gluten-free diet for 8 months she had a successful conception.
Their conclusions, much along the lines of the previous studies were as follows: We suggest that celiac disease should be checked in infertile patients of unexplainable etiology with anemia, as just changing their diet can solve their fertility problem.
Well that last sentence does sum it up very nicely. Let’s reiterate: Just changing the diet can solve the ______ problem.
Yes in this case we’re speaking of infertility, hormonal imbalance, spontaneous abortion, etc. But as you well know if you read this blog, there are very many symptoms/diseases we could insert into that sentence.
Infertility is a growing problem. It affects as many as 1 in 6 couples. Imagine if we could decrease those numbers by increasing the awareness of gluten intolerance. Now add delayed menarche, earlier menopause, and increased prevalence of secondary amenorrhea and spontaneous abortion to that list. How many women might that affect?

It’s exciting to think of the good effects that could be created by making the women who suffer as well as the doctors who treat them aware of this association.
It’s frustrating that we haven’t arrived at that awareness level yet…
Not meaning to be redundant as I say this at the end of most posts, but we have to continue our grass roots movement. Awareness IS increasing, we just have to continue to work hard.
Speaking of increasing awareness, check out the July issue of “Better Homes & Gardens”, page 202. The article is called “Gluten’s Laws” and yours truly is featured. “Better Homes & Gardens” has the third largest distribution of all magazines in this country. See, we ARE making headway!

Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”

References:

Gynecol Obstet Invest. 2001;51(1):3-7. “Celiac disease: fertility and pregnancy”
Minerva Ginecologica, 2002 Apr;54(2):151-9. “Celiac disease and spontaneous abortion”
Eur J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 1996 Jan;8(1):63-89. “Gynaecological & obstetric disorders in CD: frequent clinical onset during pregnancy or puerperium”
Fertil Steril. 2010 May 25. [Epub ahead of print] “Primary infertility as a rare presentation of celiac disease.”