GUT AND PSYCHOLOGY/ PHYSIOLOGY SYNDROME (GAPS)

This blog is solely for educational purposes only and should not be construed as health advice.

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

While performing colonoscopies on patients with severe inflammatory bowel diseases, Dr. Robynne Chutkan, inflammatory bowel disease expert then at Georgetown University, observed complete healing from those diseases amongst certain patients who had made dietary changes. In an interview, she gave the example of the first patient in whom she saw this healing, a woman with severe Crohn's disease who had left the state for 2 years and who upon returning described herself as feeling better than ever after adopting the "Specific Carbohydrate Diet' "SCD". Upon performing her colonoscopy, Dr. Chutkan was amazed and shocked to see this woman's inflamed, ulcerated, bleeding, colon completely healed. She would go on to see this sort of healing amongst several of her patients who adopted this or similar type paleo diets.

In the early 1990s Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride, a Soviet trained medical doctor, neurologist and neurosurgeon's first child was diagnosed severely autistic at the age of three. As there was no known existing treatment for this disability, she undertook to find a solution herself. After much research, she implemented a revised SCD diet as baseline treatment for her son's sickness, her son completely recovered. 

 In order to better understand the power of food on the human body, Dr. McBride returned to university for what she has described as her most profound education: a Masters of Science degree in Human Nutrition. Upon completing her degree  she opened a nutritional clinic first focusing on treating autism, learning disabilities and mental illnesses; she eventually branched out to other physiological illnesses upon her realization that poor health was also impacting other members within the families of those diagnosed with these illnesses/disabilities. After years of clinical practice she further modified the SCD diet to include amongst other things gelatinous meat stocks and fermented foods as key foundational foods for treating those illnesses.

 In 2004 after many years of clinical practice and having helped thousands of people heal from disease she published her seminal book: "Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autism, ADD/ADHD, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Depression, Schizophrenia" (acronym GAPS by her patients and followers).

In this book which has been translated into 25 languages she outlined her hypotheses linking the state and health of the gut with the state and health of the mind introducing us to the concept of "microbes" as major orchestrators in this process. In it she writes:

 "The human body is like a planet inhabited by huge number of micro-creatures. The diversity and richness of this life on every one of us is probably as amazing as the life on Earth itself! Our digestive system, skin, eyes, respiratory and excretory organs are happily coexisting with trillions of invisible lodgers, making one ecosystem of macro- and micro- life, living together in harmony. It is a symbiotic relationship, where neither party can live without the other...The largest colonies of microbes live in our digestive system...All these microbes are not just a chaotic microbial mass, but a highly organised micro-world with certain species predominating and controlling others. The number of functions they fulfil in the body is so vital to us, that if our gut got sterilised, we would probably not survive..." 

Today more than 20 years after her hypothesis and the publication of her book, science has caught up and the microbiome is the new frontier in science with with well over 450,000 papers looking at the impact of the gut on all aspects of health. This ecosystem of trillions of micro organisms consisting of species of bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa, worms and many other creatures outnumber human cells by about 10 to 1 according to the NIH's "Human Microbiome Project".  In addition to that, some evolutionary biologists are hypothesising that a large percentage of human genes are of of microbial origin and they now speak of a holobiome or a hologenome which is the collection of human and microbial cells making one ecosystem of mixed genetics. 

In her latest book published in 2020, called: "Gut and Physiology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autoimmune Illnesses, Arthritis, Gut Problems, Fatigue, Hormonal Problems, Neurological Disease" and which she describes as closing the GAPS concept by not only linking the state and health of the gut to the brain/mind but also to the state and health of the entire body, she writes:

 "Healthy soil is nature's co-operative where every little thing is contributing and benefitting from the whole. Remove one of these elements and the balance is gone. Suddenly species, that used to be perfectly benign as part of the whole, start overgrowing and causing trouble...as a result, the soil stops supporting plants well and they become malnourished and sick...We have been doing the same to the soil inside us, to our gut flora, for decades...When the 'soil' in your digestive system gets damaged, instead of being your friend, it becomes a major enemy. Every microbe in the gut, even those deemed "beneficial", can start producing a plethora of toxic substances. These toxins absorb through the damaged gut wall and get distributed around the body.... There is no end to the microbes that can overgrow when the diversity of our gut flora is gone...Microbes take part in disease in the digestive system and any where else in the body, including mental and neurological illness, diabetes, obesity, cancer, allergies and autoimmunity...All we need to know is that unhealthy, unbalanced gut flora creates a river of toxicity, flowing from the gut into your body, and that the mixture of toxins is likely to be individual... In short, instead of being a source of nourishment, which is what our digestive system is supposed to be, it becomes a major source of toxicity in the body causing disease. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicines, stated almost 2 thousand years ago: 'All diseases begin in the gut!" No matter whether the disease is a chronic,  physical or mental disorder, he was absolutely right! Your digestive system holds the roots of your health! So, no matter what chronic illness we may suffer from we have to start treating it from the roots- the digestive system with its gut flora. It does not matter if you have digestive symptoms or not, the roots of your chronic illness is likely to be found in your gut."

According to Dr. McBride, food is the most powerful influence on any microbial community in the body as it instantly changes the microbial composition causing certain species to die off and others to proliferate. Therefore, in order to change the microbial community in the human body, we must feed our body wisely. This is the GAPS diet, a high fat animal based diet with a strong emphasis on meat stocks and homemade probiotic fermented foods. Understanding the uniqueness of every individual, as no gut is the same, the diet offers many variations depending on ones health, cultural heritage, geographical region and area. All versions of the diet originate from the Original GAPS diet, they iclude: the original GAPS diet, the more- plant GAPS diet, the no-plant GAPS diet, the GAPS ketogenic diet and for those interested in fasting the GAPS liquid fast.

GAPS describes health conditions and the solution Dr. McBride has designed is the GAPS nutritional protocol that encompasses not only diet but detoxification, minimal supplementation and healthy lifestyle changes like creating chemical free living enviroments. It's a demanding protocol but it has been designed in stages so as to be eased into gently if necessary. All of the above is described in her fully referenced books which she describes as self help books as she also includes plenty of recipes.

This is probably enough to digest, stay tuned for Introduction Part 2 in about 2 weeks.