Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autism, Dyspraxia, A.D.D., Dyslexia, A.D.H.D., Depression, Schizophrenia, 2nd Edition Paperback – Illustrated, 5 Mar. 2018

Excellent book. So helpful. Has helped me with my son with Autism. Everything is a process and hardwork but I can see progress and changes and it's worth it.

This book has been a total re-education for me, and I feel a little angry that the more official Autistic websites don't advocate it so that it advances into the mainstream. I am the parent of an Autistic young adult - he has 'higher functioning' Autism, so that his symptoms have been easier to cope with than had he had more 'classical' Autistic behaviours. Due to the Autistic 'industry' of professional diagnosticians and other allied professions, you get the idea that Autism is fixed - there's nothing you can realistically do so just live with it! Dr Natasha explains that the benefits are greater when the diet is implemented at a very early stage - however, while I'm not expecting a complete reversal of my 19-yr old son's cognitive deficits, after only three weeks of introducing some of the basic rules, I have already noticed more of a 'switch on' and he more readily engages in conversation, and less in his own 'blinkered' world. Additionally, in respect of myself, I've noticed that I no longer experience the anxiety with my job that I always thought was normal!To say this book offers hope for parents of Autistic children would be grossly understating it! I'm still in the process of learning about fermentation and intend to fully implement the diet with my son, as much as he's willing to tolerate at 19 years of age, with a recent history of enjoying fast food! It has been mighty helpful to explain to my son that he is not Autistic but that he has symptoms of Autism caused by the toxicity generated by the damage to his gut and gut flora! My son, who has been previously been addicted to all the wrong foods is now motivated to follow the rules and taking the probiotics is the easy part.The book is necessarily 'wordy' and technical to the average 'Joe' out there, and all I would say is just stick with it, and as you implement the regimen with either your child or yourself, you'll quickly find that it's worth it!

So much fascinating information contained within its pages. Dont be put off by the selection of illnesses named on the signpost of the front cover believing that it wont be relevent to you as you dont suffer from any of them.It is relevent to anyone who has swallowed a course of anti biotics!Doctors should read this with an open mind and get a really in depth understanding of why we are inundated these days with children and adults suffering with asthma and eczema let alone the many other problems which society complains about.It may or may not work for you but I am absolutely sure it is worth reading this book to help you understand why it just might be effective.Its such a readable book too which suprised me considering how much each topic is explored. You do not require a huge knowledge of medical terminology...just an interest in being healthy.Pregnant women and parents with young children should read it as a handbook to good parenting. Healthy children are much happier children after all.I cannot reccommend this book highly enough.....it might just change your world for the better.

Congratulations to Natasha Campbell-McBride. This is a seriously good book for opening our eyes to the 1-3% of life that makes up a person....that is not actually that person.(That figure would be even higher counting the mitochondria, organisms which are only just, and debatably 'us' through symbiosis and some incorporated DNA, despite being essential to produce the energy required within every living cell.)So, just to recap: (without mitochondria) that is in the range of 0.75 to 2.25 KILOS (pick up that bag of sugar) of an average weight adult that is made up of bugs and beasties. That is a hell of a lot of yeasts, bacteria, and asssorded heebie-jeebies living on and within us. Oh and by the way, just the ones that are on you and in you, are estimated to outnumber your own troops/bretheren by 10 to 1.However! Don't reach straight for the bleach and start necking it and scouring it frantically. Most of them are actually good for us in the ideal world, and looked after like a garden or your pets, they even perform essential tasks. These include generating nutrients, breaking down toxins, and even fighting off invaders. So much so that without the good ones we would become very ill or even die.C-MB does a very good job of explaining all about this ecosystem; that, as a 'culture' we ravage with junk-foods, chemicals, toxins, medications and drugs yada yada yada; eventually destroying our abilities to absorb what we need, and to keep out what we don't.Along with epigenetics, the human microbiome (flora and fauna) discussed in this book is another crucial environmental factor, to chip away at the bastion of genetic determinism, and other excuses and outdated misconceptions.It makes perfect sense that lately in our commercially industrialised evolution phase, we have been depriving ourselves of bug based (microbiota mediated and produced) nutrients and protection by misadvisedly altering the natural internal ecosystem. A little knowledge can indeed be a very dangerous thing. When it gets really bad this situation then allows in foreign toxins from half digested food matter, through inflamation and ulceration (apparently very common, and often unfelt) resulting in food allergies, eczema, ADHD, autism, epilepsy, depression, brain fog etc etc. and quite probably cancer. Then we wonder why our immune systems, brains, rug-rats etc dont work right good, so we throw chemicals at the situation to mask the symptoms. Genius. Drug those children and 'old' peoples symptoms, all for having a basic underlying microbiota imbalance.Campbell-McBride explains it all far better and in far more detail than this....and then gives her detailed directions for what she has found so far best remediates and repatriates the overrun toxic playground. And I love her illustrations of the poor little bereft enterocytesOk, so there are the rare technical spelling mistakes (American?) pointed out by the other reviewers, and she may not be perfect (who is?) but she is intelligent, passionate, clear in her writing, and covers some crucial information that could be of massive use to SO many people. Useful theory to so many people, even if they don't have overt symptomsThe cooking part is very good, and based on her own 'experiments'. As a subject, it needs a lot of research and expansion by many keen minds, but she has made a brilliant and much needed start. Sadly she seems to be unaware or to forget that sprouting and then cooking beans, nuts etc removes a large (how large? sprouted for how long?) portion of anti-nutrients and toxins and more importantly unlocks vitamins, lipids, proteins, minerals etc etc. She only recommends the crucial soaking, and fermenting and cooking, which is also good (how good? which fermentation?) according to the literature. A mixture of both is probably best.A variety of ancient trusted wholefoods, and not too mixing much within one meal(?), seems to be what is best for us humans. Anthropology is definitely the way to go. Who said Weston-Price is discredited? and by whom? Misquoted, yes! He quite clearly said don't eat too much meat, but is continually quoted as saying eat nothing but, for some corrupt reason, but discredited? Never! Wrong on a few details, of course, but so was Einstein. Einstein, to paraphrase, gave us 'the solutions to hard problems will not be found within the thinking that created them', and in the case of nutrition, they will be probably be solved by discarding the often industry funded 'nutritionism' that created them: to paraphrase Pollan.Unfortunatley, however, C-MB is not infallible. She is briefly very fascist and gets all religious on the desperate need to kill cute fluffy stuff. Damn. She was doing so well. Presumably she has seen a lot of kids in a bad way (or is knowingly or unknowingly in league with the meat industry). It is patently clear how beneficial a little of the correct foods from the animal kingdom can be. She is right that we are not designed to live well just off of plants, However, she is totally wrong that we are designed to live primarily off of meat. Our digestive system is neither quite like plant eaters, nor quite like meat eaters, or even like most other omnivores like bears etc. We have yet to find out what we are supposed to eat (notwithstanding correcting for damage and imbalances) in our natural state. Looking at the family tree, it is probably insects and fruit (if you go way back to the big-eyed bushbaby-like ewok thingies) and certain discarded or rotting stuff (iceage etc - discuss), and then there is varying levels of plant, meat (and fish I believe in our case) specialisations in various different primate strains.Instantly she has lost a valuable and intelligent part of her audience. I don't plan to go vegetarian myself, at least not yet. Sadly life feeds off life :( At least until we learn to photosynthesise. And I do feel sorry for the carrots. To us it is harvest day, to them it is the holocaust.As has she, I have also seen so many malnourished vegetarians. Often trying to live off bread, cheese, junk food and other processed 'dead' foods. Some even include salad, and buckets of fresh raw and/or cooked veggies, but still look pastier than a cheese pasty: and hollow and ill, somehow. All of whom I always try to get into simple and varied sprouting (not alfalfa), and more recently sprouting for cooking. Not to mention that while it is an astounding detox, and ideal for part or even most of the diet, Raw Food Purism, the Religion, can lead to a brilliant semi-starvation alertness high - but the raw food purists all go wirey and nuts after a while. Or reach for the meat (bring on the raw and fermenting fish).Campbell McBride is so right that it takes a lot of planning and effort in the preparation techniques and dietary balance required to be a healthy vegetarian. Even so, it is a thoroughly laudable and extremely noble sentiment, to be explored to the fullest. If the motivation is to stop causing pain to sentient beings, then is a prawn or a mollusc vastly more sentient than a carrot? (Probably. Never had a chat with a carrot, but, apparently they do scream less if you chop them the right way ;) lol. Do some research though, the jury is out.)However, with carefully and intuitively balanced plant sources, proper bean and nut preparation, healthy intestinal microbiota, and especially along with real organic pastured raw eggs (raw yolk, cooked white) and real, organic, pastured, raw milk, I still believe that vegetarians and possibly even almost-vegans can be extremely healthy, and I would propose, with careful experimentation, even heal from GAPs syndrome as outlined in this book.Insects and other lower life forms are probably the way to go in terms of reducing sentient pain while still consuming life that doesn't have cute faces. Along with fish; molluscs, aquatic arthropods, and other insecty things are apparently one of the best sources of nutrition for things like brain development. If you are body building, plants are generally fine it seems in many cases.It is clear however, that many essential vitamins cannot be satisfactorily obtained from plant sources alone, or even made through plant precursors using our own metabolism, and it is suggested that we struggle to find these building blocks even if we only include the consumption of, or symbiosis with yeasts and bacteria. This has yet to be verified I think: the microbiota in a healthy gut can produce all sorts of crucial vitamins and nutrients, as C-McB points out, that just cannot be obtained from plants. If you add unpasteurised yet pastured milk and eggs, all bases are covered, as far as we know so far.If you add fish though, everything is more than fine, as the work of Weston Price recorded...but fish are probably pretty sentient too...even though their faces aren't generally quite as recognisably cute, unless you like them guppy...although I am sure that they would disagree strongly and probably think the inverse.Anyway, I digressI totally get what she is saying about get your kid healthy by any means (almost: eating other kids is probably a bit strong), but she does go a bit overboard and clearly and erroneously states that the easiest food for us to digest is animal based. This is just not true. We are really not that well designed to eat meat. Our entire digestive systems are nothing like those of the cat or dog families for example.(Whatever happened to the Aquatic Ape Theory? Isn't it about time that became mainstream? Genius!)However like often heals like, and if we have damaged organs, then the best medicine may often be with eating components like connective tissue and other internal organsOther than that, an excellent book, and I highly recommend it, along with Fallon's outstanding Nourishing Traditions, Katz's inspirational The Art of Fermentation, Lewin's more down to earth Real Food Fermentation, and despite being (carefully and case specifically) pro-the-evil-grain, Pitchford's Healing with Whole Foods.Healing with Whole Foods is the perfect antidote to way too much meat being pushed at us, and to way too many crazy-assed fad-diets. Healing with Whole Foods is, again, probably fallible as are we all, but based on a lot of ancient and modern research, and totally illuminating. It is generally fine even for C-MB once you have healed your poor intestinal eco-system. A must have for anyone interested in nutrition. As most definitely is this one.Please remember at all times that the nascent field more correctly identified as 'nutritionism', despite its boastful claims and flashy half-baked stastics and concepts, is currently about as advanced as brain surgery was with trepanning. Sometimes good, sometimes oops.Read Micheal Pollan.Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much. Sorted.Oh and most importantly of all:Enjoy!