GAPS Diet

GAPS stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome. It’s a term that was invented by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, who also designed the GAPS diet.  The GAPS dietary protocol cured Dr. Campbell-McBride’s first child of autism, as such she has proof very close to home that it works. She now widely promotes the diet as a natural cure for many psychiatric and neurological conditions.

The Theory

The theory is that many conditions that both affect your brain and many of your other organs are caused by a ‘leaky gut’. Leaky gut is the term used to describe an increase in the permeability of the gut wall. 

Damage to the intestinal wall is caused by a host of different environmental toxins – pesticides, insecticides, antibiotics and a plethora of other pharmaceuticals, processed food containing additives, food colouring, transfats and so on.  A damaged intestinal wall, as well as dysbiosis – an imbalance in intestinal flora results from this onslaught of poisons. 

The GAPS theory is that a leaky gut allows chemicals, food particles, toxins, bacteria and other pathogens to enter your blood stream when they wouldn’t normally do so.

These unwanted constituents of the blood stream then travel round the body and cause harm wherever they happen to settle.  They have been implicated in causing gout for example and rheumatoid arthritis.  Any organ may in fact be affected including the blood circulatory system itself, and atherosclerosis is known to be caused by leaky gut.

Here the particles are just acting as irritants and pathogens, but there is an added problem caused by vaccines

Vaccines – asthma, allergies, MS etc

Vaccines have three groups of substances in them

•  An adjuvant -  Adjuvants may be added to vaccine to modify the immune response usually by boosting it. 
• An agent  - a disease-causing microorganism that may be a weakened form of the microbe, an active microbe that in theory has had some of its virulent properties disabled, or simply a new strain of microbe.
• The excipient - is the holding fluid included for the purpose of 'bulking-up' drugs that contain potent active ingredients, or to help during manufacturing, use or simply making it last longer.

Where food particles have escaped into the blood stream, then the body may also build up an immunological record of the food and react when the food is eaten or re-enters the blood stream via the gut.

What however is little known is that many vaccines contain ‘foods’ – dairy proteins, peanut oil, eggs, even gelatine  - as an excipient, as such the situation may be made far worse by the fact the body has been primed by the vaccination to treat these foods in the blood stream as very hostile agents. 

The vaccination itself may produce no reaction and the person may go away thinking the vaccine has been successful.  But unbeknownst to them the adjuvant has primed the immune system to create a hostile reaction to, for example, peanut oil.  The child then eats the food –peanuts – bits of peanut creep through the intestine wall and get into the blood stream and a major anaphylactic reaction may then result – perhaps months after the vaccination, meaning the connection is never made.

The adjuvant in the vaccine has told the body to fight all the contents of the vaccine and so the body does.

The worse effect comes when the vaccine excipient looks like a part of the body itself – gelatine or the myelin sheath on nerves.  In those cases, a leaky gut plays no part in the reaction – the excipient has told the body to fight for example gelatine wherever it finds it – and so it does and multiple sclerosis and GBS and numerous other nerve related diseases result.  And the same holds true for the majority of auto-immune diseases.

Brain damage

If the blood brain barrier has been compromised, by for example the aluminium in the vaccine adjuvant, then not only may these foreign substances enter your blood, they can affect your brain’s function and development.

In effect they can cause brain damage – a range of brain damage – Dementia, Alzheimer’s, Schizophrenia, Manic Depression, Depression, ADD, ADHD, Tourette’s, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Dyspraxia, Dyslexia,  and the various types of Autism etc  etc

Interestingly, studies have noted that up to 70% of people with autism also have poor digestive health, which can result in symptoms including constipation, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, acid reflux and vomiting.  Untreated digestive symptoms in people with autism have also been linked with more severe behaviors, including increased irritability, tantrums, aggressive behavior and sleep disturbances .  A small number of studies have found that some children with autism have increased intestinal permeability.

So that combination of leaky gut, and BBB permeability [whatever the cause] does have the potential to cause brain damage.

The GAPS protocol

The GAPS protocol does not involve itself with the vaccine debate.  Instead the protocol is designed to :

• heal the gut, thereby preventing toxins from entering the blood stream and
• lower “toxicity” in the body. It also aims to try to
• prevent the toxins that destroy the gut from getting in.  We saw that damage to the intestinal wall is caused by a host of different environmental toxins – pesticides, insecticides, antibiotics and a plethora of other pharmaceuticals, processed food containing additives, food colouring, transfats and so on. 

Thus the protocol aims to eliminate all these things from the person’s diet or life.

The following summarises the three main stages: the GAPS introduction diet, the full GAPS diet and a reintroduction phase for coming off of the diet.

Introduction Phase: Elimination

The introduction phase is the most intense part of the diet because it eliminates the most foods. It’s called the “gut healing phase” and can last from three weeks to one year, depending on your symptoms.  It removes all starchy carbs from your diet. Instead, you’ll eat mostly broth, stews and probiotic foods.  This phase is broken down into six stages:

Stage 1: Consume homemade bone broth, juices from probiotic foods and ginger, and drink mint or chamomile tea with honey between meals. People who are not dairy intolerant may eat unpasteurized, homemade yogurt or kefir.

Stage 2: Add in raw organic egg yolks, [unless you are egg intolerant] ghee and stews made with vegetables and meat or fish.

Stage 3: All previous foods plus avocado, fermented vegetables, GAPS-recipe pancakes and scrambled eggs made with ghee, duck fat or goose fat.

Stage 4: Add in grilled and roasted meats, cold-pressed olive oil, vegetable juice and GAPS-recipe bread.

Stage 5: Introduce cooked apple purée, raw vegetables starting with lettuce and peeled cucumber, fruit juice and small amounts of raw fruit, but no citrus.

Stage 6: Finally, introduce more raw fruit, including citrus.

During the introduction phase, the diet requires you to introduce foods slowly, starting with small amounts and building up gradually.  The diet recommends that you move from one stage to the next once you are tolerating the foods you have introduced. You are considered to be tolerating a food when you have a normal bowel movement.

Once the introduction diet is complete, you can move to the full GAPS diet.

Maintenance Phase: The Full GAPS Diet

The full GAPS diet is considered the maintenance phase of the diet, and lasts between 1.5–2 years. It’s based on animal fats, meat, fish, eggs and vegetables. It also includes probiotic and fermented foods. It uses organic foods, and avoids all packaged and canned foods, refined carbs, preservatives and artificial colourings.  During this part of the diet, people are advised to base the majority of their diet on the following foods:

• Fresh meat, preferably hormone-free, organic and grass-fed
• Animal fats, such as lard, dripping, lamb fat, duck fat, raw butter and ghee
• Fish
• Shellfish
• Organic eggs
• Fermented foods, such as kefir, homemade yogurt and sauerkraut
• Vegetables [organic only]
• Nuts - Followers of the diet can also eat moderate amounts of nuts and GAPS-recipe baked goods made with nut flours.

For more details please see the book.

Reintroduction Phase: Coming off GAPS

The diet suggests that you start the reintroduction phase after you have experienced normal digestion and bowel movements for at least six months.  Given that the diet is actually very nutritious and is not that restrictive many people never bother to come off the diet. 

Foods high in refined carbs are never allowed again, they are permanently removed from the diet, as such you’re advised to continue avoiding all highly processed and refined high-sugar food, however, it states that you could start adding small quantities of new potatoes and fermented, gluten-free grains.  The diet also suggests you take small amounts of a cold-pressed nut and seed oil blend that has a 2:1 ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids.

Summary

Many ‘health professionals’ have criticized the GAPS diet because ‘there are no scientific studies that support its claims’.  But there again scientific studies these days are sponsored – usually by pharmaceutical companies, and as we are constantly reminded by the now infamous Goldman Sachs remark “there is no money to be made from curing people”.

This Diet is one of the few that actually tackle the  cause, although the tricky problem of vaccines is not addressed – a step too far perhaps, at this stage

References

Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autism, Dyspraxia, A.D.D., Dyslexia, A.D.H.D., Depression, Schizophrenia, 2nd Edition Paperback – 5 Mar 2018  by Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride

Observations

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• Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride - Food is the Best Medicine
• Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride - The Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) Diet
• Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride - Heart attack through 'evil fats'?