LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Colic

Billion Year Old Treatment Effective for Colic?

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I’ve grilled in the idea that the bacteria in our body is not always detrimental and should not be wantonly destroyed with antibiotics.

Quite the opposite–when healthy bacterial flora is present our bodies benefit.  And the list of benefits is quite long and includes pretty much any condition or disease that the human body can experience.  And this relationship between the bacteria in our gut and our health starts early in life.

In this particular study, a group of 46 infants with colic were in the control group or were given a specific form of probiotic (Lactobacillus reuteri to the tune of 800 million / day – which is much lower then I usually recommend in inftants) and found some pretty strong benefits on colic.  For any of those parents out there dealing with a colicky baby, anything that can help is a godsend.  If that intervention happens to be inexpensive and simple, it becomes a no-brainer.  Here’s what the researchers found:

  • Responders (50% reduction in crying time from baseline) were higher in the L reuteri group versus the placebo group on days 7 (20 vs 8), day 14 (24 vs 13), and day 21 (24 vs 15).

Now, long before the colic sets in, we need to understand that mom needs to have good bacteria to start with–both in the vaginal vault and in her gut so that she can transport the bacteria to her breast milk for nursing.  That means that if mom has EVER had antibiotics and did not replace the good bacteria that was destroyed, she will likely not have the good bacteria to pass on to the newborn during the travel through the birth canal and subsequently through nursing.  I would also add that, if a nursing mother has an infant experiencing colic, chiropractic adjustments and having mom avoid dairy have been shown to help as well.

Surprising Finding on Newborn Acid Reflux: Be Very Scared About Prilosec

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Parents of newborns are always worried about their little one. But this can lead to misguided trust in the wrong pediatrician if the little one is sick.

Excessive spitting up, crying after eating and refusing to eat can all be symptoms of what may be diagnosed as infant reflux.  The less wary pediatrician, if symptoms are creating a problem with eating enough, may recommend a prescription of Nexium or Prilosec.  The first time I heard of this practice, I was astounded that anyone would even consider giving a drug that blocks digestion to an infant.  After all–what does an infant do?  Eat, poop and cry.  Two of the 3 are intimately involved with digestion.  Using a drug to block digestion is pretty much nixing the life of an infant.

It’s bad enough in an adult.  Shutting down digestion is a very, very bad idea except in a few scenarios.  If you have a bleeding ulcer, for example, Nexium can very well save your life.  But if you’ve got a case of heartburn and use acid-blocking drugs for years on end, you are absolutely destroying your body’s essential functions and will open up a huge Pandora’s box of problems.

In infants, this concern is multiplied tenfold.  The real kicker is that drugs are only needed in rare cases because natural approaches for infant reflux can work so well.  The most recent article I had covered had to do with the use of vitamin B12 in infants with reflux and regurgitation that can be read by clicking here.  The results were pretty impressive.

Just in case you are one of those parents whose pediatrician has recommended an acid blocking drug for newborn acid reflux, this particular study should scare the bejesus out of you.  In this study, researchers looked at just how much digestion of proteins was going on in the stomach of 3 little ones.  This is important because, if there is a lot of digestion going on and we slam this process with drugs, it’s going to have an unpredictable long term effect on your infant’s long-term health.  Here’s what they found:

  • Milk from 3 was collected and compared to a small sample from the stomach of the infants (who were 4  to 12 days old).
  • Milk from the moms contained almost 200 distinct peptides (segments of proteins), demonstrating that there was some digestion of the breast milk either during lactation or between milk collection and feeding.
  • In the newborn stomach samples, 649 milk peptides were found, showing that a large amount of  digestion was occurring in the stomach.
  • A total of 603 peptides differed significantly in quantities between breast milk and the infant stomach samples.
  • Most of the identified peptides have been shown to have immunomodulatory and antibacterial properties.

So what does all this mean?  It means that, even from day one, an infants digestive process is up and running full tilt, turning proteins from foods into protective compounds that will steer the development of the immune system for a lifetime.  I cannot begin to contemplate the long-term damage that using drugs to block acid in newborn acid reflux will cause.

 

4 Infant Feeding Problems Solved Easily

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I usually note that most doctors are decades behind the medical research and it is always the patient that suffers.  Pediatricians seem to be the worst of the bunch when it comes to common infant problems.

Of course, I AM generalizing here based on feedback from patients as well as the recommendations that parents are given from pediatricians.  While some pediatricians may disagree, I can easily back this statement up with medical research on topics such as colic, infant feeding, vaccination, reflux, antibiotic use and, my all time favorite, probiotics.

These conditions continue to be treated with antiquated approaches that run completely contrary to the medical research.  The appropriate use of probiotics alone are running some 100 YEARS behind the research.  If you asked the average pediatrician about the dangers of antibiotics you would get an answer related to diarrhea or skin reactions and not even a vague notion about a lifelong disruption to the immune system leading to autoimmune conditions, allergies and gastrointestinal problems.

Why the rampage?  It relates to this particular study.  In this study done in Italy (which may be saying something that it was not actually done in the US), researchers gave 589 term infant either  L reuteri DSM 17938 (a specific type of probiotic) or a placebo daily for 90 days.  Parents were asked to follow the number of episodes of regurgitation, duration of inconsolable crying (minutes per day), number of evacuations per day, number of visits to pediatricians, feeding changes, hospitalizations, visits to a pediatric emergency department for a perceived health emergency, pharmacologic interventions, and loss of parental working days.  Here’s what they found:

  1. Crying time was almost cut in half by the probiotics (38 vs 71 minutes).
  2. The episodes of regurgitations per day was also almost cut in half by the probiotics (2.9 vs 4.6).
  3. The number of evacuations per day increased with the probiotics (4.2 vs 3.6).
  4. The use of probiotics led to an average cost savings per patient of $118.71 for the family and an additional $140.30 for the community.

For something as simple, inexpensive and safe as probiotics that have this drastic of an impact (and, if you’re a parent who has dealt with a colicky infant, “drastic” can not begin to describe what that extra sleep can mean!).  The frustration for me is that, despite a large body of evidence that having a good healthy bacterial flora is of critical importance to a newborn, probiotics will still be relegated to the back burner and used long after prescriptions like Prilosec have failed.

All of this is on top of the clear fact that having these bacteria present in the first few years of life is of the absolute most critical importance for a healthy development of the immune system, so supplementation at this young age will have very long-lasting, positive effects.  Conversely, antibiotics will destroy the bacteria that are so essential to a newborns healthy development.

 

Will Your Infant Develop Migraines? 2 Things to Look For

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My near-mantra is that migraines are not a problem in the head. Rather, these headaches are a sign that something is wrong with your overall health. The evidence supporting this position is plentiful and some of this research can be found in a recent blog post that refers to migraines as a “progressive brain disorder.”

While migraines can begin at any age, it is not unusual to have them start as a toddler.  I recently had a patient whose migraines began as early as 2 years of age.  As a parent, I can think of few things more achingly painful than watching your innocent child suffer the debilitating pain of a migraine while all you can do is watch helplessly.  No wonder some parents who seek help from pediatric neurologists resort to neurotransmitter-altering medications given at a time when the brain is undergoing some of the most dramatic changes of his or her lifespan.

But what if there is another answer? What if there was an early warning sign that something was wrong with your little one’s system?

What if you could change it THEN, possibly derailing the chance that your small child will suffer with migraines?

As you can guess, I wouldn’t bring this up unless there was an answer.

This particular study looks at the relationship between an infant who experienced infantile colic and his or her later risk of developing chronic migraine headaches. Here’s what they found:

  • Children with migraine were 661% more likely to have had infantile colic.
  • If the child had migraine without aura the risk was still massive at 701%.
  • Migraine with aura 573% .
  • However, this association was not present with tension-type headaches.

In other words, somewhere there is an incredibly strong connection between infantile colic and migraines. There are several mechanisms that might explain the association.

One possible explanation is that the gut produces a very high level of neurotransmitters, which is why the gut is frequently referred to as the “second brain.”  An alteration in the production of these neurotransmitters in the gut could clearly affect brain function.

As an example, 2/3 of the body’s serotonin comes from the gut.  When the gut is inflamed, it will produce even more serotonin.  This could result in the infant’s brain being bathed in an unnaturally high level of serotonin, resulting in a lifetime of a sort of serotonin deficency. Serotonin clearly has an influence on the brain and some migraine medications (like amytriptaline) are used to treat migraines.

The other explanation can start with a personal story.  When my little Keegan was an infant, he experienced colic. As any parent can tell you, colic can be heartbreaking and frustrating, especially in the middle of the night when the parent is going on virtually no sleep.

While most cases of colic are said to last about 3 months, Keegan’s was handled in about 4 weeks through a combination of probiotics, a visit to a pediatric chiropractor and cutting dairy out of mom’s diet while she continued to nurse.

Food allergies.

There is absolutely NO doubt that food allergies can contribute to chronic migraine headaches.  The changes made for Keegan were designed to shift his immune system back into balance (probiotics for Th1 stimulation, allergen avoidance to tone down Th2 pathways).  An altered immune system can produce inflammation that is bad for the brain and bad for the blood vessels leading to the brain.

This study can give us further insight into what might cause migraines later in life. It may be that, in those who suffer from chronic migraine headaches AND had infantile colic, the identification and avoidance of food allergies and calming any inflammation in the gut may be a critical piece to the puzzle of solving migraine headaches for you or someone you care about.

2 More Reasons Breast Feeding Beats Even the Best Baby Formula

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I hear it time and time again.  “Baby Johnny didn’t have problems until I stopped breast feeding and switched to baby formula.”  In the past, I have focused on the new food or formula being introduced.  That has just been the path that made the most sense.  After all, everything was going well until new foods were introduced into the baby’s system.

If the problem seems to be with the introduction of the baby formula, I will recommend switching to a hydrolyzed formula like Nutramigen or Alimentum.  It’s not a matter of switching from soy to cow’s milk or vice versa–it’s just that your infant’s gut is not ready to handle anything other than mom’s milk until well after 6 months.  This is why the hydrolyzed formulas are a better option–the proteins are already enzymatically pre-digested so his or her little digestive system has less to react to.

Of course, all of this was before I read this particular article.

I have addressed all the benefits of breast feeding over baby formula in a previous blog article that can be read by clicking here, so I won’t belabor the issue again.

Researchers identified two key abilities of breast milk that were not present in formula:

  1. Breast milk had a natural ability to quiet smooth muscle cells, like those of the GI tract.  This could help nursing infants from having abdominal cramping and pain.
  2. Breast milk had higher antioxidant abilities over baby formula. Greater antioxidant protection can obviously lead to all kinds of protective benefits over the formula.

I won’t belabor the point again, but I will highlight that we really have NO idea the full breadth and diversity of compounds that are present in breast milk.  As a result, even the best baby formula will be just a shadow of what breast feeding is to a developing newborn and infant.

NURSING MOTHERS BE AWARE OF WHAT YOU EAT – (12-06-05)

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Effect of a Low-Allergen Maternal Diet on Colic Among Breastfed Infants

Many would not think that the foods a nursing mother takes in would have a large impact on certain conditions her infant may be experiencing, but that’s not the case at all. Even the mercury from her fillings can show up in breast milk. This reinforces that a nursing mother needs to be fully aware of the quality and type of foods she is eating. What was interesting, however, was that, although the reduction in distress in the infant was clearly demonstrated, the moms did not note much of a difference.

Read entire article here

DO YOU KNOW THAT THE BACTERIAL FLORA HAS AN IMPACT ON OUR HEALTH? – (03-06-05)

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Bacterial counts of intestinal Lactobacillus species in infants with colic

There is no longer a question that the bacterial flora in our bodies (pharynx, stomach, SI, LI, vaginal vault..) have an impact on our health.  While many clinicians that wouldn’t recognize a medical journal if it hit them in the face remains oblivious to this fact, the research, as always, moves on.  We are now focusing on the types and levels of bacteria that positively and negatively impact our health.  Considering the number of bacteria in our gut, this job is not an easy one.

The research comes in in bits and pieces, but I’m sure that we will soon have a much clearer picture of the impacts different species have on our health.  Maybe then our focus will shift away from antibiotic resistance to the much larger problem of destroying normal, protective flora.

Read entire article here