This is VERY interesting....one researcher's take on what really causes autism..

[Guest guest]

This is an excerpt from an article by the author of fiber menace. I

do not know if I agree with his conclusions or not, but he is a very

interesting guy. The first one to write me and tell me that he

thought it unlikely that Matt had " leaky gut " , a condition that he

thinks is usually BS and a huge moneymaker for some...vaccines may

have aggravated things, but per him, poor diets high in fiber are the

CAUSE of this childhood epidemic...this is from the site FIBER MENACE

on the net. Cheers.

Here is his take on autism:

....Also, it's almost certain that fiber, particularly soluble, is

behind the epidemic of autism. According to the CDC, " 560,000

individuals between the ages of 0 to 21 have an ASD [autism spectrum

disorder] and " between 1994 and 2004, the number of 6 to 17-year-old

children classified as having an ASD in public special education

programs increased from 22,664 to 193,637. " [20] That's an 850% jump

just in 10 years. Autism wasn't even on the radar just a few

generations ago.

This dramatic increase parallels fiber's ascent to prominence and its

wholesale addition to children's nutrition — particularly with

fortified wheat cereals, a main source of dietary iron and folic acid

in the American diet. Iron deficiency happens to be " an important

cause of decreased attention span, alertness, and learning -- both in

young children and in adolescents " [21] and folic acid deficiency

causes " diarrhea, depression, and confusion. " [22] (Sources: National

Institutes of Health, The Merck Manual).

In this context, the connection between autism and fiber is

absolutely transparent: the soluble fiber in processed food, fruits,

and juices; gluten in cereals, bread and pasta; and lactose, casein

(milk's protein) and stabilizers from fiber in processed dairy

commonly cause intestinal inflammation. This prevents the absorption

of iron, folic acid, essential amino and fatty acids, and other

critical nutrients, which play a critical role in cognitive

development. A well-established fact is that children with autism

often experience severe gastrointestinal disorders, and that further

supports this conclusion.

Based on a search of the U.S. National Library of Medicine

(pubmed.gov; terms fiber and [autism or ASD], December 2007), I

believe am the first investigator to indentify and describe the

connection between the consumption of fiber and autism. Considering

the number of children affected by ASD, this important discovery has

far-reaching implications, and I am hoping that pediatric physicians

will continue to explore my findings.

Similarly, soluble fiber may be easily linked to stunted growth,

rickets, scoliosis, depression, asthma, hyperactivity, attention

deficit disorder, common food allergies, and God knows what other

pediatric diseases caused by " hidden malnutrition. " Even if parents

are providing all of the right nutrients to children, unbeknownst to

them, these nutrients aren't digested because of fiber's interference

with intestinal absorption.

Interestingly, the companies that market products with soluble fiber —

from Atkins Nutritionals to Procter & Gamble, the maker of

Metamucil — knowingly mislead the public by referring to fiber

as " net carbs " or " zero carbs. " Once inside the large intestine,

almost all soluble fiber and up to 50% of insoluble fiber gets

fermented by intestinal bacteria. The resulting short chain fatty

acids are utilized just like any other fats, and provide " in the

range of 1.5 to 2.5 kcal/g " [23] of energy. This is up to 60% more

than zero, and quickly ads up, especially when fiber intake is high.

(SOURCE: Food and Nutrition Board, Dietary Reference Intakes).

Grown-ups have their nemesis too. Consider the " natural " remedies for

regularity, such as beets, prunes, and plum juice. All are

concentrated sources of pectin, a soluble fiber, and sorbitol, a

glucose derivative. Just like pectin, sorbitol is a potent

hyperosmotic laxative and diarrheal agent, hence its " softening "

effect on impacted stools.

All would be fine, if not for one little headache: excess dietary

sorbitol sneaks into the cells, and causes heart attacks, strokes,

kidney failure, deafness, blindness (retinopathy) and loss of nerve

sensitivity (neuropathy), including anal neuropathy. Once that

happens, you'll no longer experience the urge to defecate — although,

next to blindness, it's a minor aggravation.

Oh, yes — peripheral neuropathy from sorbitol is also a contributing

factor to foot amputations among diabetics. Over 80,000 rotting limbs

get chopped off annually in elective surgery.[24] Just imagine the

indignity —deaf, blind, and unable to walk to the bathroom.

— Oh, boy!

— But did you expect mercy from stuffing yourself years on end with a

killer food?

Doctors and fiber: How the livestock feed became health food

Hold on, Mr. Monastyrsky. Everything you are saying is a complete

opposite of what everyone else is saying. Are you really implying

that most medical professionals are so incompetent? This just doesn't

make any sense, considering that most doctors, nutritionists, and

dietitians follow those dietary guidelines themselves. What on earth

is going on?

Yes, it may not make any sense to you in the same way that Newton's

laws may not make any sense to a brilliant fourth-grader, but that

doesn't mean that they are any less true. By questioning entrenched

doctrines and restating long-accepted, undisputable facts of human

anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and digestion in support of my

position, I am not implying anything. As to why " everyone else is

saying " the complete opposite of those well-know facts — that's a

good question and deserves explanation.

For starters, the average practitioner of medical arts knows about

forensic nutrition (my field of expertise) as much as I know about

his or her chosen specialty. In other words, from little to none,

simply because medical fields are so highly specialized. Besides,

nutrition per se isn't an art form (like medicine), but a sizable

branch of biology with little wiggle room.

If this still surprises you, look at it from this perspective: For

all intent and purposes, before splitting into their respective

specialties, ophthalmologists and gastroenterologists went to similar

medical schools. They took similar licensing board exams, and did

similar internships. So, would you go to an eye doctor (who can see

just as well) for an anal exam? No? Then why would you expect a rank-

and-file physician, even a gastroenterologist, to know much about

fiber—at best a footnote in a brief crash course in nutrition a few

decades ago?

Second, few if any mainstream practitioners stray far from prevailing

doctrines in order to protect themselves from ridicule, spurious

lawsuits, and loss of license and income. Not surprisingly, most

doctors practice " defensive medicine, " and are thoroughly cemented to

the dominant sources of medical information In fiber's case, most of

this information happens to be wrong.

Third, the writers and editors who develop medical textbooks aren't

necessarily top experts in their field, nor are they the best

thinkers or top-flight researchers. And they are just as " defensive "

and conservative in their work as their core readers. And for exactly

the same reasons, none of them are really bad or circumspect.

Fourth, doctors move bowels too. Accordingly, their private

observations of their own bathroom experiences concur with reference

information and help them form strong personal biases, which then

cloud their own medical judgments and impact negatively their advice

to patients. In other words, if you doctor sees his/her own large

stools all of the time, or has stools every other day, and he/she is

still alive, in his/her mind this isn't going to kill you either. A

little straining here, a little hemorrhoid there—what's the big deal?

By the time it becomes a " big deal, " most doctors are well past their

prime, and not in the mood or shape to write books or conduct

research regarding someone else's stools.

Fifth, the experts on fiber! While working on this essay, I came

across an interesting comment attributed to S. Grove, the co-

founder of Intel: " When everybody knows that something is so, it

means that nobody knows nothin'. " That pretty much sums up all you

need to know about the experts. Am I an expert on fiber? Of course

not — I am an " expert " in forensic nutrition who stumbled into the

fiber minefield by accident. How otherwise would I dare to

question " the experts on fiber " ?

Sixth, don't discount the institutional profit motive. Digestive

disorders reliably deliver hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue

to hospitals, diagnostic labs, imaging centers, drugstores, and

pharmaceutical companies. According to the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention, in 2004 (the latest available statistic)

digestive symptoms resulted in 41.3 million visits to doctors, 15.1

million visits to emergency rooms, and 3.6 million visits to hospital

outpatient departments.[25] And that's before adding up tens of

millions of pediatric problems, millions of colonoscopies, hundreds

of thousands of surgeries, rehabilitation, and the costs of over-the-

counter and prescription drugs to treat chronic colorectal disorders.

With so much upside, the status quo will remain quo for as long as it

pays.

History of ascent: Damn the torpedoes, let's make a buck

Ironically, the perpetrators of fibermania are just as affected by

its follies as are the perpetrated. That's why, if you ask doctors

what (beside losing a license) is their biggest fear, most would tell

you: becoming a patient. Fortunately, this leaves us with reasonable

hope that the facts presented in this essay will not be brushed under

the rug — physicians, particularly in the United States, represent a

top tier of the intellectual elite and aren't patsies. That was the

case with hormone replacement therapy, and this will be the case with

fiber. Or so I hope.

In hindsight, fiber's ascent from cows' chew to gut savior isn't

surprising. Most contemporary allopathic medicine is built on good

intentions, cause-and-effect evidence, and deductive reasoning. If

bleeding down the patient reduces body temperature, physicians used

to think, then let's treat high fever with bloodletting. If mercury

kills bacteria in nature, let's kill them in the body. If electric

shock knocks a person motionless, let's treat psychotic patients with

electric shock. If menopause lowers hormones, let's replace lost

hormones.

Only later does it become self-evident that all these methods cause

more harm than good: bloodletting literally bleeds a person to death,

hence the lowering of body temperature; mercury kills bacteria, but

also poisons the body; electric shock calms down a crazed person, but

also causes irreversible brain damage; replacement hormones alleviate

hot flashes and mood swings, but also cause heart attacks and

strokes, and so on.

When the piles of corpses become too hard to conceal, the barbaric

old methods get exposed and replaced with new, less barbaric ones:

bloodletting is replaced with anti-inflammatory agents, mercury with

antibiotics, electric shock with mind-altering drugs, and missing sex

hormones with painkillers and antidepressants. As before, the

intentions are perfectly good, because the problems at hand are

pressing and urgent. And by the time new side effects start popping

up, they are already someone else's problem.

Surely, it wasn't difficult to connect " good " fiber with " bad "

stools. All one had to do is to look down into the chamber pot. So

it's really hard to blame the " early adopters " for making a virtue

out of necessity. Unlike harsh senna leaves or leaky and toxic

mineral oil, natural fiber sources were cheap, plentiful, effective,

and initially problem-free, especially when used in moderation. In

fact, the most famous early promoters of fiber — Sylvester Graham

(1794–1851), Dr. Harvey Kellogg (1852–1943), Dr. Latimer

Cleave (1906-1983), Dr. Denis Burkett (1911-1993) — were the

luminaries of their time. But so was the heralded Dr. ,

who advanced the idea of HRT in his book Feminine Forever, first

published in 1966.

Without a doubt, these " gentlemen " couldn't have known back then, or

didn't care to learn, fiber's long-term side effects. They also

hadn't anticipated that natural fiber in fruits, vegetables, breads,

and grains, which they themselves had been mostly consuming and

recommending, would soon be broadly replaced with processed food —

such as cereals with added fiber, bran-fortified breads, fiber

supplements, and fiber-based laxatives. And they couldn't know that

those processed foods and supplements would contain many times more

fiber and be more harmful than a natural diet.

And the pioneers of fibermania couldn't imagine in their wildest

dreams that in addition to being a harmful and addictive laxative,

fiber would also become a so-called antidote to cancer, an alleged

savior from heart disease, a panacea for diabetes, a weight loss

enabler, and cure-for-all miracle food. Never mind that all of

these " benefits " are just a pack of willful lies:

The Truths To Be Screamed...

» Is it true that fiber speeds up stools?

" There is little or no relationship between dietary fiber and whole

gut transit time; " (Source: Rome II: The Functional Gastrointestinal

Disorders, one of the most respected and authoritative textbooks on

clinical gastroenterology; First published in 2000; [26])

» Is it true that fiber helps people with constipation?

" Those with defecation disorders or slow transit respond [to fiber]

much less favorably. Those with severe colonic inertia may not be

helped by fiber, since there is decreased smooth muscle contractile

activity. " (Source: ibid; the euphemism " much less favorably " in

politically correct medicalese means " much worse " —KM.)

» Is it true that fiber prevents colon cancer?

" For years, Americans have been told to consume a high-fiber diet to

lower the risk of colon cancer—mainly on the basis of results from a

number of relatively small studies. Unfortunately, this

recommendation now seems mistaken, as larger and better designed

studies have failed to show a link between fiber and colon cancer. "

(Source: Harvard School of Public Health, first original reporting in

1999) (27), (28)

» Is it true that fiber prevents heart disease?

" The rate of CHD [cardio-vascular disease] mortality was reported to

be inversely associated with fiber intake across 20 industrialized

nations, but adjustment for fat intake removed the association. "

(Source: American Heart Association, first reported in 1997;) (29)

» Is it true that fiber prevents diabetes?

" Fiber intake has also been linked with the metabolic syndrome, a

constellation of factors that increases the chances of developing

heart disease and diabetes. " (Source: Harvard School of Public

Health, [30])

» Is it true that fiber is effective for weight loss?

" Fermentable and nonfermentable fiber supplements did not alter

hunger, satiety or body weight in a pilot study of men and women self-

selected diets " (source: A report by Mayer U.S. Department of

Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts

University, study reported in 2003 [31])

Never underestimate the temptations of greed. When it comes to fear-

mongering, buck-hoarding, and stock-propping, anything goes — even

though, as you've just seen, it's been known for years what " bull…. "

it all was. And still is:

From the Kellogg's All-Bran Cereal web site [31]

(December 26, 2007. Image modified to fit this page.)

But what else would you expect, when a leading peddler of fiber-

enriched cereals is still proudly carrying the name of an obstinate

misogynist and fanatical advocate of female genital mutilation — a

honest-to-goodness concern for your daughter's, sister's, wife's, and

mother's welfare?

— May I interest you in Kellogg's All-Bran® Cereals? With up to 26

grams of fiber goodness and a tablespoon of sugar in just one

cup, " You are only 10 days away from a more regular you. " [32]

— Sure, sweet dreams!

***