Page 32 - Winter2008

THE GAPS DIET be good if we could live as close to nature and
I would like to correlate these findings with the Gut and Psychology its rhythms as possible, even getting rid of elec-
Syndrome (GAPS) diet described in the book by the same name by Dr. tricity, microwaves, computers and cell phones.
Natasha Campbell-McBride, because there are always deeper ways of look- That’s impractical today—nobody wants to live
ing at any of these diseases. By the way, the correlation with the gut and without all these modern inventions. But we can
the brain is not something that Dr. Campbell-McBride came up with. Other still be healthy by following the principles of
books have explored this subject, including The Second Brain, published healthy diets, exercising and, when needed, re-
in 1999 by Michael Gershon, head of gastroenterology at Cornell. uniting ourselves with certain plants that produce
Rudolf Steiner also made this connection. He once said, “The brain the same substances our bodies produce.
is just smooshed up guts.” If you imagine the intestines coiled up into the In the case of the endorphins, however,
cranium, that’s what they would look like. The gut has the same receptors those same substances produced by plants can
as the brain, including receptors for serotonin, and it works on the same be addictive and have harmful effects. That’s
sort of biochemistry as the brain. where low-dose naltrexone comes in. When you
For those who have heard Dr. Campbell-McBride, you know that the take heroin, you tell your body that you won’t be
two most predominant chemicals in the GAPS syndrome, chemicals that needing it to make endorphins anymore, that you
alter the immune function as well as our neurological responses, are glu- will just get them from the outside. So when the
teo-morphines and caseo-morphines. These are morphine-like chemicals heroin wears off, you feel terrible. With low-dose
made from gluten in grains like wheat and casein in milk. These mimic the naltrexone, you can convince the body to make
endorphin system of our bodies and cause it to get imperfect chemicals or its own endorphins by blocking the receptors
morphine-like derivatives, not the ones it’s really looking for, which are for just a short time. And this happens when you
naturally made endorphins. It’s as though your body is making abnormal are asleep, so the body can devote considerable
poppy plants in your gut. You feel weird and that’s why your immune energy to this process.
system is dysfunctioning.
This is somewhat similar to the mechanism of low-dose naltrexone. THE RIGHT DIAGNOSIS
What you need to do is stimulate healthy endorphins and get rid of that We started this discussion by talking about
block as you heal the leaking gut and get rid of these toxic morphine-like making the right diagnosis. Telling patients that
derivatives. That will lead to the whole resolution of the autoimmune they have an auto-immune disease, depression or
disease and at the same time create a feeling of emotional well-being. addiction is like telling them they have eczema
or pruritus ani. It’s just a way of stating the obvi-
THE TREATMENT ous.
Of course, I never use low-dose naltrexone as the only treatment. Pa- But when we diagnose these conditions as an
tients need to change their diet and to exercise. I usually start them out on endorphin deficiency, we provide a satisfactory,
a GAPS diet and then they transition to the more liberal Weston A. Price fulfilling answer, one that allows us to come up
Foundation principles. Exercise is important and I particularly recommend with a solution that really works. That solution
Superslow weight training (see sidebar). includes the use of low-dose naltrexone to stimu-
One hundred years ago, the healthiest people lived on farms. They late the body into making the natural opiates it
ate nutrient-dense traditional foods and did hard physical labor. It would needs to be healthy and feel good.

PROTOCOL FOR LOW-DOSE NALTREXONE

Naltrexone is a prescription drug that requires a doctor’s prescription, available from specialized pharmacies that
know how to make it in that dose. Do not use a time-release version. There are about seven pharmacies that can pro-
duce low-dose naltrexone, including one in Scotland and one in Canada, listed at lowdosenaltrexone.org. If you contact
these pharmacies as a patient, they will give you the names of physicians who will prescribe it. You usually start with 3
mg taken before bed. The website is also a resource for the many studies carried out on low-dose naltrexone.
There are virtually no reported side effects from low-dose naltrexone except, in rare occasions, temporary sleep
distrubances. Some patients have taken it for 25 years, and it seems to not lose its effectiveness. The most common
reported effect is an increased sense of well-being.

32 Wise Traditions WINTER 2008