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Did you know that 75% of parents who have followed a special diet with their children with autism have since reported significant behavioural improvements in their kids? This is a great success! Dietary intervention really is a base of healing.

Modern science has established a very close relationship between the microbiome in the human gut and the human brain. Up to 80% of children with autism suffer from gastrointestinal dysfunction and as a result of this have nutrient deficiency, an imbalanced biochemistry and finally behavioural abnormalities. Many case studies clearly show us that once biochemical balance has been addressed, children become much calmer and focused, furthermore, what is very important is that other therapies start to work on them much better.

But the lesson that we learn from patients with autism is very relevant to everyone! Many people nowadays experience certain gastrointestinal problems and suffer from chronic inflammation which leads to serious health issues. The majority of people nowadays are malnourished and not because we do not have enough food, but because the food we eat no longer contains all of the necessary nutrients for normal body function. We are also bombarded with different toxins that have lots of negative effects on the absorption of nutrients and the disruption of cellular metabolism. So when additional stress comes along, the weakest point in our organism will start to show a problem.

The same happens with autism. Children have certain genetic predispositions, which can vary a lot from child to child, but when stress accumulates and the immune system is compromised, symptoms of autism start to develop. Due to their young age and the severity of their symptoms, autistic children are much more reactive to any nutrition changes then any other people. But their remarkable, positive response to the right, individually tailored dietary intervention, clearly shows that anyone with any illness will benefit from correct nutrition!

However, these positive effects can only be achieved in the case of carefully selected, personalised nutritional support! It is well known that no one diet fits everyone! This is very important! For instance, have you ever noticed that a certain diet may work for somebody but not for you? Or perhaps somebody suggests you a “great detox drink” that may be very effective for them but you has no effect on you?

But what do I mean by personalised nutrition? A personalised approach into your diet based on identifying different nutrient deficiencies in YOUR body and then addressing these deficiencies through food and nutrition. In some cases, like with children with autism, some food supplements may be necessary as well. The goal of personalised nutrition is to reduce inflammation in YOUR body, fuel YOUR brain and YOUR cells, support the certain biochemical needs relevant to YOU, improve YOUR body functions and help improve tolerance where possible. There are many different good diets exist but we need to choose one for you that will meet your individual needs based on factors like gene expression, nutrient deficiency, biochemical imbalances, health conditions, environmental stressors and microbiome.

Therefore, by using autism as a model and applying a personalised dietary approach to others, it is possible to help many-many people to improve their health condition and prevent many diseases.

Have you been following some special diets that helped or did not help you to achieve your goal? Please, share your experience! If any questions or comments, please, contact me by email at irina@liveright.eu. Visit my site at www.liveright.eu

Have you noticed that nowadays all illnesses and disorders seem to be affecting younger and broader spectrum of people? We are currently facing a growing number of many developmental neurological disorders that are making the lives of children suffering from these conditions, as well as their parents, extremely difficult and sometimes even intolerable.   For example, did you know that in the US autism is diagnosed in 1 in 63 children? Similar numbers can be observed in Europe and China; and they are growing every day. Overall, the frequency of autism has increased by 78% between 2002 and 2008! Do you know any families with autistic children? Or maybe you yourself are a parent who is facing this issue.

Autism is a whole group of developmental disorders that involves delays in the development of many basic skills, such as, social interactions, use of imagination, language and communication skills. These special kids experience fascinating changes in their brains that have direct effects on the reduction of social skills. Recently scientists in Cambridge (I like to mention this, seeing as I myself am from Cambridge and am therefore I always proud of the great research being done in Cambridge University) discovered that when people with autism try to decode emotional expressions, the area in the brain called “amygdola” is under-active. This is very interesting! However, autism is not a disorder of the brain. It is much more complex!

This is why I particularly love Dr Mark Hyman’s description who says that “Autism is a systemic body disorder that affects the brain”. I think this is so true! We live in a toxic chemical “soup” and it is simply our toxic environment that causes changes, abnormal reactions and triggers certain genes in people susceptible to autism or other disorders.

During recent years, great research has been done that clearly demonstrates that children with autism have whole spectrum of abnormalities in different body systems. For instance, up to 80 % of autistic children have symptoms of gastrointestinal dysfunction of which diarrhea is the most common, followed by constipation, abdominal distention, and pain. Dysfunctions in the immune system have also been noticed in these kids, coming to light as food allergies or metabolic abnormalities. Very often these children are fussy eaters, they are afraid to try new ingredients and therefore eat only selective food. This, of course, causes nutritional misbalance and, simply, malnourishment in young growing organisms who especially require a certain amount of nutrients for proper development! In the human body everything is interconnected. This means that if there were a problem in one system of the body, it would affect and eventually cause problems in other systems. Abnormal gut flora, an unhealthy digestive system, chronic inflammation, frequent colds and infections, together with brain dysfunctions in these kids are different parts of one big problem called “autism”.

Therefore, I really like the idea of helping these children by applying a complex approach. The management of autism symptoms and including not only speech pathologists, psychologists and other specialists but also nutritional support. Gut problems need to be fixed by repairing the leaky gut and normalising microbiome, this will help to reduce chronic inflammation. A further supply of all necessary nutrients will help the immune system to function much better. Additionally, intensive detox and healthy diet will also help to normalise the expression of certain genes triggered by an initial imbalance and will likewise reduce oxidative stress. Eventually other systems in the body will respond to these changes and start to function more efficiently leaving the child much better off. So, as you see, nutrition is a very important part in the normalisation of autism symptoms as well as other conditions and disorders.

At the end of the day, none of this seems news, as in 460BC Hippocrates pointed out that “all disease begins in the gut”. Now we have much more evidence to support this statement and much more tools to fix the problem!

I will continue to share my thoughts and expertise about autism with you. I think we need to keep feeding knowledge to parents in order to help them make the right decision and in turn help their kids with autism in the best possible way!

Please, share your story! Ask me a question!

Please, contact me by email at irina@liveright.eu

Visit my site at www.liveright.eu

Have you noticed that recently teenagers have been experiencing more and more different mental problems? Perhaps your child may have symptoms of depression like sadness, irritability, frustration, loss of interest in things he/she liked before, extreme sensitivity, trouble thinking or concentrating?

Nowadays, at a time when our children seem to have nearly everything that we as children could have only dream of you would think they should be very happy and healthy. Hovewer, the official statistics (CDC – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) actually show that suicide is the third-leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds. It’s also thought that at least 25 attempts are made for every completed teen suicide. But WHY???

We may not recall how it felt to be a teenager, on age when you are trapped between childhood and adulthood, a sort of “ugly duckling” period. Of course it is a time of huge possibilities and opportunities but at the same time it can also be a period of a huge stress and worry. Children experience pressure to fit in socially, to perform academically and to act responsibly.

In this situation young people with mental health problems — such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or insomnia — are at much higher risk of suicidal thoughts. During the last fifty years more and more teenagers have reported symptoms of mental illness in general. Just think about it – 1 in 10 children and young people aged 5 – 16 suffer from a diagnosable mental health disorder – that is around three children in every school class! Depression affects about 20% of teens by the time they become adults and anxiety disorder affects 25% of teenagers. And this number nearly doubled between the 1980s and 2000s. So, what has changed during this period of time that has had such huge impact on our children’s behavior and health?

It has been shown that the gut and brain have a certain way to communicate and influence each other. This happens via the nervous system, hormones and the immune system.  Certain gut bacteria can release neurotransmitters and have a direct effect on the brain.

Furthermore, recent scientific research has proven that mental disorders are associated with chronic inflammation and increased oxidative stress in the human body. But where this inflammation coming from?

Among the main well known environmental risk factors of depression like stress, trauma, exercise, sleep, smoking, obesity, scientists have also listed diet, gut permeability or leaky gut and the microbiome.

So, what is a leaky gut and why is it important for mental health? In our body, gut cells are normally kept tight to each other and nutrients from the gut are absorbed into the blood stream via the intestinal lining. However, different factors like stress, infections, drugs, toxins, gluten and other molecules can cause a destruction of the intestinal lining causing a leaky gut. As a results some bacteria and their toxins, incompletely digested proteins, fats and other waste may “leak” out of the intestines into the blood stream. This stimulates immune cells and in turn leads to inflammation causing depression and other mental disorders and health issues.

Many different factors may contribute to leaky gut but most important is the disturbance in the  balance of gut bacteria (microbiome) that can cause lots of harmful reactions leading to many health problems. And this is the reason why it is important to avoid anything that may cause such misbalance, including over-usage of antibiotics, drinking chlorinated water, exposing yourself to potentially toxic chemicals, eating processed food and drinking sugary sodas. They all play major roles in changing the dynamics of the gut, increasing leakiness that correlates very strongly with neurological conditions. One of the biggest causes in unbalancing microbiome in children is an unhealthy diet; the junk food, all the processed carbohydrates that kids consume all the time nowadays feed bad bacteria in the digestive system allowing them to grow and cause the disturbance in the balance of microbiome. At the same time, our diet is missing fermented foods that are essential for supporting the good bacteria and a healthy gut.

Therefore, it is evident that the mental health of our children is significantly contributing towards the threatening number of suicidal cases among teenagers and can be largely influenced by eating habits and life stile changes. Just imagine how huge an impact we  can make together by reducing the amount of processed foods full of sugar and toxic additives in the diet of our dearest children!

Do you have a story to share? Or perhaps you have a question? Do you need more guidance on how to change your family eating habits in order to help your child?

Please, get in touch, leave your comments.

Do you want to help your teenager cope better with the changes his/her body experiences during puberty? This is an especially challenging period when our children experience hormonal, metabolic and physiological changes that can have long term effects on their lives and health.

I personally remember how unsatisfied I was with my looks at this age. I thought myself too tall and too fat. Does this sound familiar? I had many questions that I was afraid to ask my parents and this lack of understanding did not help to build my self-esteem. Nowadays, more information is available and of course more or less every teenager is able to go on the internet and find the answers to their questions. However, the problem is children often ask how to fix the way they look rather than why it is happening and how to support themselves throughout this stage. Instead they try to mimic the body image that is constantly being advertised in magazines, clothing companies and media adverts. Additionally, nowadays teens spend much more time independently from their parents and have more of their meals away from home which makes it increasingly difficult to control what they eat. Often they’ll go to fast food venues because they are cheap and universally available. That is why during the most important stage of their development, a period when they require increasing amounts of good nutrients and minerals to meet their body demand, many of our teenagers actually eat a lot of meals that are both nutrient-depleted and full of unhealthy fats. On top of that, they consume different soft drinks which are in turn full of harmful additives and sugar. And of course, they would be resistant to any direct advice or pressure given to them from adults telling them how and what to eat and drink. Generally, nowadays our children are malnourished because they do not eat enough of the RIGHT food even though they eat plenty of it.

I hope that some of the tips below will help you to find the RIGHT solution to support your teenager in building the RIGHT relationships with the RIGHT food.

So, dealing with the puberty period is not easy and we need to support our children in this process. A good way to do this would be to discuss upcoming body changes in a positive way to prepare children for this time period so they can adapt to their new bodies faster, less painfully and without long-term “side effects”.

We need to be aware that increasing body fat is an absolutely normal part of puberty. At this stage of development children can gain up to extra 20% body fat and it is important to remember that this is not bad fat! It is needed for their bodies as a source of energy to go through massive changes. There is no need to go on any diets!

Tastes also change at puberty. Boys tend to eat more protein-rich foods believing that meat builds muscle. Girls, most likely crave sweets due to rising levels of estrogen. At the same time, girls want to stay slim and believe that eating less will keep them slim and sexy. However, young women require a certain amount of body fat to have a healthy menstrual cycle and healthy reproductive system.

Therefore, it is critical that children consume good, nutritionally dense food containing good proportions of protein (20%), healthy fats (30%) and the right carbohydrates (50%). And quality here is much more important then quantity!

For example, smart fats are absolutely essential for healthy brain function, good hair, healthy skin, and a strong immune system. It also helps to reduce the amount of anxiety and depression, which is an exceptionally huge issue at this age. Thus, it is very important they have plenty of Omega-3. So, more fish and less chips!

Protein builds, maintains, and replaces the tissues in our body, therefore the growing muscles, organs, and immune systems of teenagers require more protein. Due to more active muscle mass, teenage boys generally need around 25% more protein in comparison to the pre-teen stage. Whereas girls need a slightly smaller daily protein intake. So, eating food like beef, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy products, nuts, seeds, and legumes like black beans and lentils is very important. Choose the organic option if possible in order to avoid our children consuming hormones and antibiotics that are present in non-organic dairy and meat.

Teenagers require much more micronutrients and key nutrients at this age such as iron, calcium and zinc. Expanding blood volumes and growing muscle mass means our children need more iron, furthermore girls have extra iron needs because of their menstruation. Red meat is one of the richest sources of iron, a vegetarian diet can provide enough iron too, but vegetarians may need to work a bit harder to eat iron-rich alternatives to meat. Good vegetarian sources of iron include green leafy vegetables, legumes (e.g. beans and lentils) and whole grains.

Zinc is another particularly important element during puberty as it is involved in normal sexual maturation, supports cell division and many other important functions. Therefore, include it in your meals as much as possible by employing foods like garlic and chickpeas; add pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds to salads; indulge your teens in dark chocolate. You can also find zinc in egg yolks, oysters, turkey, salmon, pork and brown rice. I am sure you can prepare absolutely fantastic meals from these ingredients.

Rapid bone growth in teenagers requires a lot of calcium to be included in their diet. Traditional thinking of people needing to eat lots of dairy products in order to obtain calcium can be adjusted as we now know many alternative non-dairy sources of calcium. So, if your teenager doesn’t like to drink milk or eat yogurt, you can offer him/her crunchy broccoli, kale, edamame beans, figs, oranges, sardines, salmon and almonds.

Growing and developing teenage organisms require an additional 20-30% of vitamins. Eating a variety of ripe, fresh and preferably locally grown products is necessary every day. And this can be a very challenging task! Even though it is always better to get one’s increased needs of vitamins and minerals from real food rather than supplements, the erratic and nutrient-poor eating habits of most teenagers suggests that a daily intake of whole food based supplements like Juice Plus would be wise.

The following tips can help our children to make healthy food choices:

• Model good nutrition habits as early as possible. When your child has developed an appetite for a healthy, good quality food her/his body won’t like eating junk food. She/he will simply would not enjoy this type of food and will search for a healthier alternative, demonstrating to others the possibility of eating.
• When you choose products, plan meals and cook choose wisely the words that you use to describe food. Use more words like “good for your mood”, “great for your energy”, “brainy food”, “food for passing exams” and so on.
• When you are in town together with your kids show them better places to eat out rather than fast food restaurants. Carefully making sure that they do not realise that you are teaching them, explain why even though it might be a bit more expensive it is better to go to these places.
• Gently teach your children to say “NO” to friends inviting them to eat junk food or to have a soft drink full of additives and sugar. They need to learn to resist any supermarket food packaged in cheap plastic.
• Create and cultivate a strong emotional link between real food and things they care about. For example, eating a variety of raw vegetables and beautiful, healthy-looking skin.
• Keep lots of nutritional snacks and meals at home like fresh fruits, nuts, dried-fruits, dark chocolate, wholegrain biscuits, humus with vegetables and so on.
• Encourage your child to have her/his own opinion about media topics. Discuss together the real motivation behind a magazine or TV advertisement.

If you can think of any other good tips to add to this list, please, let me know in the comments. It would be great to have your input and for you to share your experiences in this area. I look forward to reading your stories.

Are you satisfied with your teenage daughter’s or son’s eating habits?  Do you have teenagers at home who are not happy with how they look and how much they weigh? Or do you simply worry about your younger kids who will one day become difficult teenagers and will give you lots of “headaches”. In any case, you may find interesting to read this article.

Being a mother of two beautiful daughters, I would like to share with you some of my thoughts on the prevention of certain problems we all face when our children become teenagers.

Adolescence is a very challenging time for our children as well as for us, their parents. It is a test period for our relationships, for our parent-child connection that we have been developing over many years. Teenagers go through a very interesting period of physical, emotional, hormonal, sexual, social and intellectual transformations. This is a time when our children begin to discover who they are and they become independent and  at the same time very vulnerable. For many kids this stage of life can be very emotional, stressful and confusing.

At this point our children can start many of their psychological complexes and mental issues, they can start to develop some health related problems that can further develop into big life-threatening conditions.

Scientific studies show that teens experience certain changes in their brain on a socio-emotional level and they crave more social acceptance and recognition. This links to sexual maturation and the development of social responsibilities. As a result, teenagers want to be more popular among friends which can in turn cause certain behavioural patterns.

In any case adolescence is a time of rapid growth and change! To support this process properly a body requires a certain weight gain to fuel those changes and transformations.

However, it is precisely at this stage that a wrong image of being slim and sexy, of being cool and accepted by society, dictates by the media to our children a wrong attitude and as a results inappropriate behaviour. Some kids may simply fail to eat enough good nutritional food to keep up with their growth and their energy. This imbalance may trigger eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. At this point, our role as parents is to be very supportive of our children so that they can share their concerns with us and ask for advise. This is precisely where our parental LOVE and PASSIONS are put to the test!

PREVENSION of these teenage problems in our children starts much earlier in their life. It is integrated into our family life style. Normally kids who lack in confidence are more vulnerable to the huge pressure they experience during adolescence and teenage girls with body image problems are at higher risk of eating disorders. You will help your children to feel good about their body if you:

• Keep telling them and especially the girls how beautiful and great they are! This is vitamin L (L is for love), an essential component of health and self-steam for our kids. We need to find the way to show it, not just think about it quietly in our head, but actually say it out and demonstrate your love in different ways (kisses, hugs, time spend together, small presents, ect.)
• Never talk negatively about your own body. We need to demonstrate that each body is different, a fact that is absolutely normal and acceptable.
• Model a healthy life style and good exercise habits. Have an active family hobby like going to a swimming pool, going skiing or playing a football.
• Go food shopping together with your children, explain to them the difference between healthy and unhealthy products and why it is so important to eat nutritionally dense food.
• Cook together with them and have quality family time by experimenting in the kitchen with different ingredients and new recipes.
• Teach them to serve food in a nice presentable way and decorate the table so that dinner time becomes a great family moment.
• Teach them to be present while you eat! When you eat even a small sack, put away any gadgets like phones, tablets, toys, books, ect. When you are present during eating process and focus on your food, you enjoy your meal much more, you start to notice the different flavours and tastes. This is a very interesting experience that can also be used as a game – “Guess what is in this dish? Which ingredients have been used here?”

Therefore, by helping our children to develop a good and healthy appetite for real food we build a solid foundation for their health and for a balanced attitude in life. It means they will continue to eat healthy and be strong, react appropriately to stress and emotional pressure, have more energy to face difficult times and be less vulnerable. It is our responsibility to show them the right way to eat, live and be healthy and happy!

In subsequent articles, I will share with you some ideas on how to implement these principles in your busy lives. Meanwhile I would be very pleased to hear your questions and feedback. Your comments will help me to shape my next article! Look forward to reading your opinion!

Sadly, nowadays we all live in a very chemically polluted environment, some might say in a “chemical soup”! Toxic chemicals are all around us – in our air, our earth, our water, and the products we use every day.

At this stage we are aware of more than 80,000 chemicals that have been released on the market, many of them have known or suspected negative health effects. Exposure to these industrial chemicals and pollutants is contributing to a wide spectrum of health problems. However, we not only inhale and absorb toxins through our skin, we also consume lots of chemicals via our food and beverages! In fact, we blindly but voluntary eat and drink chemically poisoned products and give them to our children!

Scientists have become increasingly worried that even extremely low levels of some environmental contaminants may have significant damaging effects on our bodies. In tiny doses chemicals can affect human health by disrupting cell communication that controls growth, development and normal body function; they can contribute to obesity, endometriosis, diabetes, autism, allergies, cancer and other diseases. The timing and the dosage of such exposure are very critical to how our health is affected. In utero or early childhood exposure is especially critical since the young are developing much more rapidly and their organs are more sensitive.

Just think about the following alarming figures:

• about 200 industrial chemicals have been monitored in the umbilical cord blood of infants born in the US in 2005
• 42 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2013
• 500,000 children aged under 15 were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes worldwide in 2013
• 1 in 285 children is diagnosed with cancer before age 20
• the average age of the onset of puberty in 2010 was 10.5 years for girls – six years younger than in 1860
• over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviours such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives
• 90 % of those who have eating disorders are girls between the ages of 12 and 25
• Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents

The bottom line is that this unnecessary toxicity leads to likewise unnecessary diseases, disabilities and deaths which can be PREVENTED and should be PREVENTED! As parents and as responsible adults we need to help our children to learn how to eat clean, how to choose real food rather then junk food and how to love an active life style. We need to remind ourselves and our families that food is much more then just the way to kill hunger. It is a part of healthy living, of enjoying life and happiness, a way to relax and connect with nature. We need to slow down and restore these lost relationships between us and real food! If our children were to know where the food they eat comes from and how it is made, they would make the right choice. Let’s teach them! Take them to a supermarket, or a market, prepare meals together, explain why certain ingredients are better to use then others!

I would like to help you on this fascinating journey! However, your feedback is absolutely essential! Ask me a question, live me a comment! We can work together for the bright and healthy future of our children!