GAPS Diet: 4 Reasons You Want To Be On It

shutterstock_252338818_650_Cropped If you’re looking into the GAPS™ (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) Diet, most likely you’ve found our “modern” medicine lacks meaningful strides in improving your health and the health of your family. You aren’t alone. Countless individuals find traditional views on medicine unable to help with the most pervasive conditions today.

The good news is that there is hope!

Today we celebrate new advancements in research showcasing real results when treating a broad spectrum of different disorders and diseases. Due to the incredible advancements by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride studying the relationship between a personal’s physical state and their brain function, we are able to leverage the power of nutrition as treatment. Her philosophies and research are distilled down to the principles in the GAPS™ Diet.

More than ever, people who were suffering just like you, are now able to enjoy happy and healthier lives.

If you are wondering if this new holistic view of food as treatment will help you on your journey to optimal health, here are the top four reasons you want to explore the GAPS™ Diet:

1) You have a Child with Autism, ADHD or a Learning Disability

One child out of every ten is affected by learning difficulties. One in 150 is affected by autism. Around three children in every classroom are now diagnosed with ADHD.

In short, mental disorders in children and adults are an epidemic.

While each is unique and shows different characteristics, learning disabilities, autism and ADHD all revolve around a disorder or altered brain development.

So what does your brain have to do with your gut?

I’m glad you asked. The Gut and Psychology Syndrome research established a connection between the digestive system and the nervous system. Often referred to as the gut–brain axis, it means that there is an important role between having a healthy gut and improving your brain function.

This relationship between nerve cells, bacteria in the gut, and your brain is a delicate and important balance.

Let’s see what it looks like when disrupted. With autism, 99% of children diagnosed are born with a perfect brain. What happens is that there is damage to mechanisms that bring blood to the brain. This turns what is supposed to be a source of nourishment into a harmful source of toxicity.

Toxins flow from the gut into the bloodstream and then into the brain. Rather than receiving nourishment and tools to complete every day functions, the brain is flooded with substances reducing the ability to perform normal functions.

When we talk about toxins, many times it is foods that your body’s chemistry isn’t designed to process. This ties into your specific genetic makeup. So while you may think you are eating healthy, in reality you are filling your body full of harmful substances.

The GAPS™ Diet takes a dual approach to this. First, it fights to stop toxins escaping from the gut, which is called leaky gut. Second, it removes toxins from your diet. The blood being delivered to the brain becomes a source of nourishment once again, increasing healthy brain activity.

2) You have a Mood Disorder or Depression

Mood disorders are growing at an alarming rate! Children who should be happy and playful are now diagnosed with depression and put on medication. Adults battle constant depression as they go through their daily lives.

These mood disorders haunting so many Americans include:

  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • OCD
  • Schizophrenia

As with learning disorders, the power of the GAPS™ Diet for mood disorders hinges on the ability to remove toxins from the gut. This increase’s your body’s ability to regulate your mood. When you fill your system with toxins, your body no longer has the ability to function properly in multiple areas, including regulating your mood.

To get into the nitty-gritty details, GAPS™ helps:

  • Improve protein digestion which addresses neurotransmitter deficiency;
  • Balance hormones;
  • Reduce brain inflammation allowing for increased sensory processing.

Through the GAPS™ Diet, you can discover the specific tools and foods that your body needs to move beyond your mood disorder and onto healthy, happy living.

3) You have an Autoimmune Condition

Today we have over 80 different types of autoimmune disorders. Some of the more common autoimmune conditions are:

  • Type 1 Diabetes
  • Rheumatoid Arthritis
  • Reactive Arthritis
  • Celiac Disease

Like the mood disorders and learning disabilities, the frequency of these conditions is only increasing. One in 400-600 children in the US and UK is now diagnosed with type 1 diabetes every year. One in 130 children has celiac disease.

What happens in autoimmune disorders is that the body’s immune system wrongly identifies healthy antigens and tissues as harmful. Your body then sends antibodies to attack them. In short, your body is actively working to destroy normal tissues you need to complete daily functions.

To add to the problem, most individuals develop more than one autoimmune disorder.

With autoimmune disorders, the GAPS™ Diet focuses on managing inflammation. Let’s look at GAPS™ through the lens of arthritis. Again toxins leak from the gut into the blood stream. In addition to their journey to the brain, they also attach to collagen molecules in joints. This triggers the body’s immune system to launch an attack on the collagen molecules.

Ouch!

Even more, the pain in that joint migrates from joint to joint as the toxins move throughout the body. One day a person will have pain in the wrist, the next day the pain will be in the knee.

The GAPS™ Diet works to eliminate all pro inflammatory elements in the Western diet. These are refined grains, sugars and highly processed foods to name a few. When you cleanse the toxins out of the body, they no longer attach to the collagen. No more launched attacks from the immune system. Lastly, sealing the leaky gut helps stop the arthritis from spreading.

4) Digestive Distress 

Digestive issues are the most easily to see a direct benefit from the GAPS™ Diet. The majority of the diet features focus on the digestive system.

Digestive distress also tends to appear in individuals suffering from the other disorders we’ve discussed. It makes sense. Your body is a complete living organism where all of the parts work together to complete daily functions.

Common digestive disorders include:

  • Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
  • Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)
  • Chromes Disease
  • Ulcerative Colitis

shutterstock_257581570_HLSD_CroppedWith most digestive disorders, there are no obvious signs indicating problems with your large intestine, also called your colon. But while it looks normal, most individuals suffer terrible discomfort through cramping, diarrhea, bloating, constipation, gas or distention.

Your entire GI tract is a complex balance of good bacteria, gut flora, yeast fungi and more. All of these pieces work together to keep you healthy.

Let’s focus on the gut flora for a moment. This is the keeper of the digestive tract. Important work happens here as it:

  • Protects against invaders producing antibacterial and antiviral substances;
  • Neutralizes toxic substances through detoxifying the body;
  • Produces essential nutrients like B vitamins, vitamin K, butyric acid and more.

With digestive disorders, toxins from your food disrupt the delicate balance in your gut ecosystem. This prohibits your body from doing all the important tasks in the GI tract. The toxins particularly upset the functions of the gut flora.

The GAPS™ Diet brings back harmony to your GI tract, helping the body to easily complete all the necessary functions for everyday living.

Why it Works

Like all challenges in life, there isn’t an easy fix-all solution. Each of the different disorders we’ve discussed is a complex issue with intricate and multifaceted problems.

This is why the GAPS™ Diet has been so successful in helping individuals struggling with such a wide diversity of diseases. Rather than focusing on a singular symptom or component, the diet recognizes that the body is a complex organism where all the systems work together.

Your gut flora extracts key nutrients from food. The gut houses the immune system. Elements introduced to your gut flow into the blood stream. The blood stream takes these elements all throughout the body, including to your joints and your brain. It’s all connected.

When you introduce toxins to one area, they flow throughout the body causing harm.

Through the GAPS™ Diet, you can balance the delicate ecosystems in the body by removing toxins and increasing nourishing foods.

Adopting the GAPS diet is not an easy undertaking. Additionally, your body will react to some foods differently than others. By bringing in an experienced practitioner to help you on your journey to better health, you are able to navigate the world of food and identify a diet that is specifically designed for your optimal health.

If you want to learn more about how the GAPS Diet can help you achieve a better life and treat your health challenges, schedule a free 15-minute consultation with me today. Together we can put you on the path to better health.

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