Children's mental health: feeding the next generation

Dr Neil Ward from the Department of Chemistry at Surrey University explained the influence that toxins and heavy metals can have on childrens’ behaviour.

His researches suggest that in ADHD children low levels of zinc, magnesium, selenium, chromium, iron, copper and calcium are often accompanied by high levels of heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and aluminium. It is difficult to establish cause and effect here as low levels of zinc, for example, allow an over uptake of heavy metals, while exposure to heavy metals blocks the body’s ability to absorb essential elements such as zinc.

Zinc is especially important because not only do low zinc levels lead to susceptibility to infection and gut permeability, but zinc also regulates the synthesis of melatonin, one of the brain chemicals heavily implicated in mood swings and aggressive behaviours. Antibiotics in the first year of life are known to dramatically reduce zinc levels in ADHD children.

Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride from the Cambridge Nutrition Clinic started her talk with some alarming figures:

1 in 10 children now has learning difficulties at school
10% of all children in the classroom have been diagnosed as ADHD
10% of children are dyslexic, 10% are dyspraxic
There has been a 40 fold increase in autism in the last 10 years
Teenagers are 4 times more likely to crash a car than adults
1 in 8 children have asthma and there is a child admitted to hospital every 16 minutes with an asthma attack.
10-20% under 6 year olds have eczema
20% of under 6 year olds have allergies.
Most of these children have several if not all of these conditions.

So what has changed?

The typical mother of today’s under 10s was not breast fed and will probably have had many courses of antibiotics, maybe even when she was pregnant. She may also have been on the contraceptive pill, and eaten a substantial amount of junk food - all of which conditions will have damaged her gut flora and may have left her with a compromised immune system, digestive problems, migraine and fatigue.

Her baby will inherit damaged gut flora and the compromised immune system from its mother and probably will not be breast fed. The vaccinations which the baby will have were designed for children read more