Researchers at the NAET Autism Treatment Center in Buena Park, CA, hypothesized that major contributors to the development and symptoms of autism include food and nutrient sensitivities. They applied NAET, a combination of a special form of acupressure and kinesiology, to desensitize subjects to multiple allergens as a way to treat symptoms of autism. Their findings were published in the just-released October/November 2011 issue of Integrative Medicine-A Clinician’s Journal, and the study is now available for review.

The improvements were life changing. Twenty-three of the 30 autistic children in the NAET treatment group were able to return to regular school classes with their healthy, non-autistic peers after 1 year of treatment while all of the 30 children in the untreated control group continued to require special education.

The study included 60 children (2.5-10 years old) with a diagnosis of autism who were randomly assigned to either the treatment or control groups. The treatment group consisted of 26 boys and 4 girls and the control group included 25 boys and 5 girls. The 30 children in the treatment group received NAET treatments for 50 key allergens for 1 year. The children in the (non-blinded) control group did not receive any NAET treatments. Each group was allowed to continue with any other therapies they had been receiving. The NST (kinesiology/muscle testing) was used to determine which substances triggered sensitivity reactions in each child and NAET acupressure treatments were then used to eliminate the sensitivities.

Fifty-six children (26 in the NAET-treated group and 30 in the control group) completed the study. After 1 year, the children receiving NAET treatments exhibited clinically dramatic and statistically highly significant improvements in performance (p<.0001 vs the control group), including a:

Mean 68.4% decrease in the total Autism Research Institute Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ARI-ATEC) Score

64% to 82% mean decreases on the 4 ARI-ATEC subtests

47.4% average increase in the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) and

Decrease of 85% in the total Allergy Symptom Rating Scale (ASRS Score)

“We found that NAET is an effective, safe and simple treatment for children with allergy-related autism,” said board certified internist Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, the lead author of the study. “In human terms, NAET can provide profound and dramatic benefits, giving children with autism and their families their lives back.”

Dr. Teitelbaum, whose foundation funded the research, became interested in NAET after his severe hay fever symptoms were eliminated by a 20-minute NAET treatment, and never recurred. After witnessing an autistic girl become normally verbal after receiving an NAET treatment by his wife Laurie Teitelbaum MS, who practices NAET in Kona, Hawaii, and discovering that this was the experience of many autistic children, they were inspired to design and underwrite the study.

NAET was developed by Devi S. Nambudripad, MD, PhD, L.Ac., DC, in 1983, and since then, she has trained over 10,000 licensed medical practitioners in the protocol.

The full test of the study can be seen at http://www.endfatigue.com/documents/Autism-NAET-full-study-IMCJ_10_5_teitelbaum-Published.pdf

A mother-of-one has a good excuse for avoiding housework – because she fears using everyday cleaning products could kill her.

Mary-Grace Milner from Rochford in Essex is so allergic to bleach and other cleaning agents that the slightest whiff can send her body spiraling into a severe allergic reaction.

Her symptoms include inflamed skin, soaring blood pressure and blurred vision.

The rare chemical intolerance – known as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity – is so bad Mrs Milner cannot even set foot in the cleaning aisle at her local supermarket.

The 40-year-old was first struck down with the condition last November when an anti-bacterial wipe triggered blurred vision and sore lungs.

The bizarre reaction has since forced her to change every aspect of her life. She has had to throw away items from carpet cleaners to deodorants and toothpastes – for fear they will spark a debilitating reaction.

Mary said: ‘I have a list of 400 cleaning and personal care products that I need to avoid.

‘I tend to steer clear of the chemical aisles in every store. I can go fairly near them but I cannot walk down them still to this day – the stench is overwhelming.

‘I have collapsed before, and get blurred vision, severe nose bleeds, sore lungs and a cough – sometimes all at the same time – after a bad exposure.

‘Most women think it sounds great to have a medical excuse not to do the housework, but it can make life very difficult when you are a busy mum.’

The clinical support officer first realised all was not well when a solvent used by a handyman caused her heart to begin racing uncontrollably and plunged her blood pressure to a drastic low.

Then the following day an anti-bacterial wipe used in the kitchen by husband Lee sparked an even more catastrophic reaction – despite Mary being upstairs.

Mary said: ‘My eyes became puffy, vision became blurred and scarily my breathing slowed right down.

‘It’s like your throat is closing up and when that happens you can’t breathe properly.

‘I can’t be in the same building as the chemicals let alone the same room.’

The condition baffled doctors at first and it was only after visiting a homoeopath, who spotted the symptoms, that she was finally diagnosed with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

‘My body never felt right and I was left with no doubt in my mind that the chemicals were the root cause of my problems,’ she said.

Lindsey McManus, from Allergy UK, said: ‘It is a 21st century disease. Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is a chronic condition and usually occurs in response to a chemical exposure.

‘Often people have a low immune system which cannot cope with the harshness of the chemicals.

‘I’ve known of people in extreme cases who haven’t been able to work ever again, and others who can’t leave the home or go shopping in supermarkets.

‘It is an uncommon and misunderstood condition.’

Mary said she had improved her condition by using all natural and organic products as well as turning to homeopathy and acupuncture.

She said: ‘Despite the condition, I’m very house proud and my home is probably the cleanest anyone will ever see.

‘I now have to use all natural products like eco-cloths and water instead of sprays and potions.

‘Cleaning the loo means mixing some bicarbonate of soda and vinegar, and instead of deodorising sprays I have to use organic lemon oil.

‘My family has been amazing and so supportive throughout.’

Despite being a recognised illness, Mary still experienced difficulties convincing doctors that everyday products caused the reaction.

She added: ‘I would dearly love for this disorder to be recognised properly. There are no blood tests to check your body for a chemical intolerance.

‘The biggest problem is those who react in a negative way. Just because you have no visible signs of an illness doesn’t mean you suffer any less.’

Keith Enever, 58, who treats Mary and has practiced homoeopathy for 28 years, said: ‘She has a severe intolerance to petrochemical based products, so any cleaning agents, room sprays and even products like make-up could set a reaction off.

‘The big problem is these kinds of products are everywhere, which made her quality of her life almost non existent – but she has taken massive strides in coping with it.’

Happiness is contagious, spreading among friends, neighbors, siblings and spouses like the flu, according to a large study that for the first time shows how emotion can ripple through clusters of people who may not even know each other.

The study of more than 4,700 people who were followed over 20 years found that people who are happy or become happy boost the chances that someone they know will be happy. The power of happiness, moreover, can span another degree of separation, elevating the mood of that person’s husband, wife, brother, sister, friend or next-door neighbor.

“You would think that your emotional state would depend on your own choices and actions and experience,” said Nicholas A. Christakis, a medical sociologist at Harvard University who helped conduct the study published online today by BMJ, a British medical journal. “But it also depends on the choices and actions and experiences of other people, including people to whom you are not directly connected. Happiness is contagious.”

One person’s happiness can affect another’s for as much as a year, the researchers found, and while unhappiness can also spread from person to person, the “infectiousness” of that emotion appears to be far weaker.

Previous studies have documented the common experience that one person’s emotions can influence another’s — laughter can trigger guffaws in others; seeing someone smile can momentarily lift one’s spirits. But the new study is the first to find that happiness can spread across groups for an extended period.

When one person in the network became happy, the chances that a friend, sibling, spouse or next-door neighbor would become happy increased between 8 percent and 34 percent, the researchers found. The effect continued through three degrees of separation, although it dropped progressively from about 15 percent to 10 percent to about 6 percent before disappearing.

The research follows previous work by Christakis and co-author James H. Fowler that found that obesity also appears to spread from person to person, as does the likelihood of quitting smoking. The researchers have been using detailed records originally collected by the Framingham Heart Study, a long-running project that has explored a host of health issues, to construct and analyze detailed maps of social networks.

The findings, Christakis and others said, provide striking new evidence of the power of social networks, which could have implications for public policy. Happy people tend to be better off in myriad ways, being more creative, productive and healthier.

“For a long time, we measured the health of a country by looking at its gross domestic product,” said Fowler, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego who co-authored the study. “But our work shows that whether a friend’s friend is happy has more influence than a $5,000 raise. So at a time when we’re facing such economic difficulties, the message could be, ‘Hang in there. You still have your friends and family, and these are the people to rely on to be happy.’ ”

Other experts praised the study as a landmark in the growing body of evidence documenting the influence of personal connections and the importance of positive emotions.

“It’s a pathfinding article,” said Martin E.P. Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist. “It’s totally original, and the findings are striking.”

Stanley Wasserman, who studies social networks at Indiana University, said: “We’ve known that one’s network ties are important, but we’ve never looked at anything on this scale. The implications are you can’t look at individuals as little entities devoid of their social context.”

Others, however, questioned the findings, noting that it is difficult to account for every variable that might affect the outcomes of such studies.

“Researchers should be cautious in attributing correlations in health outcomes of close friends in social network effects,” wrote Ethan Cohen-Cole of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Jason M. Fletcher of Yale University in an accompanying study. Their research used data from a large federal survey to show that acne, headaches and even height could appear to spread through social networks if not analyzed properly. “The methods of detecting ‘social network effects’ of health outcomes commonly found in the recent medical literature might produce effects where none exists.”

But Christakis said his analysis took other possible explanations into consideration.

Ed Diener, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said the findings could explain why people in some countries tend to be happier than others. “This is an extremely exciting study — interesting, provocative and important,” Diener said.

While obesity appeared to spread even among people who lived far apart, happiness appears to be transmitted only among people who live within a mile of one another. The influence was also greatest among people who considered themselves mutual friends.

Because the researchers did not find the effect for people living on the same block beyond a next-door neighbor, they were confident that the positive mood was not the result of living in the same good neighborhood. Because people tended to get happier if someone they knew became happy, the researchers could rule out the alternative explanation that happy people tend to be drawn to each other.

“We know it’s not a ‘birds of a feather flock together’ effect,” Christakis said.

Surprisingly, happiness had no such effect at work. The researchers speculated that work relationships may have different dynamics. One worker might become happy because he or she got a raise or a promotion at the expense of another, for example.

Unhappiness also appeared to be catching, but not as strongly: An unhappy connection increased the chances of being unhappy by about 7 percent on average, while a happy connection increased the chances of being happy by about 9 percent. While having more friends is important for a person’s happiness, the benefit of having more friends appears to be canceled out if they are unhappy, the researchers found.

The researchers and others speculated that the emotion may be important on an evolutionary level by helping people cooperate. Seligman likened happiness to an orchestra tuning up.

“Laughter and singing and smiling tune the group emotionally,” Seligman said. “They get them on the same wavelength so they can work together more effectively as group.”

Homeopathy really does work and doctors should recognise its healing effects, say researchers.

A study found that allergy sufferers who were given homeopathic treatment were ten times more likely to be cured than those given a dummy pill instead.

Doctors should be more positive about the alternative medicine, which is the only complementary therapy available on the NHS, the researchers said.

Their study attempts to settle the controversy over homeopathic treatment, which critics say is not effective because of the tiny level of active substance used in most remedies.

It works on the principle that a substance which in large doses will cause the symptoms of an illness can be used in minute doses to relieve the same symptoms.

Critics argue that the active substance is so diluted that homeopathic remedies have no more effect than placebo or dummy treatment.

The study put homeopathy to the test in 50 patients suffering from nasal allergies. They were given either a homeopathic preparation or a placebo.

Each day for four weeks patients recruited from general practices and a hospital in London measured their nasal air flow and recorded symptoms such as blocked, runny or itchy nose, sneezing or eye irritation.

Both groups reported that they got better – but on average patients who received homeopathy had a 28 per cent improvement in nasal air flow compared with 3 per cent among those in the placebo group.

The study was carried out by doctors in Glasgow, led by Dr David Reilly of the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital, one of five specialist hospitals in Britain. He said the difference in results from the two treatments was statistically significant.

Dr Reilly said this was the fourth trial carried out by his hospital, all with similar results. In addition, there were positive findings in 70 per cent of a further 180 clinical trials.

‘I hope this will encourage doctors to examine the volume of evidence supporting homeopathy – they might be quite surprised at the positive outcome in many trials,’ he said.

He added that it would take consistent scientific investigation to persuade some doctors, but attitudes were changing.

About 20 per cent of doctors in Scotland have basic homeopathic training compared with one per cent 15 years ago.

‘It isn’t just about the remedies, which can be put to the test in trials, but about a greater holistic approach in encouraging self-healing and self-recovery.’

Dr Bob Leckridge, president of the Faculty of Homeopathy – the body for doctors, vets, nurses and other health professionals – said: ‘This latest research builds on existing evidence that homeopathy works, something that hundreds of doctors and their patients have known for 200 years.’

By Vicki Grimshaw from Mailonline

Feverish, with a high temperature and a dreadful pain in her chest, Debbie Moore knew she needed medical attention, but the Pineapple Studios boss decided against seeing a doctor.

Instead, she went to her homeopath. He said she had bronchopneumonia – inflammation of the lungs and upper chest – and ‘prescribed’ various homeopathic drops, which she took daily for several weeks.

‘I’d suffered bad coughs on and off throughout my life – possibly as a legacy of whooping cough as a teenager. But this was a pretty bad case of it,’ she recalls. ‘Yet within two weeks of treatment, I was cured, and have never suffered with it since,’ she says, eight years later. 

Debbie has relied on homeopathy to treat all her ills – and her family’s – for the past 42 years. She is convinced it has even helped her daughter, who was paralysed at the age of 14 following haemorrhages on her spine.

‘I believe that more than 90 per cent of illnesses are triggered by some sort of emotional upset that you have to clear from your life,’ she says. ‘Otherwise, even if you take medicine, the illnesses will keep coming back.’

She thinks conventional medicine is too focused on drug treatments. ‘Western doctors hand out pills like sweets. I’m appalled at how many people regularly take ibuprofen without exploring why their head hurts, such as whether they need reading glasses, or are spending too long on computers.

‘Homeopathy and complementary medicine are all about prevention.’

Debbie has not always been so against conventional treatments. Until the age of 21 she was ‘just like everyone else’, as she puts it, taking the odd aspirin for a headache, or paracetamol for a cold.

But all that changed in 1968 after her two-year marriage to photographer David Grant ended. In just six months, the 5ft 8in model dropped from eight to six-and-a-half stone, before soaring to 11 stone. Depressed and unable to find work, she went to see her GP, in her home city of Manchester, who simply told her to take better care of her diet.

Soon after, she moved to London, where she was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid gland; this had caused a lack of thyroid hormones, slowing her metabolism down. She was prescribed thyroxin tablets to boost her hormone levels.

These are meant to be taken for life; desperate to avoid that, on the advice of a friend Debbie went to see the late Dr Chandra Sharma, a well-known homeopathic doctor. Debbie, now 64, says she has not set foot in a conventional GP’s surgery since.

She says: ‘My life changed for ever when I saw Dr Sharma, for he offered me a cure, not just pills. He looked at the emotional reason for my thyroid problem, which was depression due to my marriage breakdown.

‘So I was told to go to dance lessons as it exercised every muscle, as well as being uplifting. I took up jazz classes taught by Arlene Phillips in Covent Garden, London. Within four months I was weaned off the thyroxin and within nine I was cured. I was back to eight stone, which I still am today, and modelling again for the likes of David Bailey.’

Dancing Queen? Debbie Moore with four of her Pineapple girls in 2000. She set up the dance studio in 1979

The dancing also led to her setting up Pineapple Dance Studios. ‘The dance class I’d been attending closed down, so with nowhere else to go I found a derelict pineapple warehouse nearby and opened Pineapple Dance Studios in 1979.’

The dance and clothing business is now a multi-million-pound enterprise; last month, Debbie’s success was recognised when she received an OBE.

Throughout this time, Debbie continued to use homeopathy. This treats ‘like with like’; a substance that in large doses causes the symptoms of an illness is used in tiny doses to relieve the same symptoms. For example, onions, which cause the eyes to itch and water, are used to reduce hayfever symptoms.

The homeopathy industry is worth an estimated £40 million in Britain alone, but remains highly controversial. Critics point out that the active substance in the remedies is so diluted that the effect is no better than a placebo, or dummy pill.

Last month, an MPs’ report called for the £4million funding of homeopathic treatments on the NHS to be stopped, given the lack of evidence for their efficacy.

But many patients, as well as the British Homeopathic Association, vehemently disagree. Debbie points to her own experiences as proof of the benefits of homeopathy.

On a trip to Thailand seven years ago, she was badly bitten by mosquitoes and collapsed shortly after arriving back in London. Concerned that she might have dengue fever, her homeopath tested her blood.

‘He showed me on his computer screen the parasites and amoeba in my blood. He immediately gave me drops of wormwood and black walnut herbs, which are cleansing and get rid of parasitic infections, and within three days I was fine.’

Homeopathy also helped her daughter Lara, who suffered a spinal haemorrhage when she was ten and another at 14, leaving her paralysed, able only to blink and speak.

Turning point: Debbie cured her thyroid problems after taking up jazz classes with Arlene Phillips

‘The doctors wanted to operate on her spine again, but I refused as I felt conventional medicine was no longer helping her. I brought in my homeopathic doctors, including Dr Sharma, who gave her round-the-clock care with massage and acupuncture.

‘Over the years I spent a fortune contacting every healer recommended to me to see if they could help. We made mistakes, but the only real harm was to my wallet,’ she says.

Now Lara, 36, is in a wheelchair but has upper-body movement and leads a full life as a journalist and disability adviser.

She is also a keen advocate of homeopathic treatments, which she uses alongside her regular hospital check-ups with spinal experts.

Debbie acknowledges that western medicine has its place, particularly with serious conditions, but believes that complementary medicine should be used in conjunction with western medicine wherever possible.

To keep herself healthy, she undergoes ‘homeopathic’ health checks every three months. ‘As well as checking my urine, saliva and blood for imbalances, I have blood analysis under a microscope, which is believed to show up conditions such as poor digestion and heart disease.’

She also has Electro-dermal Screening, in which a probe emitting a tiny electric pulse is held against the body’s many so-called ‘pressure points’ – changes in the electrical circuits are said to ‘reveal’ health problems (there is no scientific evidence for this).

In addition, she sees a lymphatic draining masseuse and reflexologist every three weeks to ‘detoxify’ her system, and swears by an holistic dentist, who treats dental problems with homeopathic remedies.

Debbie even wears underwear made with infrared magnetic cloth, which is said to trap infrared rays emitted by our bodies to help stimulate circulation and metabolism, and draw out toxins.

She is such a firm believer in ‘prevention’ that she sends her staff to her homeopath’s clinic for check-ups and the company kitchen has a cupboard filled with homeopathic and natural remedies.

‘I’m very concerned about them, but it’s also in my own interest for them to keep well,’ she says.

Debbie is well aware that many will think her beliefs dotty, but she is convinced her approach to exercise and complementary medicine has helped her achieve the success she now enjoys. But despite her constant striving, she accepts it is impossible to lead the perfect life.

‘I am a Manchester girl and love fish and chips and burgers, and I drink alcohol and cappuccinos most days. But what I don’t do is poison my body with pharmaceutical drugs,’ says Debbie.

‘I am so focused on my health some might see me as a hypochondriac, but if you aren’t in optimum health it has a negative effect on your relationship, your job – everything.

‘Many people go to the beautician every month to get their Botox done or have their car serviced regularly – I simply apply the same dedication to my body.’

A study of over 3,000 adults from across Europe found that patients producing coloured phlegm are more likely to be prescribed antibiotics by their GP.

Yet the antibiotic treatment did not appear to speed up their recovery.

The study appears in the European Respiratory Journal.

An acute cough or a lower respiratory tract infection is a very common reason for people going to see their GP in the UK, says the study.

Coughing up phlegm coloured green or yellow is also one of the most common reasons for GPs prescribing antibiotics, because they believe it is more likely to indicate a bacterial cause.

The team from the School of Medicine at Cardiff University collected data from 13 European countries for their research, asking patients and doctors to record symptoms and treatments for the condition.

The researchers found that patients who produced green or yellow phlegm were prescribed antibiotics “considerably more often” than those with clear or white phlegm.

They also found that, after seven days, the biggest difference between those who were and were not treated with antibiotics was less than one half of a percentage point on a symptom severity scale.

Side effects

Professor Chris Butler, who led the study, said: “Our findings resonate with findings from randomised trials where benefit from antibiotic treatment in those producing discoloured phlegm has been found to be marginal at best or non-existent.”

“Our findings add weight to the message that acute cough in otherwise well adults is a self-limiting condition and antibiotic treatment does not speed recovery to any meaningful extent.

“In fact, antibiotic prescribing in this situation simply unnecessarily exposes people to side effects from antibiotics, undermines future self care, and drives up antibiotic resistance,” Professor Butler said.

The study also found that GPs from Scandinavia are good at targeting their prescribing of antibiotics while The Netherlands use half as many antibiotics than the UK.

Professor Butler added: “Antibiotics can save people’s lives, but we need to keep them away from people who will not benefit from them.”

“The more we use them, the less likely they are to work.”

The FDA and CDC have detected an increase in reports of febrile seizures among children younger than 2 who received Fluzone, the trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine made by Sanofi Pasteur.

Fluzone is the only vaccine recommended for use during the current flu season in infants and children from 6 to 23 months of age.

The agencies are working together to investigate the connection, as well as the possibility that other factors aside from influenza vaccination could be involved, according to an FDA announcement.

The reports were submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

“Data from VAERS are preliminary and serve as a sign or indication that further investigation is warranted,” the FDA said.

In the meantime, the recommendation for vaccinating children against influenza — that everyone 6 months and older should be immunized — remains unchanged.

The FDA statement noted that all of the children with febrile seizure recovered with no lasting effects and advised parents and caregivers to speak with their children’s healthcare providers about any questions or concerns.

“Although febrile seizures can be frightening for the child’s caregivers, nearly all children who have a febrile seizure recover quickly and have no long-term effects,” the FDA stated.

VAERS data did not indicate an increase in febrile seizures in children older than 2 following vaccination with trivalent inactivated vaccine or in children who received live attenuated influenza vaccine.

A statement from Sanofi Pasteur said, “Reporting rates of febrile seizure after administration of our influenza vaccine have been stable for years even as distribution of the pediatric formulation has increased.”

It continued, “Sanofi Pasteur is working closely with FDA in the investigation of these events and will thoroughly assess all cases of febrile seizure and any other adverse experiences reported following administration of our vaccine.”

Appearance

Children with allergies tend to have an unhealthy-looking pale complexion called ‘white dermatographism’ and are often small for their age.

Particular features, listed below, may indicate how prone your child is to allergies.

Allergic shiners

Allergic children and adults have typical darkening around the eyes called allergic shiners. This blue discoloration is caused by congested veins and looks like smudged mascara.

Dennie-Morgan lines

Young children with nasal and chest allergies have characteristic Dennie-Morgan lines. These are crease-like wrinkles that form under the lower eyelid folds.

Long face syndrome

Children with asthma and nasal allergies have so-called long face syndrome: a high-arched palate and protruding upper teeth. This develops after years of constant nasal blockage.

The nasal mucous membranes (turbinates) swell from irritation, so much so that the nasal passages become completely blocked. These children are forced to breathe through their mouths, which also affects tooth growth.

Nasal salute

Intense nasal itching leads to the ‘nasal salute’ – the child tends to rub their nose with the palm of the hand, usually in an upward direction. This constant rubbing leads to a crease or wrinkle across the bridge of the nose.

Tics

Children with nasal allergies tend to pull funny faces, as their noses are always itching. They may then go on to develop uncontrollable facial tics or twitches and constantly sniff, making strange noises.

Teachers often complain they’re being naughty and fooling around, when the real cause is an untreated nasal allergy.

Keratosis pilaris

Children with allergies, and potential eczema sufferers, have characteristic dryness and roughness of the skin, particularly on the cheeks, upper arms and chest. This dryness is called xerosis and usually has a sandpaper-like texture called keratosis pilaris, which reduces the skin barrier to irritants and infection.

Atopic eczema

Atopic eczema may develop as a consequence of dry skin, especially in the elbow and knee joints of children. Children with eczema constantly fidget and scratch, leading to a misdiagnosis of being hyperactive, when in fact it’s their itchy skin distracting them.

Conjunctivitis

With chronic eye allergies, the inner parts of the eyelids develop a swollen, cobblestone-like appearance from allergic conjunctivitis.

Children also tend to rub away the outer third of their eyebrows.

Glue ear

Children with nasal allergies may develop glue ear, when mucous becomes trapped behind the eardrum in the middle ear. This results in temporary deafness, discomfort and a poor attention span.

Postnasal drip

Children may experience a constant postnasal drip and repeated sore throats from allergic mucous building up and being discharged into the throat. Serious nasal allergies also reduce children’s senses of taste and smell.

Emotional trauma

A big emotional upset such as a bereavement, job loss or relationship breakdown is often the cause of illness, although the symptoms may not appear for some weeks or months afterwards.  The more that emotions are bottled up, the more likely illness is to ensue.

We really are what we eat (or what we absorb), and continually eating a poor diet will take its toll on energy levels, as well as affecting mood, sleep and concentration.  I am still surprised when people tell me that they don’t eat vegetables or fruit, and I wonder what they do eat.  The essential minerals and vitamins from fruit and veg are absolutely essential for good health.

Toxicity and parasites

Most people have some degree of toxicity in their bodies – we live in a world of pollution, man-made materials and pharmaceutical drugs, all of which can affect our bodies years later.  I recently read that 80% of the world’s population has parasites.  They are most likely to be present in anyone who has travelled to exotic countries and anyone with exposure to animals.

Too much/little exercise

As a nation we are becoming more idle.  Those who exercise too little are definitely at risk of become ill, however those who train very hard can also be susceptible to illness – it is almost as though their body has no reserves left to fight an infection.  Exercising outside is the most beneficial, as you will absorb essential Vitamin D from sunlight (you can even absorb it in on a cloudy winter day).

Ongoing stress

Anyone who is in a difficult relationship or a job they dislike is subject to an ongoing stress, which almost becomes unnoticed after a period of time.  However, this constant level of stress can result in illness; I believe that our body is forcing us to take some time to reflect on the changes that we need to make.  The stress may be environmental too, such as living in a damp house, or next to a mobile phone mast.

These five causes shouldn’t be taken in isolation – if someone is subject to a sudden emotional trauma, they are much more likely to become ill if their nutrition is poor and they take no exercise.

I may be one step to help people along their path to health, but only one person can be wholly responsible for ensuring your good health … and that’s you!