Autism, Yeast Candida Infections and Associated Illness’s

Mental illnesses constitute a large and growing portion of the world's health problems. According to the World Health Organization, depression is one of the most debilitating of diseases, on a par with paraplegia. Psychiatric illnesses make up more than 10 percent of the world's "disease burden" (a measure of how debilitating a disease is) In fact The World Health Organization predicts that within 20 years more people will be affected by depression than any other health problem . Much of this may be the work of viruses, bacteria and parasites. "Mental disorders are the major chronic recurrent disorders of youth in all developed countries," says Harvard policy expert Ronald Kessler, who directs the WHO's mental-health surveys.

Scientists have long known that some diseases can cause behavioural problems. When penicillin was first used to treat syphilis, thousands of cured schizophrenics were released from mental asylums. Now, however, scientists have evidence that infections may play a far bigger role in mental illness than previously thought. They've linked cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and of course autism to a variety of infectious agents

Depression may double dementia risk, say researchers

See Lyme disease page for the case for an infectious cause in Alzheimer's Disease...also read “Antibiotic impact on animals and insects ,Bees “sect for specific evidence on antibiotics causing the obesity crisis

This latest news [Oct2009] links obesity and mental health, the article concludes that People with mental health problems are likely to avoid gyms and physical exercise due to embarrassment and fear of being judged.. it helps explain why people with issues like depression are more likely to become obese…Not a very plausible explanation, It’s proven that a gut dysbiosis is the cause of the obesity epidemic… It’s the cause of all so called auto immune disease also. The article also points out that people with mental health problems are four times more likely to have diabetes.

Which puts neatly into context this article that cites an escaped stomach virus as the cause of diabetes.

.New data tells us that autism can be linked to parents' mental illness Having a schizophrenic parent roughly doubles risk of the disorder [autism]

The evidence is clear, inappropriate gut flora is the cause of both autism and Schizophrenia, the following study is almost there. If the medical profession only recognised yeast infections they could put 2+ 2 together

Autism And Schizophrenia Share Common Origin

Schizophrenics more likely to suffer from ruptured appendix: Tsay and his colleagues observed that a ruptured appendix occurred in 46.7 percent of the schizophrenic patients, in 43.4 percent of the patients with other major mental disorders, and in 25.1 percent of the patients with no major mental diseases

Scientists discover true function of appendix organ

The researchers say it acts as a safe house for good bacteria, which can be used to effectively reboot the gut following a bout of dysentery or cholera. Scientists from the Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina say following a severe bout of cholera or dysentery, which can purge the gut of bacteria essential for digestion, the reserve good bacteria emerge from the appendix to take up the role.

Of course the appendix in the case of a gut dysbiosis could harbour a pathogenic bacterium which puts the link between mental illness, gut dysbiosis and appendicitis into perspective .

Bartonella [cat scratch disease] is becoming a very common infection and is proving to be a co-infection with Lyme victims and subsequently is being found in increasing numbers of autistic children .It supports the theory that would be pathogens we host but are rendered benign by our immune systems are now becoming pathogenic as our immune systems become downgraded [care of the use of antibiotics] .

Do Bartonella Infections Cause Agitation, Panic Disorder, and Treatment-Resistant Depression?

It's clear that much mental illness has an infectious cause. It’s also clear that the politics of medicine inhibit progress in particular with infectious diseases. The situation has been described as the dark ages of medicine , who could argue with that

The chemistry of mental illness

At the very basic level, our body is all about chemistry. Digestion, respiration, central and peripheral nervous system and the endocrine system all function based on chemistry. In order to function properly, the body requires a huge variety of molecules and trace elements. With the exception of Oxygen, all other chemicals are provided by the food that we eat. Our digestive system is responsible for converting that food into forms the body can utilize, while ridding the body of metabolic waste products and harmful toxins.

The digestive system is based on a series of chemical compounds and enzymes (proteins) that break down the chemical bonds in food so that the more basic building blocks of carbohydrates, fats, amino acids, vitamins and minerals can be absorbed and utilized by our metabolism to provide energy, build new proteins, repair cells etc. Certain vitamins and trace elements present in food cannot be absorbed directly and need to be converted into other forms before they can pass through the intestinal walls. This conversion is most commonly carried out by bacteria in the gut. The various bacteria’s' own metabolism acts on the vitamins and minerals, appending organic molecules which changes the solubility of the compounds and allows them to pass through the intestine and into the blood stream. These symbiotic bacteria have a further function of protecting the intestine from pathogenic bacteria and yeast

When a pathological state exists, this finely balanced symbiosis may be damaged and cease to function normally. Several different states in the gut may exist. Symbiotic bacteria may be damaged, causing the malabsorbtion of critical vitamins and minerals. If the damage is extensive and/or long lasting, pathogenic yeast and gram-negative bacilli will begin to fill the vacuum left by the healthy bacteria.

The metabolism of these pathogens is different and foods are no longer broken down in the same way. Proteins that previously would be broken down to their constituent amino acids are only partially digested, leaving long chains of amino acids called peptides. Our entire body is built from proteins, which are themselves built from chains of peptides. Certain peptides are extremely bioactive i.e they interact strongly with other proteins in the body. Another side effects of dysbiosis (inappropriate gut micro-organisms) is that the gut becomes leaky i.e it passes larger molecules than would normally be the case. Thus peptides, which should normally be broken down to amino acids, leave the gut and enter the blood stream intact, where they are delivered to other organs. Casein and Gluten, a protein and mixture of proteins common in many foods break down to form very potent opio-peptides when acted on by certain pathogenic bacteria. As the name suggests, these peptides have a narcotic action and act on opiate receptors in the brain, triggering major changes in brain function.

These are only 2 examples and very little work has been done on identifying the structure and function of peptides created by dysbiosis. The above example is a nice illustration of how the presence of gut dysbiosis can directly effect brain function. Given that depression has its roots in biochemistry, its not too wildly imaginative to suppose that mental heath problems and depression in particular are indeed related to gut dysbiosis.

Detoxification is hugely impacted by dysbiosis.

In simple terms metabolic pathways are decommissioned by pathogenic flora ..The long held belief that spillage if you like, from mercury in amalgam teeth fillings is the cause of accumulated mercury in the body is completely wrong. It's the bodies inability to metabolise and excrete mercury

Detoxification is, to a large extent carried out by the Liver. Toxic compounds are first oxidized or hydroxylated (Stage I), while Stage II reactions prepare the Stage I metabolites for biliary excretion by covalently conjugating them with highly polar ligands like glucuronic acid or glutathione. These detoxification reactions require vitamin and trace elemental co-factors to provide electrons for chemical bonding. In cases of Dysbiosis, these co-factors may be missing, due to malabsorbtion in the intestine. In addition, the pathogenic bacteria in the gut may metabolize the conjugated toxins, changing their form and allowing them to be reabsorbed into the blood stream.

Mercury is usually excreted via the gut in its divalent elemental form. In Dysbiosis it is thought that certain pathogenic bacteria have the ability to methylate the metallic Mercury to its organic form, which would be reabsorbed into the blood stream and carried to target organs like the kidneys and brain.

More support to the theory of declining quality of gut flora [and subsequent poor synthesizing of vitamins] can be found in this study that cites Antisocial behaviour in prisons, including violence, are reduced by vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids