The Epidemic of Chronic Childhood Illness

This holistic pediatrician busts the myth of why your child won't simply outgrow their chronic symptoms.

Listen up, parents and caretakers: if your child requires multiple medications daily, this could be an indication that they are struggling with a chronic illness. According to a study published in Academic Pediatrics, an estimated 43% of U.S. children (32 million) currently have at least one chronic health condition.

Did you know the following list of conditions can actually be categorized as a chronic illness? Food allergies, seasonal allergies, asthma, wheezing, eczema, chronic congestion, frequent ear infections, frequent sinus infections, frequent colds, inflammatory bowel disease, constipation, acid reflux, obesity, vaccination damage, seizures, diabetes, side effects of chronic medication use, and more.

Does Your Child Have a Chronic Illness?

If your child is struggling with symptoms of eczema, rashes, food allergies, seasonal allergies, environmental allergies, wheezing, and asthma, then they may be considered "chronically ill."

Keep reading to learn about this increasing epidemic of chronic childhood illness, and how to find relief in the form of my "Rescue Your Child's Health" Protocol. This nutritional science-based protocol starts with the gut-brain connection as the focal point of optimal pediatric health.

Although no one seems to be in agreement on the definition of a childhood chronic illness, most guidelines stipulate that a chronic illness:

• Lasts three months or more, affects a child's normal activities, and requires frequent hospitalizations, home health care, and/or extensive medical care.
• Prevents an individual from attending school regularly, doing regular school work, or doing usual childhood activities; requires frequent attention or treatment from a doctor or other health professional, regular use of any medication, or use of special equipment.
• Is prolonged in its duration, does not resolve spontaneously, and is rarely cured completely.

Although numbers vary depending on methods and definitions, by any estimate the scope of the problem is enormous. Epidemiological studies suggest that as many as 1 out of 4 children in the U.S., or 15 to 18 million children age 17 years and younger, suffer from a chronic health problem.

As a trained pediatrician, I can see the overall dilemma. How do we define a chronic childhood illness, with the intent of being better able to address it? Do we include chronic mental suffering? How debilitating must impairment be for something to be called "illness"? Do we look at data from clinics and hospitals, and exclude parental reports? How valid and important is anecdotal evidence?

What about acute illnesses, such as colds, influenza, and ear infections? Might recurrence of these ailments signal a more serious problem? What about days missed from school? Would we call it chronic illness if a medication keeps symptoms at bay, and if so, would this mean a child is free of chronic illness? Would we consider aches and pains, such as daily abdominal pain, a mark of chronic illness? To the suffering child, that is more of an illness than any data point ever could express.

How about eczema, or chronic dry skin? Would we call it a problem if steroids need to be used daily to keep their skin healthy? How many of us, parents and clinicians alike, would call seasonal allergies, and allergies to dogs, cats, and foods a chronic illness?

The quality of life of the patient and his or her family is what matters most.

According to the CDC numbers, the epidemic of chronic childhood illness is on the rapid rise. I personally see evidence of this increase every single day. Over the past decade of practicing medicine, I am still shocked when patients, friends, and medical colleagues do not consider allergies an illness. Many families do not even consider the multitude of over-the-counter allergy medications to be "medications" worth mentioning as part of a complete health history. I run into this dilemma every day in my practice.

Chronic childhood illness is not yet named an epidemic. This is a dangerous label to avoid, since we are truly in an unprecedented epidemic of chronic childhood illness. The hesitation to name this drastic shift as an epidemic does not make the 1 in 6 parents of children with developmental delays sleep better at night. And avoiding this blatant trend does not help the 18% of children who have allergies feel safe when they travel, enjoy a meal outside the home, or attend classes.

Many families remain unaware of the link between their child's symptoms and the potential that they are, in fact, chronically ill. The number of children struggling with the following chronic conditions continues to rise at an alarming rate:

• Developmental disabilities (including autism)
• Behavioral manifestations (ADHD, behavioral problems, anxiety, depression, etc.)
• Respiratory manifestations (asthma, seasonal allergies, hay fever, wheezing, respiratory allergies)
• Skin disorders (including eczema)
• Food allergies (peanut allergies, tree nut allergies)
• Obesity
• Cancers (primarily leukemia)

The CDC defines an epidemic as a sudden or rapid increase in the number of cases of a disease above what is normally expected in that population in that area. When we look at the rapidly rising numbers in each of the above-stated categories, we can see exactly why and how this truly is an epidemic.

Recognizing the "Soft Signs"

For every child diagnosed with a chronic illness, there are many more undiagnosed children. From my ten years of treating and healing the sickest children, here are my definitions of a chronic childhood illness. These are "soft signs," or the preliminary symptoms that develop even before the child is given a diagnosis:

• Decreased energy levels
• Decreased appetite
• Excessive hours spent sleeping
• Constant foggy feeling, often resulting in irritability or crankiness
• Difficulty in concentrating and remaining focused
• Frequent visits to urgent care, the ER, your pediatrician, and to specialists
• Multiple sick days resulting in school absences, which carries the additional risk of falling behind academically
• Frequent stops to the school nurse for daily medications
• Multiple medication management that the child must deal with, which is a massive and often intimidating responsibility for any youngster
• Your child is afraid to eat lunch with classmates, is embarrassed because they are the only one who has to bring lunch from home, and has to question what is in the food at a party due to severe or anaphylactic allergies
• Inability to keep up with friends on the playground
• Inability to participate in school activities and sports
• Days, weeks, or perhaps months, spent in the hospital
• Feeling as if he or she is constantly being treated by family and school like "the sick kid"
• The child's tendency to be less than honest with you when feeling miserable because they don't want to miss out on something or add to your worries
• Chronic ear infections (more than two a year)
• Chronic sinus infections (more than two a year)
• Constant runny nose
• Reflux, abdominal pains, or other signs of gastrointestinal distress
• Chronic diarrhea or loose stools
• Chronic constipation (does not have a bowel movement every day or at least every other day; passes hard "pellet" stools; difficulty or straining with a bowel movement)
• Sensory disorders (i.e., aversions to sights, sounds, smells)
• Recurrent urinary tract infections
• Obsessive or compulsive type behaviors
• Persistent skin rashes (eczema, psoriasis, cradle cap, rashes after eating)
• Any physical, emotional, or mental condition that prevents a child from attending school regularly, doing regular school work, or doing usual childhood activities

How many of these soft signs are present for your child? In general, chronic illnesses are characterized by at least three important features: they are prolonged in their duration, they do not resolve spontaneously, and they are rarely cured completely. If your child exhibits any of the soft signs mentioned here persistently, they may have underlying medical dysfunctions commonly seen in the new childhood epidemics.

Occasional symptoms are perfectly normal, and healthy children exhibit a few of these symptoms occasionally. This is not cause for concern. All children exhibit occasional temper tantrums, toy hoarding, constipation, hyperactivity, and other of the aforementioned symptoms. However, it is not normal when children exhibit these symptoms chronically or with high intensity and severity, despite conventional treatment approaches (e.g., diet and behavioral modifications). These symptoms stem from specific underlying medical problems that most physicians typically do not recognize.

Although some of these symptoms may be strongly correlated with one particular underlying medical problem (e.g., red cheeks after eating is often associated with food allergies), many of these symptoms are "red flags" and indicate that there are multiple, complex underlying biological disorders, such as:

• Gut dysbiosis
• Immune dysregulation
• Mitochondrial dysfunction
• Autoimmunity
• Malabsorption, or poor absorption from the gut

I feel passionately that this rapidly growing epidemic is actually reversible. I feel this way because I have helped thousands of families actually reverse and heal their child's multiple chronic illnesses.

If any of these signs and symptoms sound familiar to you, you should not settle for symptom management. As I teach my medical students and resident physicians, if a treatment is not giving a child's body what it needs to heal, it is merely a band-aid for symptom management.

The good news is that your child does not need to become a statistic. Addressing the root cause of these symptoms is the solution, and that solution starts with healing the gut.

Root Cause vs. Band-Aid Solutions

What is the difference between addressing the root cause versus symptom management, or band-aid solutions? Without healing the root cause of disease, the likelihood is greatly reduced that the disease will ever be reversed. On the contrary, the symptoms will worsen. Applying a band-aid solution will only worsen the problem.

To see this in action, take a look at the Atopic March.

The Atopic March

Children with atopic dermatitis (AD) often develop other atopic conditions in a typical sequence of food allergy, allergic rhinitis, and asthma, known as the atopic march. Some of these conditions may persist for years. One in three children with AD will additionally develop asthma or allergic rhinitis. The risk of developing asthma increases with atopic dermatitis severity, and more than 50% of children with severe atopic dermatitis will develop asthma.

Young children with AD are six times more likely to develop a food allergy compared to children without AD. Many parents falsely believe that their children will simply outgrow their symptoms. But without addressing the root cause of the problem, it is very likely that they will worsen.

When I teach medical students and resident physicians about the root cause of illness, I am reminded that this is not covered in the conventional Western medical system. From seasoned specialists to young doctors-in-training, they cannot explain the root cause of asthma, allergies, or eczema. They can, however, tell me how every pharmaceutical medicine used to relieve the symptoms works. This is the fundamental difference between treating the root cause of illness and temporarily decreasing or suppressing symptoms.

Have you primarily been using steroids, steroid creams, and ointments to relieve your child's inflammation? You may have heard from a doctor or family member that this was the best treatment. Did you ever notice how the irritation returns when you stop using the cream? The truth is that these treatments are just excellent band-aids. They are simply treating the symptoms without addressing the root causes of the problem.

Here's what you need to know: treating the symptom without reversing its root cause will never permanently alleviate the problem. Once the root cause of your child's discomfort is addressed through a holistic approach, they will find permanent relief from all related symptoms and conditions. If that's not powerful, then I don't know what is!

What is the root cause of these symptoms? In my practice, multiple, complex, underlying biological disorders interact to create disease or symptoms of the disease. When you boil it down, there are three main reasons; two we can easily control, and one we cannot. The ones we can change (environment) will luckily also change the third (genetics). This is the study of epigenetics: how the environment affects genetics to trigger the manifestation of illness. Here are the three main reasons:

• Toxins in the environment
• Gut dysbiosis and leaky gut leading to malabsorption, toxic overload, inflammation, and autoimmunity
• Genetics

Gut Health

It is well known that people in traditional tribes in parts of the developing world do not suffer from allergies. In one hunter-gatherer community studied, 1 in 1500 people had an isolated allergy to a single irritant. Compare that to the 18% of children in the U.S. who have allergies. We don't have to look to far corners of the globe to see communities with almost nonexistent prevalence of allergies. Just think back to your own childhood. How many of your friends had food allergies? How about anaphylactic reactions? Did any of your friends carry an EpiPen around? Because today, roughly 2 children in every classroom have a potentially lethal food allergy.

What happened in the Western world in the past 20 years? What is the big difference between the communities with no allergies and our epidemic of allergies in children? What is it about the Western lifestyle that is to blame? There are likely to be many culprits, but all roads lead to a breakdown of gut health.

It is hard to believe that antibiotics were introduced in the 1950s. This also introduced an epidemic of allergies for our children. How? Antibiotics kill bacteria and can be life-saving, but they are not specific to the bacteria that cause illness. They also destroy the beneficial bacteria in the microbiome that protect our gut lining (endothelial lining), help digest food, and help us detoxify. This is called dysbiosis and has been shown to directly impact the development of nearly all chronic childhood illnesses, including asthma, allergies, eczema, and autism spectrum.

• We know that antibiotic use during pregnancy increases the risk of allergies in children.
• We know that intrapartum (labor and delivery) antibiotics have been shown to lead to a modified microbiome in children at 3 and 12 months of age.
• We know that antibiotics used in the first month of life have been associated with cow's milk allergies.
• We know that beta-lactam antibiotics are the most common triggers when food allergies are diagnosed before 2 years of age.
• We know that there is a clear association between antibiotic consumption and allergic diseases, which increases with the number of antibiotics prescribed.

Insufficient exposure to beneficial microorganisms in early life (resulting from prenatal antibiotics, C-sections, and antibiotics given in the neonatal period) or multiple doses of antibiotics throughout childhood (in the instance of repeat ear infections) destroys beneficial microorganisms that hold the integrity of your gut lining together. Gaps develop between cells that allow large particles, predigested foods, and toxins into the bloodstream. This is called "leaky gut," and it can trigger food allergies, food sensitivities and intolerances, as well as many neurological reactions and behaviors.

What else can happen when we don't have enough beneficial bacteria in our gut (gut dysbiosis)? Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). We can easily test a compromised gut for overgrowth of yeast, candida, fungus, mycotoxin, mold, dangerous viruses, pathogenic bacteria, and parasites. These pathogens disrupt the immune system and the gut's natural balance, which can cause allergies, eczema, and wheezing or asthma. In fact, the gut is home to about 70% of the immune system! So, diverse, healthy microbes are needed to create a strong, healthy gut lining.

If this is not corrected, we see worsening food intolerances, more rashes, nutritional deficiencies, autoimmune diseases, frequent ear infections, constipation, bloating, trouble concentrating, and frequent illness.

Genetics

You may have blamed yourself, thinking you were the direct cause of your child's discomfort. Maybe you think this way because someone told you it was so. Parents who believe this misconception don't realize there may be a solution even more powerful than genetics. Your child is not a victim of their genetics.

The good news: there are specific protocols that can remedy symptoms within months. When gut-healing protocols are combined with functional medicine testing along with healing through holistic botanicals and herbs, allergies, asthma, and eczema can actually reverse.

If you have ever been told, "your child will just outgrow eczema, allergies, and asthma," this is a misguided and dangerous approach. Healing and reversing chronic childhood illness is possible. With the right changes, we can reverse chronic childhood symptoms and illness now instead of waiting for our children to just (possibly) outgrow them.

The Solution

If you want to reverse these symptoms for good, you need to know where to start. This is what root-cause medicine is all about. What is the reason, or root cause, for your child's symptoms? As both a pediatrician and a mom, I do not recommend simply waiting for your child to outgrow it. I do recommend healing the root cause of the problem so your child can overcome this quickly. There is also the issue of time, because years of steroid creams, antibiotics, inhalers, and pharmaceuticals could do more damage in the long run. A root-cause approach is not just effective but also safe. Your child has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Can we use the microbiome (healthy gut bacteria) to treat chronic childhood illness, such as allergies? Yes! The microbiota (microorganisms of the gut) can be considered a therapeutic target for treating allergies. Many illnesses stem from the gut, even when there are no digestive symptoms. This is due to a misaligned and/or imbalanced microbiome system, the medical term for "gut health." A body that is not in balance, beginning with its most basic of functions, undergoes an internal war to utilize the equipment of its immune system. A healthy, fully functioning immune system is the first step in restoring health, and the first step in restoring a healthy, active immune system is gut health.

Here are the steps to the healing journey:

Week 1: Take Inventory

Get honest and take an inventory of your child's obvious symptoms. Then, look at the soft signs. Not sure what the soft signs are? Refer to my list above.

Week 2: Remove

Support your child's ability to detox by removing what is no longer serving your child. We remove whatever is either in excess or is a suspected (or known) sensitivity or allergen. Sometimes this requires a bit of investigative work, charting, or keeping a diary of symptoms to see if there are patterns. Food sensitivities are tricky because your child's symptoms may occur hours or days after exposure. This is where I will often implement elimination-style nutrition.

We also focus on removing the toxins in the environment, whether it be pollutants in the home (cleaning and beauty/skin products) or outside of the home (air quality and harmful types of sunlight). This also includes removing unnecessary stress.

Wondering what toxicity has to do with our kids? Everyone has a small level of "toxicity" in their bodies. It is important to keep this toxicity at a minimum by limiting exposure and optimizing detoxification. Toxic overload occurs when toxins accumulate without being eliminated properly. Passing this tipping point marks the onset of symptoms of chronic illness. Toxic overload is known to be a primary root cause of the current epidemics of autism, ADHD, asthma, allergies, and other chronic health issues.

Week 3: Replace and Restore

Once the offending foods and external triggers are removed, we work on replacing the factors necessary to optimize digestive secretions and enzymatic activity (to help your child properly digest), adding fiber in several forms to support gut transit time and motility (to support toxin elimination). Here we will also look at the repletion of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. We restore the integrity of the gut lining, address nutritional deficiencies, and support the mind-body connection.

Week 4: Repair and Rebalance

The gut lining can be severely compromised during periods of inflammation, stress, and when exposed to allergens over time. Repairing the gut lining is necessary to ensure proper nutrient absorption. During week 4, we repair the gut lining and learn to rebalance the body-mind-spirit connection. When a child's gut is healthy, it leads to a healthy, energetic, robust, joyful, clear-skinned, and happy lifestyle. And our ultimate goal is simply for the child to feel good.

Proper, balanced nutrition is the most effective and sustainable way to achieve this level of permanent health and wellness for your child. Sound basic? Sure it does, but achieving it can be a long-term process. This is due, at least in part, to genetic and environmental influences, coupled with each individual's physiological makeup.

To achieve this wellness, we work to restore the balance of beneficial bacteria in your child's gut, which is crucial to overall health. This involves using probiotic foods, fiber-rich foods, and sometimes a supplement.

The Heart of the "Rescue Your Child" Protocol

• We believe in treating and healing the root cause of the problem rather than simply placing a band-aid on it.
• We recognize the body's amazing ability to heal itself using powerful natural remedies.
• We individualize every child's treatment, because every child is different and families have the right to choose what's best for them.
• We practice whole-body medicine, which encompasses the complete mind-body-energetic continuum.
• We combine alternative and conventional medicine for a research-based holistic approach.
• We aim to reduce overall medication use by implementing more natural and less invasive strategies for optimal results.

The next step is to take the evaluation of soft signs. You will take this quiz now and again in 30 days to quantify soft signs.

With love,

Dr. Nelli Gluzman