Allergy and Intolerance in Children

Can be detrimental to their health and behaviour

Synopsis

Children's behaviour and health can be influenced by many factors - hereditary, relationships with peer groups and by contact with the environment through touch, inhalation, digestion, and infection. When a child has a ‘medical problem’ such as eczema, action is taken to try and resolve the distress. However, when behavioural responses are seen such as bad moods, hyperactivity or lack of concentration there is a tendency to consider that is 'just the way children are'.

Both the ‘medical’ and the ‘behavioural’ conditions could have the same problematic source. Any symptom that a child displays may be due to an allergy or intolerance and is an area to consider. Although allergies can be grouped into a number of broad categories, virtually any symptom a child displays can be a result of an allergy or intolerance.

Learning and Behaviour

Children who react to certain food groups or other elements in the environment are often observed by teachers as falling into particular behavioural patters. While teachers may notice the behaviour, the normal course of action is to refer them to child psychologists to assess them for learning disability or simply brand them as troublemakers. It rarely occurs to the causal observer that the child may in fact have an illness caused by something he or she is coming into contact with. Behavioural patterns include:-

Disturbed Learning

Lack of attention in classes

Confrontation

Avoidance

If the behavioural state continues, children may start along a path that will affect their personality and attitudes for the rest of their lives. Children can fail to learn properly and develop low self-esteem and antisocial behaviours. In the more extreme cases, these can progresses into delinquent patterns leading to eventual criminal behaviour.

It may be that the behaviours are triggered by inappropriate food choices or contact with other elements in the environment. Whenever children are sick or influenced by food and/or airborne chemicals, their brain function can be compromised and symptoms include disturbances of sensing, feeling, remembering and acting. Their learning can be impaired and their behaviour may be disturbed.

The reaction the child is experiencing may be due to an allergy or intolerance and by careful revision of environmental conditions and food intake the situation can be corrected. The first step on the path to recovery is to recognise the link between illness and /or behaviour and the factors that are causing it.

Allergy and Intolerance in Children – an Increasing Trend

Part of the challenge with allergies or intolerances is recognising they are a cause of the problems being experienced by a child, as symptoms can manifest themselves in many different ways. Energy Medicine categorises allergic symptoms into 12 groups and if any of these symptoms are experienced, there is a good chance the cause may be an allergy or intolerance. Although the main concerns with children are anaphylaxis (mainly with peanuts), asthma, bad or withdrawn behaviour or eczema, it can be seen that many other symptoms are also apparent:

HAY FEVER
Blocked nose
Catarrh
Runny nose
Sneezing
SINUSITIS
Blocked sinuses
Hoarseness
Inflamed sinuses
DIGESTIVE
Abdominal pain
Constipation
Diarrhoea
Gut spasms
Infant Colitis
Indigestion
Irritable bowel
Nausea
Piles
Vomiting
Wind
Bladder & urine
JOINTS & MUSCLES
Arthritis
Joint pains
Muscle aches
Muscle spasm
OEDEMA
Bloating
Swollen tissues
Water retention
Weight gain
HEART
Circulatory reactions
Blood pressure changes
Cold hands and feet
 Outline of a man HEAD
Conjunctivitis
Ear infection
Glue ear
Headache
Itchy / red eyes
Migraine
Mouth ulcers
Sore throat
Tinnitus
BEHAVIOUR
Anxiety
Depression
Disturbed sleep
Dizziness
Fatigue
Hyperactivity
Tantrums
Memory problems
Mood swings
Tiredness
ASTHMA
Persistent Cough
Short of breath
Tight chest
Wheezing
ECZEMA DERMATITIS
Acne
Dry scaly skin
Itchy skin
Rashes
Red skin
Small blisters
URTICARIA
Hives
ANAPHYLAXSIS

 

Allergies in the UK are strongly on the increase. According to the BBC:

Research carried out in 1997 (by Resource Marketing Research) found that lack of guidance as to the causes of their problems results in unnecessarily long periods of distress. Problems are then extended, as even when diagnosed, the traditional methods of treatment for allergies focuses on easing the symptoms, not on eliminating the causes.

To demonstrate the increasing scale of the problem, according to research from Canton hospital in Zurich, the proportion of the population with allergies increased throughout the 20th century from 1% in 1920 to nearly 50% by the year 2000.

There are a number of visible signs that can help us to recognise an allergic child:-

If a child displays any of these symptoms we suggest the following action be can be taken to alleviate their problems:-

Identifying the Causes

There are many causes of allergies or intolerances and here we focus on those that mainly cause problems for children.

Foods

Allergic stress in children is primarily caused by food allergies. The most common are cow’s milk protein, Soya milk, wheat, egg white, sugar, chocolate, plus Candida, mould and salicylic acid. Problems can also be caused by non–tolerated food additives such as phosphates, colourings, preservatives, emulsifiers, glutamates, sweeteners and fluoride. The main food allergens will be those foods that children most commonly come into contact with and for the UK this will probably be wheat and dairy. It has been suggested that breast-feeding children for 6 to 12 months will stop milk allergy however, in practice it only tends to delay the problem, which is likely to occur in later life.

Toxins

Children are exposed to more toxins every year. According to the Chemical Abstract service, some 600,000 chemical compounds had been synthesised by 1954. Fifty years later that figure had increased to over 12 million and the number (together with the potential problems for humans), continues to rise. Environmental pollution, pharmaceutical drugs and food additives all stress our immune systems.

Smoke

Tobacco smoke is a high social concern whereby passive smoke causes problems for children and so warrants a specific mention. The bad effects of exposure to cigarette smoke on pregnant women and babies is well documented as being the strongest risk factor for allergic disease and other health problems. This can manifest in children as asthma. Children come into contact with smoke not only in the home but also at school, in shops, clubs, and leisure centres etc. Children are more susceptible than adults to damage from passive smoking as their lungs and other respiratory tissues are still developing.

Passive smoking is only part of the problem. Teenagers like to experiment but do not understand the addictive nature of nicotine. They realise that 1 cigarette is unlikely to cause any harm and as the first cigarette generally tastes distasteful they believe stopping will be easy. However, they do not appreciate that nicotine is probably the most addictive substance on the planet, far more addictive than say cocaine and it can take just 1 cigarette to start a lifelong addiction to cigarettes. A community survey of alcohol, tobacco, and drug use amongst people in Cork and Kerry titled “Smoking, Alcohol and Drug Use in Cork and Kerry” was undertaken by Dr. T.M.R. Jackson, Dept. of Public Health, S.H.B. 1997. They found, the level of smoking dramatically increased from 10% at 15 years to 31% by 16 years. Boys started smoking more than a year earlier than girls, and reported smoking more cigarettes a day. In those who had ever smoked, the mean age of first smoking was 15.2 years and 25% had tried smoking by 13 years.

Pollens and Animals

Exposure to air borne irritants in very early life has been shown to increase the chances of developing allergic problems. This means that a child born in say, April or May is more likely to develop allergies to pollen than one born in say, November or December. Although not normally an initial cause of allergic problems; pollens and animal fur/feathers can be major irritants. Pollens are seasonal allergies. For example allergies to tree pollens are from March through to early summer and for grass pollens from April through to about September. With animal fur, cat for example, the problem may be just a specific type of cat and not necessarily all cats.

Household Dust

Children in the UK today spend over 90% of their time inside and so the environments in homes and schools have a dramatic impact on a child’s health. Our focus here is on dust but buildings also contain chemicals (plastics and paints etc) and mould growth (particularly in humid areas). Our homes and schools are now double-glazed and centrally heated, providing well-sealed environments that encourage major allergens such as dust mites. It is not the mites themselves but their faecal particles that act as allergens and cause allergies.

Childhood Infections

Children’s illnesses are distressing for parents and children alike and the tendency is to rush for antibiotics to overcome the problem. Unfortunately this short-term fix can create problems in later life with weakened immune systems. Children’s illnesses can have a positive side in that they exercise the body’s defenses and stimulate the formation of the defence systems. However, antibiotics block the formation of the body’s defences and leave children increasingly susceptible to infection. For this reason antibiotics should be used as a last report.

Inherited diseases

VD, tuberculosis and other toxic stresses of parents and grandparents and further back, can stress the decedents in the form of inherited information. The inherited disease information reacts with other stresses on the body and which in some instances can lead to allergic outcomes.

Vaccinations

Inoculations provided in childhood are a basis of several allergy conditions as they can lead to over-reaction and to long term damage to the organism. Children need to be protected against diseases such as polio, tetanus, or measles etc. However, we need to be aware of the side affects in later life. For example the BCG inoculations based on bovine tuberculosis when given to children with heredity toxic tuberculinum almost always produces an allergic reaction to cows milk,

Conclusions

If children have allergic parents, who are cigarette smokers, cat or dog-owners, whose birth coincides with the pollen season, who live in a well-insulated double-glazed house, and whose early life diet contains high levels of dairy and wheat products – they have a very high risk of developing allergies.

Beating the Allergy

If a child develops an allergy, it is because even though their immune system works perfectly well against the antigens associated with viruses, bacteria and parasites, it also reacts to other antigens that should be completely harmless. These antigens are known as allergens. These are incorrectly seen as being dangerous by the immune system, which mounts an immune response against them. This response is called an allergic reaction, and the child will have developed an allergy. So allergic reactions occur when the immune system incorrectly assumes a substance entering your body is harmful.

Although accepted orthodox medicine is happy with this explanation, it does not help orthodox medicine to eliminate the cause of allergic problems. Practitioners can prevent the appearance of allergic reactions by avoiding the allergens and a rotation diet (eating each food every 4 or 5 days), but they cannot remove the sensitivity to specific allergens. If exposed to the allergen, in most cases the allergic symptom will come back, even after many years of abstinence.

To eliminate the problem we have to go one stage further and understand that although an allergen reaction occurs at a biochemical level, they are initiated by the biophysical (electromagnetic) information from the causing allergen. It is now evident that it is the physical vibration or electromagnetic properties of matter rather than their chemical properties that trigger allergic responses (Reinhold Will, Bioresonance Therapy, ISBN 3-89698-114-5). To eliminate the allergen/intolerance it is necessary to cancel out its electromagnetic charge. The micro electronic equipment required to cancel the charges is sensitive due to the low frequencies of the allergens.

Oscilations

The frequency range at which the allergic reaction to foods seems to take place in most cases is around 52 kHz; this drops to 24 kHz for pollens, mould, dust, etc. and to 11 kHz for synthetic substances.

Whatever approach is taken to reduce the allergy, changes also need to be made to the child’s lifestyle to ensure there is no reoccurrence of the problems in later life.

Glossary

Food Intolerance

A general term used to describe a range of reproducible adverse responses to food, including allergic reactions that by definition
involve the immune system (e.g. peanut allergy), adverse reactions resulting from enzyme deficiencies (e.g. lactose intolerance),
pharmacological reactions (e.g. caffeine sensitivity) and other non defined responses.

Allergy

A form of food intolerance or reaction to other substance in which there is evidence of an inappropriate immunological reaction to the food/substance. Allergic reactions vary in severity and in some cases can be potentially fatal. In food allergy the immune system does not recognise as safe a protein component of the food to which the individual is sensitive (e.g. such as some proteins in peanuts).