Magazine: Yoga Journal
Issue: September/October 1996
Author: Karta Purkh Singh Khalsa

KEEPING CHILDREN HEALTHY

WITH HERBAL REMEDIES AND TENDER LOVING CARE, WE CAN BREAK THE CYCLE OF CHRONIC UNDERNOURISHMENT OUR CHILDREN FACE TODAY.

I know a little girl, Gurubhajan, three and a half years old, who has never had a single childhood illness-not one colicky night, not one tummy ache, not one skin rash or ear infection. Although a child like this would be common in some traditional cultures, she is certainly a rare case in America. Her parents, both yoga teachers, have been vegetarians for well over 20 years, and her father is a professional herbalist. They began preparing their bodies many years before the conception with herbs and diet. Gurubhajan's mother used herbal medicines to assist her pregnancy, she breastfed her, and when Gurubhajan was an infant, her mother began supplementing her daughter's diet with herbs and other natural supplements.

Alert, curious, active, and very healthy, Gurubhajan is living proof that any child can enjoy good health and vitality, even in the fast-paced 1990s. Why is it so rare for an American child to enjoy this kind of health? Let's examine the cycle of undernourishment that begins with adults and is passed on to children.

Chronic Undernourishment

America today faces an epidemic of degenerative diseases. Modern farming methods and dietary practices have created a culture in its third generation of chronic undernourishment. While we've done well in controlling infectious disease, we suffer widely from what Dr. Alan Gaby, a holistic medical doctor in Baltimore, Maryland, calls "chronic subclinical everything syndrome." People say they don't feel well, but their doctors can't find anything clinically wrong with them and often accuse them of hypochondria. That's not the case at all, according to Dr. Gaby, who believes many people are undernourished and subclinically deficient-that is, suffering from something that cannot be detected by standard clinical tests. Women suffering from this syndrome then give birth to children who are themselves deficient or at risk of deficiency.

This sets the stage for the syndrome of undernourishment to be repeated endlessly, leading to food allergy, ear infection, attention deficit disorder (ADD), and other symptoms of immune suppression or breakdown.

Immune Breakdown Syndrome

Many hereditary factors contribute to the development of the immune breakdown syndrome. The risk is higher if the parents and grandparents are of western or northern European ancestry, with blue or green eyes, blond or red hair, and have a history of diabetes, alcoholism, obesity, migraine, allergy, criminal behavior, caffeine consumption, poor school performance, bedwetting, and insomnia.

High-risk children tend to be male, with blue or green eyes, blond or red hair, pale skin, and strong sugar cravings. They are generally sleep resistant, deep sleepers and bedwetters, prone to insomnia, often ticklish, and constantly active.

Pregnancy plays a critical role in the immune breakdown syndrome in children. High-risk mothers include women who become pregnant when they are very young or older than average (under 16 or over 36) and who have a history of anemia, toxemia, drug and alcohol abuse, threatened miscarriage, fever, viruses, cigarette smoking, poor diet (low in protein), low or high weight gain, short or long pregnancy duration (less than 36 or more than 44 weeks), or a recent past pregnancy (less than 18 months ago). Late birth order also increases the risk of the syndrome in children. If any of these risk factors are present, the mother should take the following steps during pregnancy: Minimize stress; gain 25 to 30 pounds; avoid eating dairy products or allergic foods to excess; and take 1,000 to 5,000 mg. vitamin C, 1,000+ mg. calcium, and 500 to 700 mg. of magnesium and B complex daily. After the birth the mother should breast-feed her child for nine to 24 months and wait nine to 12 months before starting the child on solid foods.

Special Dietary Concerns

Food Additives. Food additives can profoundly effect a child's health and performance. In a New York school study, 800,000 children ate breakfast and lunch containing no sugar, color, additives, flavors, or preservatives for five years. As a result of these dietary adjustments, their test scores improved by a dramatic 42 percent.

Dr. Ben Feingold first discovered a connection between certain foods and food additives and children's behavior over 20 years ago. He studied foods containing salicylates, to which certain people are sensitive: almonds, apples, apricots, blackberries, cherries, cucumbers, grapes, oranges, peaches, plums, raspberries, strawberries, and tomatoes. He also studied BHT and BHA in food, additives known to cause similar problems. After studying over 1,200 cases, Feingold concluded that 40 to 50 percent of hyperactive children are sensitive to artificial food colors, flavors, and preservatives, as well as foods containing salicylates.

Feingold's theories have been hotly debated for over two decades and generally are not accepted by orthodox medicine in the United States. The consensus of natural healing practitioners around the world, however, is that children do better with as little exposure as possible to these artificial additives.

Sugar. Sugar in children's diets poses great concern to natural health practitioners. They agree widely that sugar consists of "empty calories," suppresses the immune system, has strong mood-altering effects, and generally can be damaging to children. There are other reasons to remove sugar from the diet. A recent study showed a strong correlation between the development of colitis and the increased consumption of sugar among Asians whose diets have become more westernized. Another study found a connection between dietary sugar and liver cancer.

Many children today have serious nutritional deficiencies and subclinical imbalances. Successful treatment requires a good strategy, patience, diligence, and resolve. Many of the therapies that really work are rigorous and often difficult for children to follow. After all, we are asking them to eliminate many of their favorite foods, especially sugar. Be firm. Once the initial changes become habits, all will calm down, and the reward - a bright healthy child - will be worth it.

Food Allergies. The most common indicator of the immune breakdown syndrome is multiple food allergies, which a health practitioner can determine by selective dietary elimination, state-of-the-art blood tests, or other means.

The best treatment for reversing food allergies, which underlie many behavioral problems and contribute to chronic infections, is to promote general health. Specifically, identify allergic foods, remove as many as possible, and provide a nourishing diet while including general immune system support.

Twelve years ago I met a three-year-old girl who had been diagnosed as disabled and was on her way to the special education track. When tested, she had 35 food allergies, including the usual wheat, milk, and corn. She was light-skinned, blond, and blue-eyed, with continuous congestion. She was second in birth order and born to an older mother with a history of allergy and undernourishment.

Although she had never been on antibiotics in her life, she was constantly fighting ear infections, barely controlled with herbal medicine. When her parents removed all allergic foods-a big job, but worth the effort-her ear infections ceased. Even one corn chip, her parents noticed, would cause a runny nose. So they continued to support the little girl's immune system with proper diet and nutritional supplements, and within a year she became a candidate for the gifted program at school. She continues to be an honor-roll student to this day.

Another child I know, Rhett, was so wild at three years old that it was impossible to hold a conversation in the same room with him. He would bounce, screaming, from one wall to the other. His parents were at their wits' end. Their practitioner asked if Rhett liked wheat products. "That's all he ever eats-bread, cereal, cookies!" Although they balked at the suggestion that a wheat allergy might be aggravating Rhett's problems, they agreed to try anything. They promptly removed all wheat-and the results were startling. The next time I ran into Rhett and his father, two months after the wheat-free diet began, I had a quiet, relaxed, half-hour chat with my friend while Rhett sat calmly in his father's lap. Before the diet, nobody had been able to talk face to face with Rhett; this time he looked me in the eye, smiled, and greeted me with a big "Hi."

Milk: A Child's Perfect Food? Milk, an excellent source of several important nutrients, has been indicted in many children's health problems. Recent research from Italy shows that chronic, idiopathic (no known cause) constipation cleared up in most infants within three days when soy milk was substituted for cow's milk in their diets. If your child suffers from constipation, try eliminating cow's milk as the first step.

In Childhood Ear Infections, Dr. Michael Schmidt claims that milk products are the most common food allergy associated with earaches, and Dr. Lendon H. Smith, author of Hyper Kids, found some improvement in over 90 percent of childhood cases of ADD and learning disabilities when he removed milk products from the child's diet.

Children with milk sensitivity frequently have difficulty metabolizing calcium; even if they drink large quantities of milk they remain calcium- deficient, which can lead to hyperactive behavior. These children need large doses of calcium from a nondairy source, such as green, leafy vegetables.

The most easily digestible and least stressful milk product is yogurt. Many children who react to other milk products can tolerate a moderate amount of yogurt in their diet. Ayurvedic physicians recommend that if your child drinks cow's milk, boil it first with cardamom seed and serve it with honey. If your children like cheese, serve it with cumin seed to improve digestion.

Of course, many excellent milk and cheese substitutes, whether they come from soy, rice, almonds, or even hemp, offer a good alternative to milk if your child does better without it.

Natural Earache Remedies

Earache, properly called "otitis media," causes a swelling of the tissue lining the middle ear or the eustachian tube. As the swelling increases, the opening of the eustachian tube becomes blocked, and the middle ear can't drain properly. Fluid builds up and may become infected or just further inflamed.

Acute ear infections can cause extreme pain, but chronic ear infections may involve little or no pain. Other symptoms include fever, sleeplessness, irritability, change in eating habits, change in hearing, drainage from the ear, refusal to nurse on one side, and nasal obstruction or discharge. Otitis is, after well-baby care, the most common reason for childhood visits to the doctor, accounting for over one-third of all pediatric visits. By the age of three, more than two-thirds of American children have had one or more ear infections.

Earaches are most likely to occur between September and April. Consumption of cow's milk, fetal alcohol exposure, day-care attendance, allergies, nutritional deficiencies, respiratory problems, drinking a bottle while lying on the back, having a smoker in the home, and early introduction of solid food all increase the risk of earaches. Most doctors prescribe antibiotics as a necessary treatment. According to the FDA, in 1977, 26 percent of all antibiotics prescriptions were for otitis. By 1986, the number had risen to 42 percent. This statistic is alarming. According to Dr. Schmidt, author of Childhood Ear Infections, antibiotics do not offer consistently effective results and can create serious adverse side-effects. Of great concern is the fact that antibiotic use can lead to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in one's body. Antibiotics destroy helpful intestinal bacteria, increase susceptibility to intestinal infection, irritate the intestinal lining, inhibit immunity, and reduce absorption of nutrients. Also, we don't fully understand the impact of the additional antibiotics children are exposed to through the food supply.

A recent Dutch study on the use of antibiotics for ear infections concluded that 88 percent of all patients with acute otitis media never need antibiotics. When antibiotics are begun on the first day of the disease, the child is 2.9 times more likely to suffer a recurrence than when no antibiotics are used. When antibiotics are begun after the eighth day, the rate of recurrence is 1.3 times higher. The doctors concluded that antibiotic therapy does not shorten the disease by any standard, and that antibiotics should be reserved for cases in which complications are threatening or present. When this approach is used, the rate of complications is low (0.3 in 1,000 uses).

One reason ear infection is increasing so rapidly today is that we are not getting enough essential fatty acids (EFAs) in our diet. EFAs are critical to the body's ability to fight inflammation, but in our modern diet we get almost none, relying instead on processed (hydrogenated) and saturated oils for our dietary fat. Processing food oils destroys the EFAs, which can be found in natural vegetable oils such as corn, sesame, and walnut. Earaches can be treated successfully with natural remedies. Some common therapies include ear oils which are made from herbs in a vegetable oil base and dropped directly into the ear to relieve pain and swelling. Both mullein and calendula ease the membranes, while St. Johnswort soothes the tissue and supports the immune system. Usnea is also beneficial for immune support

Taking goldenseal will help kill bacteria, and willow bark relieves the pain and inflammation. Onion and garlic have a special affinity to the ear and will strengthen the tissue as well as kill bacteria. Use daily as a preventative.

Other topical ear treatments include vitamin E oil to soothe the membranes; glycerin to pull fluid from the middle ear; and a strong solution ma huang (Chinese ephedra) in water to open the ear canal. The following syrup kills bacteria and should be used for acute earaches only: Layer slices of onion or garlic with raw sugar or honey, let the mixture stand until it liquefies. Strain and use as a base for other herbal medicines.

These herbs can be helpful taken in small amounts daily, as syrup or tea: baptisia, elder flower, and chamomile for supporting the immune system; cleavers and calendula for lymph cleansing; rose hips for allergies; and ribwort to strengthen the mucous membranes. An increase in essential fatty acids (EFAs) can work to prevent earaches. Take one teaspoon per day of raw, cold-pressed vegetable oil, such as flax or safflower.

Homeopathic remedies at 6x potency can also be beneficial. Take every five minutes during an episode as necessary (2 to 3 pellets per dose). If the child is weepy or clingy, give her pulsatilla; for a sudden, intense ache with a high fever, belladonna works well. Chamomile is good for those children who feel irritable and capricious, while hepar. sulph. is indicated when the child feels chilly and experiences poking pain in the ear. Give the child mercurius viv. if he experiences erratic chills and flushing and has bad breath. Aconite will help if she suddenly feels anxious after being in the cold.

Attention Deficit Disorder

The biochemical side of ADD basically reflects the larger immune breakdown syndrome. This disorder is the number-one childhood psychiatric condition. Over one million American kids take Ritalin daily, an increase of two-and-a-half times in the past six years. Experts say that three to five percent of all children have ADD. Why the huge increase? Is it just another facet of the undernourished/allergic epidemic in America in the '90s?

Besides the methods we've discussed, Dr. Smith suggests that some children do beautifully on the amino acid l-tyrosine to wake them in the morning and valerian root, a natural sleep aid, in the evening to calm them down.

Low-level EFAs, implicated in earaches, are also associated with ADD. Although there is no proven cause-and-effect relationship between EFAs and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), researchers found that boys with ADHD had lower levels of EFAs in their blood, as well as other symptoms of EFA deficiency (such as eye problems, dry skin, and impaired wound healing). The greater the EFA deficiency, the more severe the ADHD symptoms appeared.

Building Blocks for Children

In some ways, children are miniature adults and can be treated similarly. In other ways, however, their developing bodies require special care to ensure that they become strong and remain healthy for a lifetime. After all, we live in the body we grew as a child. Good supplements can enhance the immune systems of healthy children and replenish the immune systems of children who are depleted.

Herbs for the Immune System. Certain herbs are general long-term builders and will support the immune system in fighting allergies and infection. They include echinacea, osha root, ginger, astragalus, elder flower for the head area, cleavers, lemon balm, burdock, thyme, and lemon grass. For acute bacterial infection, however, use goldenseal root. To support the immune system in the case of allergies, include herbs which are mild alteratives (blood cleansers). The famous herbalist Dr. John Christopher recommends red clover and burdock root. (For suggested dosages, see below.)

Supplements. Increasingly, nutritional products companies are producing supplements formulated for children. They make them as liquids, chewables, powders, and syrups. You can also adapt adult products by cutting tablets or opening capsules.

Often what chronically undernourished children need is simply a broad spectrum of basic supplements and improved diets. The most basic supplement is a children's chewable "mega-potency" multiple from the health food store. Make sure it contains minerals as well as vitamins; many do not. Even the health-food-style multiples are pretty conservative in dose, so many pediatric nutritionists recommend double the label dose for the child's age.

Dr. Smith recommends the following daily supplements: vitamin A, 5,000 units; vitamin D, 500 units; vitamin E, 400 units; vitamin C, 500 to 1,000 mg; B-complex, 50 mg of each; folic acid, 1 mg; zinc, 15 mg; copper, 1 mg; calcium, 400 to 1,000 mg; and magnesium, 200 to 500 mg.

"Superfoods" are nutrients that are more concentrated than typical foods but less potent than specific medicines. Add them liberally to your child's diet by stirring or cooking them into foods and drinks. Superfoods include wheat germ, algae (spirulina, chlorella), rice bran syrup (not rice syrup), bee pollen, royal jelly, molasses, dried plant juice (barley green or wheat grass), lecithin, and chlorophyll; ghee or clarified butter and sesame oil are rich in nutrients important to children. Yogi tea, a building tonic from ayurveda, is a great daily beverage to replace sodas and sugary drinks. Children respond quickly to nutritional therapy-their bodies have had less time to degenerate than those of adults. Take care to use proper and practical forms for children.

Herbal Medicine. Herbal medicine can help to maintain a child's health. Although children can absorb most of the herbs that adults use, consult a reference or herbalist before giving your child any particular herb. Generally, the two types of herbs not used for children are sexual tonics (garlic, ginseng), because children are still developing sexually, and pungent herbs (chiles), which irritate the immature digestive tract. After puberty, children can use adult herbs.

Chamomile flower is an herb specially suited to children. A general health builder, it specifically aids digestion and strengthens the liver and the lungs. It is also antibacterial. Calendula flower is another excellent children's herb. It has a good taste and can be prepared as a soup. It is antifungal, stimulates white blood cells and lymph drainage, and generally supports the immune system.

From ayurveda, we have two excellent tonics for the whole family, especially children. Triphala ("three fruits" in Sanskrit) is the most perfectly balanced herbal preparation in use today. It is suitable for all ages and body types. It is a blood cleanser, general builder, and tonic for skin, eyes, and liver. Every organ in the body benefits from triphala. One of the dried fruits in triphala, amla ("sour" in Sanskrit), is the world's most potent antioxidant. Triphala is mildly laxative; adjust the dose accordingly. A typical dose for a child is one capsule per day.

Herbs that support the growing skeleton are important. Licorice root benefits the bones in children. It is sweet and quite tasty, but laxative, so give it in small amounts.

Marsh mallow root, a gentle, bland-tasting herb for bones, nourishes and soothes the digestive tract. Stir one-half teaspoon of the powder into food.

Adapting the Dose for Children

Proper children's doses are based on body weight. One good method for calculating dosage is Young's Formula: Divide the child's age in years by her age plus 12, The result is the portion of an adult dose that you can administer to a child. For example, if your child is four years old, divide four by 16 (four plus 12). The result is one-fourth. So your child should receive one-fourth of the adult dose.

Adapt herb preparations for children. A special consideration is taste. Add any tasty herb the child likes to tea. Tasty herbs include anise, lemon balm, mint, stevia, and fennel. Brew one ounce of the herb in one pint of hot water; strain and serve hot or cold. The adult dose is one to two cups per day. Calculate the child's dose using Young's formula.

Other Forms of Supplements

Tinctures: Blend these liquids into drinks. They contain alcohol, so use sparingly. The adult dose is one tablespoon per day. Calculate the child's dose.

Chewables: Some preparations are available as sweetened chewable tablets.

Popsicles: A fun way to use herbs! Make a tea as usual, then freeze into a sweetened popsicle.

Liquids (syrups, glycerites): Sweet liquid forms of herbs often work the best. Syrups are prepared with honey or sugar.

Glycerites: These tinctures, prepared with glycerin instead of alcohol, are an excellent choice for children. Glycerin is a clear, sweet, sticky liquid which will extract the active components of herbs. Children like the sweet taste and do well with the liquid form. Glycerites last indefinitely at room temperature, so you can keep them on hand.

Many herb companies produce a general tonic glycerite mixture for children. Typical herbs included would be astragalus root, peppermint, lemon balm, burdock root, hyssop, thyme, ginger, chamomile, fennel, cherry bark, mullein, and coltsfoot. A typical dose would be one teaspoon per day as a builder and preventative.

K.P. Khalsa, coauthor of the forthcoming book Herbal Defense, is a natural healing specialist based in Seattle, Washington.

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