No wonder there are so many autoimmune diseases

     I was watching an early morning newscast the other day and one of the topics was...."Is the fruit in your food really fruit?"  Long story short...no, it isn't.  My hubby loves strawberry shredded wheat.  They really are not strawberries in it...it's just a dried up minute strawberry but mostly sugar, dextrose and flavoring.  Looking at the ingredients on the boxes of most of our food products makes me shudder.  Could this be why there are sooo many children with autisim, childhood diabetes, UC????  When I was growing up in the 50's, I never heard of autisim, unless it was diagnosed under a different name.  Childhood diabetes was relatively unheard of.  Ulcerative colitis.....very rare.  While I no longer suffer with the disease because my operation took care of that...everytime I look into this forum there are more and more people being diagnosed with it and they are YOUNG people.  Ugh..what is this world coming to?  Oh, and the FDA allows this to happen....forgive me, just an old lady venting.

In the 50's autism was diagnosed as childhood schizophrenia. Autism became the diagnostic name later. Also in years past children with mild autistic spectrum disorders were not diagnosed. They were the "odd" kids in your class who maybe said things that didn't follow the conversation, or had "weird" interests like bugs or just didn't have any friends. Those with more severe conditions were diagnosed with schizophrenia or, in the most severe cases, mental retardation. As with people who had other severe disabilities, they were most often institutionalized as this was thought to be the best way to treat them at the time.

Ulcerative colitis has also always been around, but before the advent of flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy it was less often diagnosed. UC and Crohn's were intermingled and the differences were not really understood. Mild cases were just labeled as "spastic colon" or similar diagnoses.

It's hard to credit how many conditions have been categorized and named in the past 50 years, with the advent of new diagnostic tests and equipment. Down syndrome, the most common cause of intellectual disabilities, was first described in the 1860's but the cause was not known until the mid-50's.

With the progress in genetic science, it is likely that more and more conditions will be identified and named in the coming years. This can also help with the development of more effective treatments.

All of this makes it dicey to talk knowledgeably of increases in the incidence of diseases and conditions.

And ditto was Judy said. I'm 34, but thinking back to some of my classmates growing up, I'm pretty sure a few of them were somewhere on the Autism spectrum, even though they were probably not diagnosed as such.  I'm not sure if it makes it any easier on the kid, from a social standpoint, to have the official diagnosis, but at least the kids can get some therapy and learn some tools to help them better cope.

If it's any comfort, at least Twinkies will be off the market soon! You know, I heard that a Twinkie have so many preservatives in it that it can last for 100 years.

I'm becoming more aware of what's in my food now. Before I didn't really care because I was naive enough to think that if it's been approved okay for human consumption then it can't be ALL bad. Ya, I know that's not the case now.

Autisim is considered to be linked to bacteria as well...

Very little is known about the underlying etiology of autism. Extensive antibiotic use is commonly associated with late-onset autism (18–24 mo of age), causing some to hypothesize that disruptions in the normal microbiota may allow colonization by autism-triggering microorganism(s), or promote the overgrowth of neurotoxin-producing bacteria like Clostridium tetani (24). The link between the intestinal microbiota and autism is supported by the following observations: 1) disease onset often follows antimicrobial therapy, 2) gastrointestinal abnormalities are often present at the onset of autism and frequently persist, and 3) autistic symptoms have sometimes been reduced by oral vancomycin treatment, while relapse occurs following cessation of treatment (71, 259). These observations have been supported by qPCR (279) and culture-based (71) microbiota profiling techniques, which indicate that certain clusters of Clostridium spp. are present at 10-fold higher numbers in stool samples from autistic children compared with healthy controls. Furthermore, the authors suggest that it is not a mere coincidence that exposure to trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole antibiotics is much more likely to precede diagnosis of late-onset autism than exposure to any other antibiotic regimen. Trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole antibiotics are not effective against Clostridium spp., suggesting that early exposure to these drugs may promote an overgrowth of Clostridium spp. that could contribute to the etiology of autism (71).

I highly doubt it's the sugars/preservatives as much as it's the highly passed on bacteria, viruses, fungus, poisons that kids/people are exposed to on a daily basis.

Regarding autism spectrum disorders...very complicated to pinpoint. In my day of school, we never had kids with extreme "problems" mainstreamed...they were segregated to "special" schools.

In the '50s when I grew up, there was testing going on that people weren't aware of regarding bacteria and viruses that caused illness. Pesticide was sprayed upon us as we played. There were lots of foods created to last longer, be cost effective and convenient.  It was so cool to mix the orange colouring into the margarine...but I never ate it! ugh.

I'm grateful for the innoculations such a polio, TB, measles and such that we had in school...but it's possible that the preservatives in some had an effect on our health, especially those who were of the "sensitive" variety.

Today is much worse in what's available in my opinion, regarding the types of fake food that's available and touted healthy. The industry thinks for us of what's good and what we want. All about the dollar and profit, and we as consumers have some power of what to choose. Even gum that's not even available without extreme amounts of artificial sweeteners is a huge negative.

People have access to all information through any media...but they still act like they rolled off the ol' turnip truck.   We have the ability to make decisions.  Everything is written on the freaking labels (french and English to the point I have to use a jewellers loop to read them) in microprint.

But....the bottom line is that if people (starting with children) are exposed to whatever (viruses/illness/allergies/inactivity/overstimulation) at a very early age that has their bodies and brains are in in a constant state of working too hard, it can easily morph into a snowball effect and eventual tilt mode.

The other thing that many don't recognise is the consistent state of activity regarding visual, mind and auditory....that in itself can create the body to never rest...add that to inactivity, high stress, inability to deal with issues, never talking to actual people and using products to feed the need....something will give.

It's tiring.

But, illness will always be there, various forms that we will undertreat, ingore and assume it's our food.

While come can be pinpointed, the majority will not.  
q

Oh wow, other countries are riddled with other issues...have you done an indepth study as to what developing countries have that "we" don't?

q

"I blame irresponsible doctors prescribing antibiotics"

gee, if only patients could say "no" .............................. oh wait, they can !

ya, you're right, blame it on the docs -

deltaforce it's from the link I posted yesterday regarding bacteria and IBD (among many other condiditions)...here's the link, it's very long but seems to be an excellent read...

http://physrev.physiology.org/content/90/3/859.full