Latest study
Childhood bellyaches linked to anxiety
By Misti Crane THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Children with repeated bellyaches also could be suffering with anxiety and could benefit from efforts to acknowledge their mental health and improve it, says the lead author of new research linking the two.
A study of 332 children with abdominal pain and 147 without pain found a significantly elevated risk of anxiety disorders in those who complained of pain with no known medical cause.
The children with what doctors call “functional abdominal pain” had a 51 percent lifetime risk of anxiety disorders compared with a 20 percent risk for those without pain. They also had a higher lifetime risk of depression: 40 percent versus 16 percent. Researchers followed the children until they were 20 years old on average. The work builds on earlier research that found an association between abdominal pain and anxiety and depression and shows for the first time that anxiety is more likely for those who have abdominal pain that persists throughout childhood. The study appears today in the journal Pediatrics.
“I think that parents often don’t recognize what an impact anxiety can have on their children,” said Lynn Walker, who led the study and directs the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Health at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.
- “Kids who are anxious tend to be very good. They’re cautious. They’re not the ones who are going to be getting in trouble,” she said.
The trouble is, they take fewer risks, including good ones. And they are likely to avoid participating in things that lead to a full life.
It’s not clear what the root cause is for mental-health problems accompanied by frequent abdominal pain, Walker said. “It’s possible that there is some genetic predisposition for both anxiety and pain sensitivity.
- “Anxiety and pain are a particularly bad combination. If you take abdominal pain and put with it emotions of fear and worry and anticipation and thoughts of ‘I can’t deal with this,’ it’s going to get worse.”
People who are anxious tend to be on the lookout for any threat and could be more likely to notice pain sensations, Walker said.
Parents of kids who have both problems can help their children by encouraging them to not focus on their pain and to find activities that they enjoy, she said.
Dr. John Campo, chairman of the psychiatry department at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, also has worked on research in this area. He said he thinks the most-plausible explanation is that the disorders are symptoms of one problem, perhaps one that makes certain people hypersensitive.
In almost all cases, the pain is real even if it has no known root cause, Campo said. “They really do suffer, and their parents really do worry.”
But parents need to understand that not all abdominal pain is associated with mental-health problems, and that children’s complaints should be evaluated by a pediatrician and in some cases specialists, said Dr. William Long of Pediatric Associates in Pickerington.
- “Most belly pain we see does not have an organic reason for it. Some of those kids have anxiety, but some of them don’t,” Long said.
Children who do have a mental illness can benefit from behavioral therapy and sometimes medication, he said. mcrane@dispatch.com
@MistiCrane
(My Comment:
There are so many incredulous statements made in this article that I hardly know where to start. But I can state that an overarching impression that any of these patients might be left with would have to be anxiety. The authorities in their lives haven’t a clue about their pain, discomfort and on-going condition no matter what one calls it or why it is there. But since medicine can find no physical cause for all this, it is more frightening than ever because what is left for one to assume is this must somehow be one’s own fault.
Somehow I am doing this and I don’t know what I’m doing to cause it and no one else does either. Oh, why am I suffering and no one else is? I do everything the best I can and really work hard at stuff and it’s not good enough. Other kids look at me funny and I feel ‘different. . . . . with this as a base from which to try to understand, anyone would feel angst and pain. And worse still – – not quite good enough. Set apart. Just the opposite from what most all kids need and want. If the child happens to also be sensitive and intelligent, he/she is really going to do a number on himself.
Gonna pull an unfair edge here – – my age. Ask any older person past 70 or so and we’ll all agree how much the world has changed. We can all remember back in the day that people were strong, illness was rare and almost everyone was sane. We didn’t have to go out and splurge on “organic food”, probably didn’t even know what was meant by that. Food was food. And farming was still being done in such a manner that all these chemicals were not yet vogue. Crops were rotated and tilled back into the soil and even allowed to lie fallow once in a while. The land was cared for intelligently. Food was wholesome and highly nutritious. Never had to worry about what we SHOULD buy, we bought what we wanted and could trust it.
Illnesses like ADHD hadn’t surfaced yet; hardly anyone knew of anyone with autism if they had even ever heard of the concept. Everyone cooked whether simply or in high style. Food came from our kitchens, not from some factory in a can or box. People didn’t run to doctors unless it was serious, like an accident, etc. Stuff changes.
But Now, everything is different
Progress has changed everything and not to our advantage – – health-wise. The diet of Americans is known as the SAD diet and is pervasive, reaching into the far corners of the rest of the world. The Standard American Diet has little nutrient in it, yet is calorie dense which of course makes a majority of us fat and diseased.
Doctors aren’t concerned about our diets or what we are or are not eating, Just not part of the equation. But it should be. If Physicians had training in what health looks like rather than disease; concentrated more on what nutrition is in all it’s ramifications and the relevance to our body’s needs, we wouldn’t be having about 85% to 95% of ALL the diseases we are now plagued with. If they worried more about the immune systems of children than they do obedience to the pharmacological complex with their insane demand for increasing vaccinations which impair those systems before they have even had an opportunity to fully develop – – children could get back to learning and the fun of being a kid without all these bizarre and complex diseases and issues.
And if the FDA and all the other agencies related to public well-being were more concerned about protecting our people from unsafe products, chemicals and poisons, we would be one of the richest nations on earth because people wouldn’t be sick and diseased and we wouldn’t have to be spending all these billions on medicine, doctors and treatments , the cost of which keeps going up exponentially. But we are and they don’t and the greed of the corporate structure, in the end seems to be ruling all decisions. They’re certainly not hearing our votes and voices, are they?
All in their heads?
Back to the kids; the inference is it must all be in their heads, because, heaven knows, it’s not evident in their body. I have mentioned the loss in quality of our food. BIG NEGATIVE. But the addition of all the chemicals modern kids must endure such as fluoride in their water (a nasty waste chemical which is harming nervous systems, immunity and of course everybody’s brain), and of course, chlorine – also injurious. Really BIG and BAD is the amalgam fillings because of the highly dangerous Mercury in the Amalgam
Bromine
Other toxins like Bromine which became increasingly used early in the 20th century. Bromo-Seltzer and a few other feel-better aids and heavily in the last number of decades in soda pops and so on. Bromine is a HUGE NEGATIVE. As a bacterial agent similar to chlorine – – it’s a fumigant for agriculture and termites. A virulent pesticide that kills on contact; injected into soil, everything dies and its everywhere. In the first half of 20th century, many ingesters of bromine (Bromo-Seltzer and other tonics) wound up in psychiatric hospitals with acute paranoid psychosis This element is also known as bromide, bromate, brominated vegetable oil [BVO] Eventually, this caused removal from these tonics due to the harm being caused.
Our government dosed GI’s during the Gulf War with pyridostigmine bromide as preventative of exposure to chemical warfare which didn’t come about — but Gulf War Syndrome did [and was covered up]. It is still pervasive and can be found in some kid’s asthma inhalers.
The really big use of Bromine is the BVO found in soft drinks. According to world expert Dr Jorge Flechas of Henderson, N.C. [to simplify and paraphrase], this chemical in the oil form is responsible for a lot of the obesity today as bromine mixed with oil will solidify into hard fat which is darned near impossible to get rid of. Found in Mountain Dew, Fresca and Gatorade and many other soft drinks. Apparently manufacturers like to use it for dispersing the citric acid added to the sodas for citrus flavor. BVO can cause psychosis and other mental aberrations and leaving kids so paranoid they are shooting one another But all this escalated and grew unimaginably around 1980.
Our Daily Bread (Iodine and Bromine)
It used to be that iodine was used as a dough conditioner and all bakery products had generous quantities of iodine; sufficient to protect our thyroid glands from radioactive iodine and to prevent most any variety of thyroid illness. It was found in milk because it was used in dairies on the teats of cows to insure cleanliness. Once the change came about, dairies were required to use the new more costly stinky chemical or be deregistered as a dairy. Iodine is essential and helps us eliminate toxic metals from our body. When iodine was replaced with bromine, we lost our way to eliminate the bromine. This has resulted in near universal deficiency of iodine in the American population. One could wonder why and how any clear thinking government could allow this to happen. Almost takes on conspiratorial proportions as we ponder if maybe BIG PhRMA is behind this to increase its patient load. But surely, this could not be. . . . could it?
Synthetic Foods [GMO’s], etc
So these anxiety-ridden children with bellyaches and fretful natures have every reason to be that way. They are being slowly starved and their inner eco-system is not developing as it should. Normal responses carry so much weight, they are not easily carried out. They are being treated differently because in a sense, they are different – they have much greater burdens, generally because their protectors don’t understand human biology and nutritional fundamentals. We don’t get this stuff in schools as we go through the system. It isn’t taught. Mature, educated adults don’t get it either, unless somehow, somewhere along the path, they woke up and found the need to go study this. And we sure don’t get this advice or education from our doctors because, they aren’t taught about this. They are taught that medical drugs are the path to wellness when nothing could be further from the truth. That however is not to say that there are not efficacious pharmaceuticals for varied cases, to be sure.
But for ordinary health, people need wholesome, organic food, clear, pure water, healthy activity and leisure and play and a healthy emotional-mental demeanor. It is wrong to suggest that these suffering kids simply need to refocus their minds on other things. Their body is talkin’ – – LOUDLY and it should be listened to.
To wrap up, this is me saying that I am aware that I have not laid out an affirmative, positive plan for these kids. But I am not a practicing physician and have no right to such action. I am allowed to express my opinion and share my viewpoint. If I may say, there are close to 2,000 posts here on “smokinchoices” going back more than six years and almost everything here is geared to learning about and then attaining marvelous health. I don’t believe there is only one way for anything — we are all so unique. Carnivore, vegetarian, raw — whatever works for each of us. It can be maximized and customized. For newcomers here; go up to the upper right corner to FIND IT where everything is listed (almost). There are many doctors listed there. Many or most of them have written books which you can acquire to get started. But the posts herein should give you a leg up – these are all good people who have gone the extra distance to fully equip themselves to be able to serve the needs of their patients. They are functional, holistic and integrative healers, espousing much of what I have expressed here. IT’S IN THE FOOD. and YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT There’s no getting away from that. If these kids are gonna get the help they need — we gotta feed ’em right! That’ll do it Jan)
SMOKINCHOICES (and other musings) 