How Cerebral Palsy Can Be Prevented

How Cerebral Palsy Can Be Prevented

'Perhaps 50 per cent of the misery of cerebral palsy doesn't even have to exist, ' declares Marshall Mandell, an allergist and medical director of the New England Foundation for Allergic and Bio-Ecologic Diseases. he states that he has made a 'wonderful breakthrough' in our understanding of cerebral palsy [CP], a partial paralysis caused by damaged nerve tissue that is thought to affect approximately one in every 400 children born in the United Kingdom where they are commonly (and wrongly) known as 'spastics'.

Dr. Mandell's claims are the result of a study of 29 cerebral palsy patients, which showed that almost all of them had allergic or allergy-like reactions to substances in food, water or air. When the offending substances were removed from their diet or environment, Dr. Mandell told us, many of the symptoms the patients had come to associate with CP — from painful muscle spasms and fatigue to convulsive seizures — were 'greatly improved or eliminated. '

A number of years ago, Dr. Mandell explained, a young man from Florida was referred to him for allergies that produced sinus disorders and bronchial asthma. When the young man walked into his office, the allergist was surprised to notice that he had cerebral palsy — the first CP patient he had seen in 30 years of practice.

After taking a comprehensive personal health history of the young man including his allergic reactions, and then exposing him to tiny amounts of various substances, the reaction-producing culprits were isolated. In fact, Dr. Mandell discovered, by administering or withholding the allergens, 'we could aggravate or reduce symptoms he'd lived with all his life, that he just accepted as the inevitable consequence of CP We were turning his symptoms on and off!' Intrigued by these results, Dr. Mandell began seeking out other CP patients. In all, 29 volunteer patients were referred to him and then tested for allergies and allergy-like sensitivities. Result: '90 to 95 percent had allergies of various kinds. Some had 8 to 12 food allergies alone. '

Cerebral palsy, often the result of injuries suffered at or near the time of birth, is generally considered a permanent, 'non-progressive' disorder, Dr. Mandell said. But many of his study patients reported marked changes in their symptoms from day to day, a fact he considered an 'outstanding clue' that allergies were at work.

Dr. Mandell now believes that cerebral palsy creates 'biologic weak spots', primarily in the brain and nervous system, which make the body especially vulnerable to allergens. He thinks that all CP sufferers should be evaluated for allergies by a qualified, ecologically oriented allergist pediatrician or family doctor, especially if there is a marked variability in their symptoms.