GAPS stands for "Gut And Psychology Syndrome", basically meaning that what you eat affects how your brain and therefore the rest of your body works. The goal of this diet is to heal the digestive system so it can absorb the good vitamins and minerals, and pull out toxins that may be stored in the body causing disease symptoms. My family, though fairly healthy, has several "symptoms", like allergies, asthma, digestive upset, low energy (that would be me!), etc.
Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride is the author of the book on GAPS, and used the diet to heal her young son who had been diagnosed with autism (after much searching and a second doctorate in nutrition), then went on to help hundreds of others. So how does it work? The 400 page book is very detailed and interesting, but here's the super-condensed version from me:
Our brain, immune system--everything in our bodies--runs off what we eat, which is absorbed through our digestive system.
We have 3 basic kinds of "flora", or bacteria, living in our digestive system:
Essential or Beneficial flora--we want these! They keep our digestive system healthy, destroying the bad, protecting our "gut walls", and helping the good vitamins and minerals into our body systems.
Opportunistic flora--Candida and the like (there are 1000's of kinds) make up this group. These are always present in our gut, but are kept under tight control by the beneficial bacteria, and even made to help us, unless they have "opportunity" to mutiny and take over. For example, ever had a round of antibiotics? Besides helping you with an illness, they also wipe out most of the good bacteria in your gut and allow the tough opportunistic bacteria a chance to spread rapidly while the beneficial bacteria are trying to make a come back. (Beneficial bacteria are in fermented foods like yogurt and kefir, so when you are taking antibiotics it is a good idea to put as many of these good little guys as possible back in your gut by eating those things.)
Transitional flora--also includes bad guys. They come in through our food and drink, and these are bacterias that can make us sick (there are places you just shouldn't drink the water because of these little fellows), etc. Our healthy flora can actually encapsulate these flora and send them right on out, without harming us.
So you have: the good guys, the mutineers, and the bad guys. When the good guys aren't ruling the roost, disease happens. In different people this is manifested differently because we have different life circumstances and genetic weaknesses. Some people struggle with various auto-immune disorders like eczema, lupus or fibromyalgia, some have ADHD, dyslexia or autism, some have IBS, Crohn's, allergies, or asthma. Basically the opportunistic flora have taken over and damaged several areas in a persons digestive system, allowing toxins to get through to other body systems. The toxins can come through what one eats, since the beneficial flora are no longer around to keep it out, as well as from the waste of these opportunistic flora.
So this diet works to heal and seal up the damaged lining of the digestive system, and flood that system with beneficial bacteria so they can be in charge again and rule their well-run peaceful kingdom. (Dr. Natasha says nothing about mutineers in her book, but doesn't it sound fun to think of mutineering pirates and beautifully run kingdoms in your intestines instead of just "flora"?) The diet also aids your body in pulling out toxins that it's stored in weak areas of your body, and flushes them out.
How do you do this? Through what you eat. My next GAPS post will be on the actual foods in diet and how we've implemented it.
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