108 of 114 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
GREAT for Newly diagnosed kids with 4-As..., April 15, 2007
This review is from: Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies: The Groundbreaking Program for the 4-A Disorders (Hardcover)
Dr. Bock has done a FANTASTIC job of explaining why the rates of these 4 diseases have gone up and how we can help to heal our kids who have them. Since we're all focused on helping our kids, here are the 4 parts of his healing program: 1) Nutritional Therapy, 2) Supplementation Therapy, 3) Detoxification, 4) Medication, and Putting these 4 therapies together. The 4 changes that he feels strongly have caused these diseases to now effect 1 in every 3 kids are: 1) Toxins Proliferated (in the air, oceans, foods, etc.), 2) Nutrition Deteriorated (fast foods and processed foods), 3) Vaccinations Increased (doubled since 1991), 4) Ability to Detoxify dwindled (methylation and sulfation damage or not working properly).
This is a great book for those who are just starting down the road of Autism, ADHD, Asthma or Allergies. It is NOT however, the book that old timers who have been doing Biomedical for years will get much from. It is similar to Jacqueline McCandless' book "Children with Starving Brains" but with much more explanation and details behind it and a great approach that goes beyond just one of the four epidemics.
If you have to choose just one book for a new parent to read to get them off the ground and jumping towards Biomedical approaches for their child's A-disease, this is it.
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58 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dr. Bock is a miracle worker!, June 12, 2007
This review is from: Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies: The Groundbreaking Program for the 4-A Disorders (Hardcover)
My 3 year old son was diagnosed with autism at 20 months and has been Dr. Bock's patient for 1 1/2 years. His book is a miracle for all parents with children on the autism spectrum or related diagnoses. His treatment is simple yet extraordinary in bringing about changes and recovery in children. My son was mute, violent, refused to eat or sleep before Dr. Bock's treatment- now, 1 1/2 years later, he's ready to be mainstreamed into preschool. He has performed miracles with my son, simply by recognizing the root causes of my son's condition and treating it simply through diet, supplement therapy and removing metals. He makes no promises, but I can tell you from our experience that he has truly worked miracles for my son and our family!
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125 of 148 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Too much disinformation, June 22, 2009
With all the five-star reviews on this book, I set my expectations too high. On the plus side, Dr. Bock's after-the-fact suggestions are undoubtedly helpful, although he handicaps the advice by common myths.
Firstly, he repeatedly attacks saturated fats (e.g., Page 178, "Similarly, it's important to avoid foods that are pro-inflammatory, such as the trans-fatty acids found in margarine and other saturated fats" and, Page 182, "Food. It is often a major contributor to inflammation, specifically if is is high in saturated fat"). Per Julie Matthews, a renowned expert on autism nutrition, "Clinical research shows that both saturated fat and cholesterol are essential for growth in babies, especially for healthy brain development" and "[There have been] decades of incorrect nutrition information on fats fed to the public by almost all mainstream nutrition sources".
Dr. Bock is one of sources of disinformation. This disinformation leads inevitably to mothers on bagel and fruit fat-free diets; then, made unable to breastfeed, with the blessings of their pediatricians, they give harmful omega-6 loaded soy based formulas to their infants; and finally they ween their children to cereal and fruit juice centric diets. (Dr. Bock missed the fact that the increasing levels of gluten in today's popular wheat varieties contribute to the timing of these epidemics. And, he missed the fact that the excess omega-6 fats in soy-based formula are often harmful to the liver and thus impair digestion.)
Anyhow, the saturated fat scare that Dr. Bock repeats (although not hysterically himself) is a significant root cause of the autism epidemic. Firstly, the necessary fats are mostly absent, and secondly the grains wreck the gut, making the children particularly vulnerable to toxins that healthy guts easily chelate. (And the high blood glucose and insulin levels caused by the carbohydrate intensive diet are damaging as well).
While Bock correctly accuses Food Inc (as so well depicted in
Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It) of being a primary cause of autism (p. 18), Bock attacks sugar lightly. Sugar is the flagship ingredient of manufactured food, and sugar is indisputably harmful for everyone in any quantity.
Another missed factor is massive vitamin D deficiency from these poor sources of vitamin D (i.e., grains, fruit, and juices) coupled with the doctor supported sun scare (see the Vitamin D Council's papers on autism to understand the connection). And, the vitamin D deficiency contributes to the chelation problem, as well. While Dr. Bock gives a little attention to vitamin D, his recommended dosage is one tenth of being adequate to remedy the deficiency, per the best experts on Vitamin D.
Instead of recognizing the saturated fat scare and the sun scare as significant causes of the autism (and other immune system disorders), Dr. Bock propagates myths about mercury levels (Page 18, "Our oceans are so full of poison, especially mercury, that it is now unsafe to eat more than one can of tuna per week.") From other sources, the reality is "there's considerable evidence that the amount of mercury in fish has remained the same (or even decreased) during the past 100 years." [...]. The mercury myth not only helps create an omega-3 fat deficit, but it has helped create the self-chelation problem by contributing to a widespread iodine deficiency; iodine/iodide is a critical nutrient (particularly nearly absent in a low seafood diet) that goes entirely unmentioned in this book.
When the root causes of autism are somewhat misunderstood and instead blamed on (exaggerated) factors we largely cannot control (e.g., ocean pollution), it dilutes its benefits, as well as the partly flawed dietary advice.
Read this book for mostly credible information on supplements and drugs, but get your nutrition advice from the few trained nutritionists that actually understand nutrition, such as Julie Matthews, author of
Nourishing Hope for Autism: Nutrition Intervention for Healing Our Children, (or perhaps doctors such as Michael R. Eades or John Briffa or Barry Groves). And read
Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Vintage) for the foundation to distinguish nutritional fact from fiction.
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