Category Archives: Epilepsy

LEAP MRT – A Tech Sheet on What the Test Does

LEAP MRT Lab Interpretation LLC Tech Sheet

As anyone who has read my book or been to my other blog site – toxicworldbook.com, knows, the LEAP MRT test by Signet Diagnostics helped save my daughter Tasya’s life. It was such an important tool in helping her not only control her seizures but in also helping to control her temper tantrums.

Because of the help that this test has given the Schauss family, I continue to espouse its many uses at almost all of the lectures I give around the world. Because of this, I have been asked to post some additional information about it, explaining what it does and how it works. You can download the Word document and read about the LEAP MRT test. Enjoy.

My Book is Out and Available

My book, Achieving Victory Over a Toxic World is now available through multiple outlets. It is the story of a child, my daughter, and her battle with a rare type of epilepsy, given little chance of recovery by the medical world, but through it all she has made it through, not perfectly, with the ability to live a normal life.

It also deals with what I believe caused her disorder, environmental toxicity. We are polluting our world at a staggering ratewhich is causing epidemics of diseases unheard of in human history. Big corporations would want you to believe this is not happening but my book shows you the truth.

The scariest part of my research delved into the effect these toxins are having on our most vunerable citizens, our children, and the up coming generations. In the final two parts of the book, I give you real world ideas on how to cope with the toxins and how you can begin the movement toward changing our world before it is too late. The increase in the rate of autism, asthma, epilepsy, ADHD, childhood cancers, cannot be explained by a “genetic epidemic”. We are poisoning ourselves and we can change that.

To order the book, you can go to either Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com or for faster service my publisher –  AuthorHouse’s web site . This book represents my 20+ years of research along with the passion that comes with fighting for a daughter’s life. I can guarantee one thing about the book and that is it will move you, both emotionally and physically to help us change the world.

Book Cover Picture

Achieving Victory Over a Toxic World – Book Due Out Soon

In the next two weeks, my book Achieving Victory Over a Toxic World will be coming out. Three years in the making, it first tells the story of how my daughter Tasya has dealt with epilepsy and how this battle has driven me to research the effects of toxicity on human health, especially children. It is a guidebook that hopefully will have people understand how important it is for us to clean up the mess we are making, if not for us than for the coming generations. Here is a review from a friend, Dr. Robert Zieve, an MD from Arizona.

Mark Schauss has written a very important book, a book that needs to be required reading for all practitioners. The title, “Achieving Victory Over a Toxic World” wakes us up to the reality that we live in a toxic world. While we sit around and debate whether our world is toxic, or watch media headlines about lead poisoned toys from China, headlines that soon disappear, the volume of toxins that are affecting our daily lives and especially the lives of our children, continues to grow in both amount and in harmfulness.

Mark begins his book with his personal story of his daughter’s neurological illness, and how this led to his commitment to this work. Our stories are what makes us most human. They enable others to see into our lives and conflicts, and awaken our heart’s interest and need to continue reading. Mark’s story does just this, so that we do not become overwhelmed with statistics.

He then moves on with “Today’s Toxic World,” and he does not mince words with the title “The Loaded Revolver Theory of Toxicity.” It is important today the we use words that remind us of what is at stake; we have a gun to our heads, with toxins that threaten our lives much more than any foreign terrorist. Mark provides specific and simply organized guidelines for the reader to steer his or her way through the maze of information that we now have access to about the severity of effects these accumulated toxins are having upon our health. Even more important, he informs us of what specifically we can do about each of these toxins.

Mark has listed the important labs that must become commonplace in every practitioner’s work with patients. Testing for the presence and concentration of these toxins in our bodies, and testing for the adverse results of the presence of these accumulated toxins, such as Mark has outlined with depth and simplicity simultaneously, must be part of our health care system. I would venture to say as a practitioner that the results of these tests provide more useful information in developing effective therapeutic programs than many of the routine CT scans, PET scans, ultrasounds, and MRI’s that are done today. These tests show the results of the accumulation of toxins that Mark has detailed here.

There is a huge denial today about the magnitude of the effects of these toxins upon our health. They are scarcely mentioned in any medical training, in any product advertising, or by medical doctors in their work with patients. And yet, as we can clearly see in this well-organized and humanly written book, the health effects of these toxins are at the foundation of virtually all of our current illnesses. After reading this book, I wondered what good it is to even discuss health care from any political or economic perspective without placing the topics in this book at the center of the discussion of how
we develop a system of effective and affordable health care for everyone. The reasons this has not happened are due to many factors, which include the financial strength of corporations that make these toxic products and promote them in warm, fuzzy advertisements, and our general resistance to changing our lifestyles. The only way to end denial is to name the realities and claim responsibility for these realities. This book enables us to do this.

Much of what causes illness, and much of what an effective practitioner does with patients, is common sense. Towards the end of his book, Mark provides very good Common Sense Tips that the reader can take and put into activity.

If our commitment is to healing, this book must be part of our core reading program. It really should be part of core political discussions in the halls of those who are outlining sweeping plans for health care reform. It should be discussed at Grand Rounds at major medical centers. It should part of the central dialogue in local communities throughout the United States. And it needs to be discussed in the highest echelons of the corporate business world.

We must have the courage to look with clarity and purpose at the fundamental causes of our epidemic of chronic disease today. It is an epidemic that has as one of its fundamental causes, our toxic world. We can no longer afford to shy away from discussing the effects of today’s toxins in our lives and health.

Robert Zieve, M.D
Pine Tree Clinic
Prescott, Arizona

Antipsychotic Drugs – No Better Than Placebo for Some

In the January 5th, 2008 issue of the British medical journal The Lancet, researchers in the UK did a study to determine if the antipsychotic drugs haloperidol or risperidone were helpful in controlling the behavior of intellectually disabled people exhibiting aggressive behavior. After looking at the results the authors came up with a surprising finding, there were no benefits over placebo from either drug. In actuality, the placebo was more effective than the drugs at reducing aggressive behavior. The placebo showed no negative reactions or lowering of effect at any time during the trial which is quite significant.

So who would physicians prescribe this drug to that the study found no benefits for? Typically autistics and epileptic children who have had a significant number of seizures. Others might include those with Down’s syndrome as well.

The authors interpretation of the data was as follows: ” Antisychotic drugs should no longer be regarded as an acceptable routine treatment for aggressive challenging behavior in people with intellectual disability” Considering the significant side-effects these drugs pose, I would avoid using these drugs at all costs and would recommend anyone with intellectual disabilities be taken off the drug (carefully and with full physicians care).

Pesticides and Autism – More Data Supporting My View on the Effect of Toxins

At the AutismOne conference back in 2005, I was in room #2 talking about the link of multiple toxins and autism. In room #1 was Dr. Rasheed Buttar who was all about mercury. I told my audience that one day, the multiple toxin theory was going to be in room #1 eventually, maybe not with me in it, but eventually the day would come.  One more study, published by the journal Environmental Health Persepectives, has led credence to my theory.

In the October 2007 issue, researchers led by Eric Roberts et al, published a paper called Maternal Residence Near Agricultural Pesticide Applications and Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Children in the California Central Valley (click on the link and you get to read the entire paper free of charge). In this paper the authors find that there was an increase in the incidence of autism the closer the pregnant mothers were to certain organophosphate pesticide applications. For years I have said that toxic exposures to the mother can cause fetal developmental disorders depending on the time of the exposure. This is just more data to back up my claims.

My theory has always been than somehow my daughter Tasya was exposed, while in fetal development, to some form of toxin to cause the brain dysfunction that caused her unusual epileptic disorder. I feel that many people with children have had the same issue whether it be autism, epilepsy or even other neurological or health related disorders. Fetuses are very suceptible to the dangers of toxins, more so than anyone else.

One other issue I want to bring up is the preposterous article that gave a clean bill of health to thimerasol by authors publishing in the New England Journal of Medicine. You would be hard pressed find a more poorly done study, misreported by the media, than this. Instead of listing my thoughts on all of the poor study parameters, follow this link to the Adventures in Autism blogsite, run by Ginger Taylor. The one really striking part of her eight part rebutal to this paper is that no autistic children were included in the study. Now that is a convenient way of avoiding finding a link between autism and thimerasol.

Two other very disturbing issues come up as well. First, that around 70% of the participants in the study dropped out. When I worked in the pharmaceutical clinical trial business, it was pretty well known that when you have a drop out rate any where near that level, the study is pretty much worthless. The data cannot be used to make any kind of a judgement. Second real major issue is the huge conflicts of interest among the authors of the study as each one has significant ties to the vaccine manufacturers!  Poor judgement on the part of the NEJM to publish this paper, worse than that, for the media to so misrepresent the data.

As you can see from the first part of my post, I do not believe that mercury is the sole cause of autism. It isn’t. Having said that, I believe it is one of the factors in the epidemic of autism.

Update on Tasya – Seizures, Health, Behavior and Mood

It’s about time I updated everyone on my now 11 year old daughter, Tasya. As many of my readers know, she has a rare and as of yet, uncatergorized form of epilepsy that was so severe at one time, we thought that either she would die of it or become retarded by the age of 11 or 12. I am very happy to report that despite the doom and gloom that seemed to follow her 3 years ago, she is now doing better now than she has at anytime since her seizures began 8 years ago.

So what have we been doing to help her so much? Well, aside for the diet and avoiding crappy foods, aspartame, MSG and the foods on her LEAP test that cause inflammatory responses, we added two key nutrients from our previous regimen. The first was Glycerophosphocholine also known as GPC. GPC is a great phospholipid that has been shown in numerous clinical trials to be beneficial to people who have suffered strokes as well as restoring memory and concentration in both young and older individuals. Concentration issues were a major problem for Tasya so we asked Dr. Kidd what the dosage should be and his suggestion was 300 mg per day, always in the morning. I can honestly report that her concentration has markedly since starting on a regular regimen of GPC.

The second nutrient PS Omega Synergy which is a combination of Phosphatidylserine and two Omega 3 fatty acids, EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), has made a truly profound change in her mood, social skills and helped to lower the number of seizures she has to almost nothing. This is the best seizure control that she has had ever since they started in October of 1999. Her classmates have noticed a difference, her teachers have and we have. She is less likely to lose her temper, she has exhibited a wider range of emotions than ever before and has started to get excited about things that normally wouldn’t have moved her off the couch. PS Omega Synergy was the right nutrient at the right time for Tasya.

Is this the answer for others?  I can’t say that honestly. Did it make that much of a difference with Tasya?  That and more. We have a happy and predominantly seizure free child for the first time in years. Even her neurologist had a smile on his face yesterday when Tasya and my wife Hillary visited him. He decided that instead of the every four month visit, we could extend it to every six months.

My big thanks today is for two people, Robert Crayhon and Dr. Parris Kidd. Robert, thanks for being who you are and focusing on brain nutrition. The second is to Dr. Parris Kidd for bringing these two marvelous products to the market and doing the research to get them done right. Both of you should be proud that you helped save a little girls life as well as give her a future. I am also proud to call you both, friend.

Update on Tasya – November 2006

Many who read my blog are familiar with my daughter Tasya’s ongoing battle with epilepsy.  Today, I am happy to report that her seizure activity is at the lowest level since she began to have seizures seven years ago. My father-in-law will often times berate me for mentioning her improvements as it is often followed by a backslide, but I have always steadfastly refused to not put the best foot forward.

Watching her for the past few months has been a totally uplifting experience for all of us in the Schauss family. Her confidence is growing, her social skills are improving and she is so happy with herself that her biggest problem now is not having a seizure but how to act like a normal child again.

We have much more work to do, but seeing not only the light at the end of the tunnel, but the road away from the tunnel of darkness is very encouraging.

All about Tasya

Some of you may or may not know the story about my daughter Tasya.  She has a rare form of epilepsy that caused her to have both grand mal’s and drop seizures that was likely to have been caused by a birth defect somewhere deep in her brain (at least that is the best guest by her neurologist at Stanford).

For many years, her seizure activity was out of control although there were brief periods where things were good.  One common problem we faced was her constant temper tantrums, often violent, often for no reason whatsoever. Nothing we tried to resolve the issue worked.  My wife Hillary, a one time counseling psychologist, was stumped as was the outside psychologist we worked with.  Freightened by the prospect of having to resort to tougher measures to help control her behavior we began to lose hope.  Until we ran a food sensitivity test called LEAP from Signet Diagnostics.

The LEAP test is different from allergy testing as it isn’t looking for an immune system response.  Instead, it is looking for pro-inflammatory responses from all of the cells in your blood stream.  These pro-inflammatory cytokeines, leukotrienes and prostaglandins have been linked to diseases like Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Migraines, Coronary Heart Disease, Arthritis and much more.  We were using the results to help Tasya control her seizure activity which, while much better than in years gone past, was still a problem with her occasionally having drop seizures which caused her to slam her head on her desk at school, or fall down and hurt herself while walking.

Our thought process was since migraines and seizures are very similar, maybe the LEAP test and its dietary recommendations would help Tasya.  While we did see some small gains in seizure activity, the biggest change was with Tasya’s behavior.  Before we ran the test in September of 2005, Tasya would have a temper tantrum 5-7 times a week.  Since we implemented the changes in her diet (see http://www.carbonbased.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=90) we have seen an incredible and dramatic change in her.  She has only had 2 minor tantrums since the change and she has gone from a easily irritated child who was unable to control her temper, to a happy go lucky kid full of hope and happiness.

If you think that’s it, you’re mistaken.  Her improvement in seizure activity has been as dramatic as her behavioral improvements due to 2 major changes we made starting in mid-October.  First, we began to switch her from low dose Keppra, Zonegran and Phenobarbital to low dose Topamax and Lamictal. The second, and equally important change was to increase her taurine levels (a neuroinhibitory amino acid) to 4 grams a day (2 grams twice daily) thanks to a talk I had with Dr. Parris Kidd http://www.dockidd.com.  In the 14 weeks since we made the change, Tasya’s drop seizure activity has almost completely stopped (only four mild ones – two before going to the dentists office and two after having food with aspartame in it). Her nocturnal seizures only happen when she is under undo stress and even those are milder than in the past.

While we are under no false assumption that she is “cured”, what we do have is a child who isn’t afraid of going to school, is happier and sharper, as well as being more relaxed and self assured. 

For a more detailed story about Tasya, you’re all going to have to wait for my book to come out.  It is already at 175 pages with about 250 planned so I’m not that far off.  I’ll keep everyone updated as the publishing date comes closer.