Allergies, Seasonal and Food-Related
Consider This Combo Cure for Relief—and Answers
THERE ARE THREE THINGS you need to know about allergies. One: They come in two basic flavors—food allergies and seasonal (airborne) allergies. Two: Seasonal allergies can be made worse by problem foods. Three: “Real” food allergies are pretty rare; annoying and debilitating “food reactions” are common. (Many people use the word “allergy” to describe what is actually a food sensitivity.) No matter which you suffer with, you’ll find something in this chapter of interest.
Seasonal allergies are characterized by inflammation of the mucous membranes in the nasal passages. Airborne pollens from grasses, flowers, weeds, trees, or ragweed are the culprits, so allergy season officially begins whenever trees and grasses start to pollinate in your area of the country.
Why do these innocuous little molecules cause so much suffering in the first place? Well, these airborne little buggers, which can be pollens or even chemicals, get absorbed through the lungs or skin into the blood and cause the white blood cells of allergy-prone folks to produce a ton of an antibody known as IgE (immunoglobulin E). This is the same immunoglobulin that’s triggered in a classic food allergy, only this time it’s triggered by something you breathe rather than eat. The offending molecules then travel through the bloodstream and hit cells called mast cells, which are major storage sites for histamine. Once the mast cell takes a hit from the IgE antibody, it begins “leaking” histamine all over the place, producing the familiar and annoying symptoms everyone who suffers from seasonal allergies knows all too well.
Conventional medicine doesn’t have a lot to offer. Antihistamines like Benadryl and Tavist D can help, but they can cause drowsiness. Nasal decongestants can help, but they’re also not without possible side effects (restlessness, irritability, and insomnia are among the most common). And while most of these are probably safe, I can’t help remembering that one “safe” nasal decongestant—phenylpropanolamine—was pulled off the market a few years ago after it was found to be linked to an increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke in women aged 18 to 49. Wouldn’t it be great if there were some powerful natural treatment for seasonal allergies?
Well, there is. And it’s a bioflavonoid called quercetin. Combined with a few other things (including the delicious Dr. Starbucks Fruit Peel, recipe below), it just might be your most powerful natural weapon against the annoying symptoms of seasonal allergies.
Quercetin is effective for allergies for the same reason it’s effective for asthma—it’s a powerful anti-inflammatory agent. It also has an “affinity” for mast cells, tending to stabilize their membranes and helping to prevent them from pouring out histamine in response to the IgE antibody.
Jaimison Starbuck, N.D., a naturopathic physician and past president of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, is a huge fan of quercetin. “It strengthens the capillaries in the upper respiratory tract to make them less reactive to the kind of inhalants that trigger allergic symptoms,” she says.
Sometimes people with hay fever simply have very reactive mucous membranes, meaning they have a low threshold for irritation. These membranes may be slightly inflamed to begin with, or tend toward inflammation at the slightest irritation. “Quercetin tends to decrease inflammation, and it helps support the immune system at the same time,” Starbuck told me. “I’ve had clients who just used quercetin alone and it makes a huge difference in their symptoms and suffering.”
Seasonal allergies are definitely aggravated by food allergies. Starbuck told me about an eight-year-old boy who was brought into her office by his mother, who said, “He’s got really bad allergies this year!” Starbuck took a history and found out that the boy had had dairy allergies when he was younger, but according to the mother, “not anymore.” “Just for fun, why don’t you take him off dairy for a while?” Starbuck suggested. Can you guess what happened?
Wheat, dairy, corn, soy, or any of the other common foods that cause food sensitivities can aggravate a seasonal allergy and send it into overdrive. Remember, too, that dairy, wheat, and soy are all potentially mucus-producing foods. A nice, low-tech “elimination” diet might be just the ticket, at least during the allergy season. Take the offending foods out of the diet for a while and see whether your hay fever symptoms get better. Better yet, combine an elimination diet with the natural prescription for seasonal allergies and you might find you can throw your over-the-counter medications away, or at least reduce your use of them significantly.
But Which Foods Should I Eliminate?
There are a million tests for food allergies or “sensitivities,” and everyone has their favorites—blood tests where they expose a little of your blood to ninety different foods and see what happens, saliva tests, you name it. All have their partisans and all have their detractors.
But there’s a better way. It’s low tech and—best of all—free. Plus it’s likely to give you just as useful and meaningful a result as the most expensive of the “food sensitivity” tests.
It’s called the rotation, or elimination diet. And it’s by far one of the best and most reliable methods for identifying foods that might cause you a variety of health problems.
A rotation diet simply means that you rotate the foods that you eat every four to five days, or longer, depending on how you react to each one. In the classic version, you first eliminate the common offenders—sugar, wheat, and dairy—for thirty days. (That little trio of usual suspects is responsible for more unexplained symptoms than you can possibly imagine.)
Then, at the start of the second month, you would, for instance, eat wheat on Day 1. You would not be able to eat any kind of wheat again until Day 5 or 6. You may find that you can eat some of the foods that are on rotation every fourth day with no problems, but that others must be rotated at longer intervals for you to tolerate them. Eating the allergenic foods on a rotated basis reduces your exposure to them and also reduces your sensitivity to them so that you are better able to tolerate them. The general thinking is that after four or five days you have completely excreted the food from your body, so there is no risk of a buildup of allergenic toxins.
Allan D. Lieberman, M.D., director at the Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine in South Carolina, is one of many practitioners who believe we should all think about rotating our foods. Rotation not only helps to reveal hidden food allergies and prevent new allergies from developing, but by allowing us to identify offending foods—and then putting a temporary “off limits” sign on them—we give our immune systems a needed break, Lieberman says. Hidden food allergies can cause digestive problems that will send the immune system on an all-out alert, creating inflammation and a host of other symptoms. By removing the problem foods the immune system is better able to heal and stay strong. Best of all, rotation diets allow us to eventually eat the foods we love—just less of them. And less frequently.
Most people use rotation diets as a first plan of attack when they suspect a food allergy, but a rotation diet can also be a good all-around starting point for other symptoms that just can’t be explained any other way: fatigue, achy joints, eczema, irritable bowel, or a depressed immune function. If you’ve already been diagnosed with certain food allergies or sensitivities, a rotation is the very best place to start.
The European Congress of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (1999) conducted a study of 275 patients and found food connections to a wide variety of conditions including migraines, depression, hypertension, angina, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and eczema. For instance, people with IBS showed “remarkable” improvement with the elimination of pineapple, citrus, cantaloupe, bread, pork, and cheese (not necessarily all for the same patient!). In another study of fifty-seven patients with asthma, fruits were the most common triggers and—combined with milk, beef, lamb, pork, fish, and grain products—were by far the most common cause of food-related asthma symptoms.
Bottom line: The triggers are going to be different for different people, so you have to do your own science experiment with you as the subject. Take your health in your own hands and figure out what’s really going on. When you identify the foods that cause your symptoms—or contribute to them—it’s one of the most liberating experiences you can imagine. You may feel better than you have in years—even more so because you took charge of your own health.