It is a classic case of overreaction. Your body incorrectly senses that the food that has just been eaten is a foreign substance to be repelled. Cells begin to exhibit disease-like symptoms as they react and overreact to the food.
Allergists conservatively estimate that up to 15 percent of the population suffers from a minimum of one allergy, frequently one that is serious enough to warrant medical attention.
Symptoms can range from a mild tension headache or irritability to criminal actions and full-blown psychotic behavior. Most common are fatigue, headache, insomnia, rapid mood swings, confusion, depression, anxiety, hyperactivity, heart palpitations, muscle aches and joint pains, bedwetting, rhinitis (nasal inflammation), urticaria (hives), shortness of breath, diarrhea, and constipation. Reactions can be immediate following exposure to the allergen or delayed for many hours after contact.
Allergic symptoms are so diverse that the reactions can occur in virtually any organ of the body. Reactions in the brain or central nervous system may lead to behavioral changes and to paranoia or depression. A response in the gastrointestinal tract may translate into bloating, diarrhea, or constipation. Different food combinations can cause multiple reactions in the same person. If a person has an allergy to wheat that manifests itself in the brain, while their gastrointestinal tract is sensitive to milk, they may experience both fatigue and irritable bowel syndrome from a breakfast of whole wheat toast and milk.
All forms of a potentially offensive food can cause an allergic reaction, not just the whole form. Corn sugars and syrup, including dextrose and glucose, for example, will cause symptoms in many corn-sensitive patients. In many instances, researchers find, corn sugars will cause a more immediate reaction than will corn starch or corn as a vegetable.
Environmental medicine experts, also known as clinical ecologists, say that one reason people are developing sensitivities to certain foods is their widespread occurrence in our diets in both the natural and processed forms. Just because you only rarely treat yourself to corn on the cob, for example, doesn’t mean you’re not eating corn every day. On a typical day you might eat corn flakes, a corn muffin, and processed food products containing both cornstarch and corn syrup. Also, many of the daily vitamin C supplements are derived from corn.
The foods we eat most frequently are also the most common causes of allergies. These include milk, wheat, corn, eggs, beef, citrus fruits, potatoes, tomatoes, and coffee. Food allergies can be divided into several categories:
FIXED FOOD ALLERGY—Each time you consume a specific food, you react. For example, whenever you eat beef, a reaction occurs.
CYCLIC FOOD ALLERGY—This is the most prevalent type of allergy. It occurs when you’ve had an abundance of a particular food. If exposure to the food can be reduced to no more than once every four days, little or no reaction occurs. The food, in other words, can be infrequently tolerated in small amounts. So, in a cyclic allergy, a person can remain symptom-free as long as she eats the offending food infrequently.
Of course, other factors can influence the degree of this sensitivity. Infection, emotional stress, fatigue, and overeating can increase susceptibility. The condition of the food (raw or cooked, fresh or packaged) may also be an important factor. Pollution, the presence of other environmental allergens, or marked environmental temperature change can also help trigger or subdue a reaction. A food eaten by itself may be tolerated. But if it is combined with other foods at the same meal, an allergic response may develop. The length and severity of the symptoms will depend in part on how long the allergens remain in your body after ingestion.
ADDICTIVE ALLERGIC REACTION—Here the person craves the foods to which she is allergic. In essence, she becomes addicted to the foods. When made to go without the food, depression and other withdrawal-like effects may appear. Moreover, eating the food may momentarily alleviate the symptoms, only to aggravate them later. Over time, the symptoms of the addictive allergy may grow increasingly complex.
This type of allergy often remains hidden or masked—even to the individual who is suffering from the problem. Because of its insidious nature, the person never suspects that the foods that seem to alleviate the symptoms might contain substances to which she is allergic.
But allergies do not always fit neatly into one of the three categories. A fixed allergy in infancy can develop into an addictive allergic reaction later in life. Milk is a good example of such a food. When first introduced to a baby, it may cause an acute reaction in the form of hives or spitting up. However, if the parents don’t recognize this as an allergic reaction and continue to keep milk in the diet, the symptoms may take on a more generalized and less obvious form.
What is first experienced by the body as an acute reaction will—in the body’s attempt to adapt by assimilating the new foreign substance—lead to more chronic symptoms such as arthritis, fatigue, depression, or headaches. For example, if you drink milk or eat milk products every day, symptoms of allergic reactions may blur with your natural personality traits and may become an accepted, even unnoticed part of your everyday life.
Eventually, you may develop a chronic condition, such as arthritis, migraines, or depression. Your daily dose of milk would never be suspect at this stage. Your body has upped its tolerance levels in trying to adapt. At the same time, milk’s harmful effects have been subtly registered. You keep on with a daily dose of milk, your own substance for abuse, to keep withdrawal symptoms at bay. Acute reactions are gone—except when the milk is withdrawn completely. Chronic reactions have replaced them.
Hidden or masked food allergies, no different from allergies generally, tend to be to the very foods we eat most frequently. In the United States, dairy products, including milk and eggs, are high on the list. Corn, wheat, and potatoes are also common allergens, as is beef. Yeast, which occurs in many foods, is often a cause. Finally, many people have a hidden allergy to coffee.
Most food allergies can be traced to an impaired digestive system. Proper digestion requires that the body secretes sufficient hydrochloric acid and pancreatic enzymes into the stomach to process foods. These substances break down large protein molecules into small molecules so that they can be absorbed and utilized. When too few digestive juices or enzymes are secreted, the large protein molecules go directly into the bloodstream. The immune system reacts to these large molecules as if they were foreign invaders—the allergic response.
In addition, other stresses can affect a person’s “allergic threshold.” These include environmental stresses such as air, water, and food pollution; inhalants such as perfume, aerosol hair spray, or room freshener; and emotional stress. The less healthful the physical and mental environment, the less likely are our chances for achieving and maintaining a state of well-being.
Environmental pollution poses a particular problem. Over the past two centuries the barrage of chemicals introduced into our environment has disrupted the balance of our ecosystem. Residues of many toxic chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides are ingested into our bodies along with food additives and preservatives that are added during commercial food processing.
In many cases, the contamination of food is an irreversible result. Foods such as oranges, sweet potatoes, and butter can be dyed. Other processed and packaged goods, such as Jell-O, ice cream, sherbet, cookies, candy, and soda can contain large amounts of food additives.
Most of our commercially raised meats and poultry are riddled with residues of antibiotics, tranquilizers, and hormones. It is even common practice to dip certain fish in an antibiotic solution to retard their spoilage. A person allergic to these antibiotics and drugs may be unknowingly ingesting them continuously, provoking either long-term or short-term reactions or illnesses, the source of which might remain unidentified. It is estimated that more than 10 percent of all Americans are sensitive to food additives. But remember, even when a person eats only organically grown foods, he or she may still be food allergic.
In most cases, the more severe a person’s food sensitivity becomes, the more numerous the allergens that induce it. One clinical study reported that the average person suffering from hay fever was allergic to five foods as well. A total picture of a person’s allergen exposure, environment, habits, and history are vital for effective treatment.
The end result of repeated or prolonged sensitization of the body by recurrent allergic reactions is termed “breakdown”—the point at which diseaselike symptoms appear. They may be erroneously diagnosed as the onset of an illness. But the biochemical breakdown, although it manifests itself suddenly, was actually initiated years before by prolonged exposure to allergens.
You can inherit allergic sensitivities. If both parents suffer from allergies, their children have at least a 75 percent chance of inheriting a predisposition to this hypersensitivity. When one parent is allergic, the chances of an inherited allergy remain as high as 50 percent. The child does not have to inherit the same allergic response. What is inherited is a genetic makeup that is more likely to have allergic reactions in general. For example, the mother may have chronic indigestion while the child’s allergy manifests itself as acne. A mother may be sensitive to corn while her child is sensitive to yeast. Infants can develop allergies to the same foods as their mothers while still in the womb, through the placenta, or through breast milk after birth.
Conventional allergists believe that the mechanism of food allergy is triggered by direct contact of the food antigens—the substances the body produces to fight the “foreign food invader”—with immune system antibodies in the gastrointestinal tract. The usually swift reaction that results is called an immune system–mediated response. This is the only kind of allergic reaction conventional allergists recognize.
But there is a second mechanism recognized by clinical ecologists, through the absorption of the allergen from the gastrointestinal tract into the bloodstream. Circulating in the blood, allergens can react with elements other than antibodies. The resulting reaction can occur in the blood, in the nervous system, or in the musculoskeletal system. Sometimes referred to as a sensitivity or intolerance, to distinguish it from a classic allergic reaction, this second mechanism can be extremely complex. However, tests to uncover these more subtle intolerances are available.
Hypersensitivity to foods can come at any time of life and continue to any age, although the onset occurs most commonly in infancy and early childhood. This is largely because the gastrointestinal systems of the very young are less efficient than in the adult. One researcher refers to the progression of allergies from childhood to adulthood as the “allergic march.” Symptoms can move from one organ system to another. A child may suffer from asthma as a result of drinking milk. During teen years the allergy may take the form of pimples. Unfortunately, many people erroneously believe that they have outgrown their allergy because they no longer suffer from the original symptom. They don’t consider that their current problems may have the same underlying cause. Their allergic symptoms may continue to vary throughout their lives because of an underlying imbalance that remains constant. Hyperactivity as a child may be the result of ingested food additives. In later years, these same ingredients may cause migraines and fatigue.
In some cases, a comprehensive medical history will provide significant clues about a person’s allergic profile. A trained clinical ecologist may find the needed information from such a medical history alone.
The skin test performed by the traditional allergist has minimal use in identifying food allergies. In some cases, however, it may be helpful. A similar test takes another approach, putting extracts of food mixed with glycerin under the tongue, instead of into the skin by injection. A technique called applied kinesiology is based on the principle that there is a reflex response between a suspected allergen and the patient’s body, in the patient’s muscles. In this test, a doctor offers food to the patient and then measures or evaluates the energy or muscle function after the food is ingested. Here many foods can be tested in each session. However, the results may not be highly accurate depending on the nature and experience of both the person administering the test and the person being tested.
Newer tests are being developed. Some, such as the cytotoxic test, mix blood samples with food extracts and measure how many white blood cells burst. In allergy smears, samples of different body fluids or secretions are evaluated in the laboratory to look for a specific type of white blood cell. The various immune system cells may also be evaluated. In the Arest program, radioactive atoms are used to determine how antibodies respond to particular antigens.
There are also less technical tests, some of which can even be done at home. A fasting test, which should be done under medical supervision, begins by cleansing the system. Symptoms may subside, remain unchanged, or, if the allergy is an addiction of some sort, worsen by the second or third day of the fast. Then foods are reintroduced one at a time to check for symptoms.
Another test that can be performed at home is the Coca Pulse test. First find your normal pulse range by taking it every two hours. Then take it again at specific, regular intervals after eating the suspected allergen. If your pulse rises more than ten points, the food eaten last becomes suspect. The pulse is rising as a reaction to increased adrenaline in your system. The adrenaline may be released in reaction to an allergy.
Another home test involves keeping a food diary and recording everything you eat for a week. Record symptoms and when they occur as well. After the week, look for a relationship between symptoms and the food eaten.
Elimination testing is yet another approach. Eliminate the suspected allergen until symptoms clear up over a twelve-day period. Reintroduce the food on an empty stomach. Usually, if symptoms are to develop, they will do so within an hour of testing. A variation on that is the elimination of all common allergens—wheat, corn, dairy foods, citrus fruits, food colorings, sugar—and foods you may crave, over the course of a week. Then reintroduce the foods, one per day. If symptoms develop, the food may be an allergen. Don’t eat it for five more days and then reintroduce it to double-check the result.
A final home test—perhaps among the most effective and sensible of all tests—also doubles as a treatment for food allergies. It is called the rotary diversified diet. Plan a diet in which you eat no individual food more often than once every four days. After five days, start a food and symptom diary. After reviewing correlations that may crop up through your recordkeeping, eat any suspected food the next time it comes up in the four-day rotation alone as one full meal. Note symptoms. Eliminate foods that stimulate adverse symptoms from your diet—permanently. The theory here is that food sensitivities become even more pronounced when a food is eliminated and then reintroduced into the diet. With this diet, your symptoms—and with them the responsible food—are clearly highlighted. This approach is also useful as a maintenance diet, enabling people who are prone to food allergies to prevent the emergence of new allergies, since they never eat any food too frequently. And even then, if a new food allergy does develop, it is spotted and quickly eliminated.
Elimination and rotation diets as described above can be used to treat food allergies.
Neutralizing-dose therapy is a treatment method that is especially useful in cases of multiple food allergies, and when avoidance of chemicals and medicinal inhalants is difficult, as during the pollen season. A neutralizing dose is determined for each allergen, and when it is injected or administered under the tongue, this dilution can bring about relief from the allergic symptoms.
These treatments are administered in a series during which the dose of the allergen is progressively increased, causing desensitization to this substance. (They work on the same theory as allergy shots or vaccines. The only differences are in the dilution of the substance and the wide variety of the substances that can be tested in this way.) Eventually, the person can tolerate contact or ingestion of the allergen with only a mild reaction or no reaction at all.
With the neutralizing-dose treatment, the allergist is first determining the amount of a particular allergen that causes an allergic reaction. The physician can work with many substances that the traditional allergist would be unable to treat, including foods, chemicals, perfumes, and cigarette smoke. The neutralizingdose approach seems to be effective in eight out of ten patients.
Like the traditional allergy shot, the neutralizing dose can be administered by injection. However, it can also be given as drops under the tongue. Instead of taking approximately six months to find the optimal dose, the physician can usually determine the correct dosage in one or two sessions using this technique. Another advantage of the neutralizing dose is that the patient can be given the drops to take at home. It not only works as a preventive measure but can also block a reaction that has already started.
Strengthening the immune system should improve resistance to current allergies and reduce susceptibility to new ones. There are several ways the immune system may be strengthened. Getting sufficient rest is essential, as is regular exercise. Keeping stress levels to a minimum will also help. You must also be receiving the right nutrients in the right amounts.
Many nutrients have been found to enhance the effectiveness of the immune system. These include vitamin C, beta-carotene, vitamin E, selenium, and glutathione. These are all antioxidants, which help to eliminate free radicals from the body.
Garlic has been found to be an immune stimulant, having both antifungal and antibacterial qualities. Garlic is most effective when eaten raw. It may be added to food or taken as a supplement in tablet or capsule form.
The essential fatty acids are also important to a proper immune response. Many researchers recognize the importance of omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in such oils as linseed and walnut, and in many fatty fishes, such as salmon.
It has been noted that 200 to 500 milligrams of pantothenic acid plus 50 milligrams of B complex vitamins can be useful in people with allergies. Vitamin C, in addition to its antioxidant properties, also has an antihistamine effect, which may benefit those with allergies by reducing the swelling of tissue and cell membranes. One study found that people with asthma who took 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C daily had 25 percent fewer asthmatic attacks than those receiving a placebo. Another study found that asthmatic children benefited from magnesium supplementation.
A number of techniques are available to recondition the body to learn a new, more healthful way of responding to and dealing with stress, including that associated with food allergies. These include progressive relaxation, biofeedback, self-hypnosis, visualizations, meditation, yoga, and tai chi. Stress management techniques can improve the digestion of allergy sufferers.
If food and chemical sensitivities were routinely considered in each case of chronic disease, there would be a tremendous increase in well-being in this country.
An overly analytical medical system insists instead on classifying patients into narrowly defined disease states. Environmental aspects, including a patient’s diet, are considered to be nonmedical. The person’s whole experience—including diet, environment, lifestyle, emotional life, and work life—may also be considered to be outside the physician’s domain, although few physicians would deny that the cause of almost any patient’s illness will involve one or more of these factors to some degree.
It may be that up to 70 percent of symptoms diagnosed as psychosomatic are probably due to some undiagnosed reaction to foods, chemicals, or inhalants. Different allergic reactions occur. There are localized physical effects, such as gastrointestinal disorders, eczema, asthma, and rhinitis (nasal inflammation). There are acute systemic effects, such as fatigue, migraine headaches, neuralgia (nerve pain), muscle aches, joint pains, and other generalized symptoms. And there are acute mental effects, such as depression, rapid mood swings, hallucinations, delusions, and other behavioral abnormalities. It has been estimated that over 90 percent of schizophrenics have food and chemical intolerances.
Researchers now believe that food allergies may directly affect the body’s nervous system by causing a noninflammatory swelling of the brain, which can trigger aggression. Despite studies at various correctional centers clearly showing the connection between diet and behavior, little is being done to change the dietary standards of correctional facilities throughout the nation. Routine screening programs for food allergies and nutritional deficiencies in chronic offenders do not exist.
While many other factors—not food alone—mitigate criminal, antisocial behavior, or mental illness, a case can be made for testing for and evaluating food sensitivities in any overall treatment, prevention, or rehabilitation program.
Migraines are an example of a condition in which recognition and elimination of food allergens can make a tremendous difference. The trick is to recognize the possibilities.
Right now, about 25 million people who consult their physicians each year complain of bad headaches. Although there are various types of headaches, about 50 percent of these people suffer from migraines. While conventional medicine has very little to offer the migraine sufferer, clinical ecologists see migraine as a disorder frequently resulting from food allergies. The nontraditional medicine offered by the clinical ecologist may offer a unique opportunity to relieve the suffering.
Headaches due to food or chemical sensitivities can often be treated simply by eliminating the allergy, once it has been identified, with an elimination or rotation diet. Yet, as a rule, food sensitivities are not investigated in the diagnosis and treatment of headaches.
While the pain may sometimes appear immediately after eating a particular food, it may also be delayed until hours afterward. For this reason it is not unusual for a person to fail to identify the correlation between what they’re eating and the onset of their headache. A food may even seem to relieve migraine symptoms temporarily—a classic example of an addictive allergic reaction.
Of course, allergic headaches typically occur as the result of combinations of factors, rather than from food allergies alone. Emotional stress, for example, may play a large role in triggering an episode. Thus, even when a food allergy is at cause, the specific food source may not produce the same symptoms on every occasion, depending on the array of associated circumstantial factors. In some individuals stress may be compounded when the allergic reaction triggers further emotional symptoms. A vicious cycle is created. Sudden changes in temperature or light may also affect one’s susceptibility, as well as the presence of any other health problems.
Environmental-medicine specialists have found that some of the foods that occur most frequently in the typical American diet are also the foods most commonly implicated in food allergy–related headaches. The list includes wheat, eggs, milk, chocolate, corn, pork, cinnamon, legumes (beans, peas, peanuts, and soybeans), and fish. Moreover, individuals with food allergies should avoid or limit their intake of fermented products, such as red wine, champagne, and aged cheese, because of the presence in these foods of a substance called tyramine. Tyramine has been associated with migraine occurrence in some cases.
Too often, conventional medical practitioners tend not to look toward nutritional solutions in cases involving allergies, including allergy-related migraines. In part, this is because the medical training they have received does not extend deeply into nutrition. And yet, a preponderance of evidence continues to point to the importance of nutritional solutions for an increasingly wide range of health problems.
Probably no allergic disorder is more puzzling and pervasive than tension fatigue syndrome. Indeed, for many of us, varying daily levels of tension and fatigue are the norm, tranquility and energy the rare exceptions. To compensate, we choose artificial solutions for moderating energy, from the first caffeinated gulps of coffee in the morning to the quick sugar, caffeine, or drug fix during the day, and the alcoholic “equalizer” in the evening. The result is that energy levels are either depressed or falsely elevated most of the time. In many cases, these quick pickme-ups are responses to allergic disorders with their roots in food and nutrition.
Next to headaches, tension fatigue syndrome is the most common manifestation of cerebral and nervous system allergy. Yet, too often, this far-reaching malady is not even recognized by physicians or allergists. Its symptoms are usually assigned a psychiatric origin and treated with drug therapy or some other conventional modality when, in fact, a simple elimination and rotation diet is the best medicine.
There are several reasons for this all too common oversight. First, there are similarities between tension fatigue syndrome and psychiatric disorders. And second, there is the failure of standard scratch tests to identify many food and chemical reactions. The scratch tests simply have not been shown to be effective in the diagnosis of food and chemical sensitivities. And yet they continue to be used by allergists.
Of course, tension, extreme nervousness, irritability, depression, and emotional instability may be symptoms of psychological disorders in some cases. But too often this is the only possibility that is considered. The allergy may be due to any number of foods, and it is only through careful testing that a definitive diagnosis can be made. In all cases where such symptoms appear, food allergies should be ruled out first—before further traditional medical sleuthing occurs. This can save a lot of trouble and mistaken diagnoses.
The symptoms experienced in tension fatigue syndrome can include fatigue, weakness, lack of energy and ambition, drowsiness, mental sluggishness, inability to concentrate, bodily aches, poor memory, irritability, fever, chills and night sweats, nightmares, restlessness, insomnia, and emotional instability. Mental depression is another common symptom, ranging from mild to severe episodes of despondency and melancholia. Generalized muscle aches and pains, especially in the back of the neck or in the back and thigh muscles may also be present, as well as edema (fluid retention), particularly around the eye, and tachycardia (rapid heart beat). Gastrointestinal symptoms often associated with this syndrome are bloating, abdominal cramps or pain, constipation, diarrhea, and a coated tongue. Chills and perspiration are also frequently experienced in association with fatigue during food testing of symptomatic patients.
The disorder can begin at any age. It can last from several months to several decades. In some adults the extreme fatigue, bodily aches, depression, and mental aberrations that come from this continuing allergic state can be so severe that they interfere with work and domestic life.
As headaches or gastrointestinal upsets caused by allergy increase in frequency, the fatigue is more likely to remain even between episodes. Fatigue soon becomes the allergic individual’s major complaint. The allergic origin of the fatigue and weakness commonly remains a mystery.
It’s not unusual for allergic individuals to sleep up to fifteen or more hours for several successive nights to try to overcome their fatigue. Unfortunately, in most cases, these efforts prove futile. The fatigue experienced in allergic fatigue is quite different from the fatigue that naturally follows physical exertion. It cannot be relieved by normal or even excessive amounts of rest. It can be relieved only by eliminating its cause—the allergen.
Before the diagnosis of allergic fatigue can be defined, a complete medical workup should be done to exclude both organic and functional origins. This should include a comprehensive case history, complete physical examination, and diagnostic laboratory blood testing. Other causes for nervous fatigue include chronic infections and metabolic disorders, including diabetes, hypoglycemia, hypothyroidism, neurological disorders, heart disease, anemia, malignancy, and various nutrient deficiencies. Even if another disease is found, allergic fatigue may still be a causal factor. In some cases, fatigue is caused both by an allergic reaction and an underlying chronic disease state.
Many obese women believe that they are overweight due to heredity, because they have a thyroid or metabolic problem, or because they simply eat too much. They may blame it on a lack of self-control, or become convinced that they have psychological problems. However, some experts believe that roughly two out of three obese individuals suffer from some form of allergy.
Of course, allergy may be only one of several factors affecting an obese person’s weight. The presence of a thyroid condition or psychological problems can cause or aggravate a weight problem. Obesity is also related to many diseases including high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney problems, and diabetes. For obese individuals with allergies, the problems of each condition may adversely affect the other. Typically, someone who is obese will have allergic responses more often than a person who is not obese. The extra weight is a burden on the immune system, and the weaker the immune system, the greater the effects of allergies. People who are obese may also have difficulty breathing.
We store chemicals in the body in fat. Very often, allergies are triggered by a response to chemicals stored in this way. Because the obese person may naturally hold more chemicals in the body, she may tend to experience more frequent allergic responses. This may also explain why she feels worse, or has strong food cravings, at the beginning of a diet. Chemicals are stored in fat, and as the fat is burned, a large quantity of chemicals is passed into the bloodstream, often causing such cravings.
The mechanism by which an allergy can trigger obesity may be that of the hidden addictive allergy, whereby a person is addicted to the very foods to which she is allergic. Often, these are high-calorie foods, such as chocolate, cheese, or sugar. So the person may gain weight because she eats these high-calorie foods too frequently.
Hunger itself can be an allergic response, and compulsive eating and intense cravings for particular foods may also result from hidden allergies. In some cases, compulsive eating of the food one is allergic to may really be an attempt to stave off withdrawallike symptoms induced by going without the food for too long. Such withdrawal symptoms might include headaches, drowsiness, irritability, or depression.
Allergies can cause weight problems if they interfere with the body’s natural ability to regulate itself. As noted by Dr. Arthur Kaslow, physician and author, both humans and animals naturally attempt to maintain their bodies in a state of biochemical equilibrium known as homeostasis. Unless there is a flaw in their regulatory system, human beings will maintain their proper weight by eating the amounts and types of foods their bodies need to function properly. When the body needs food, it will send out a hunger signal. When it needs water, it sends out a thirst signal. If this mechanism breaks down, an individual may feel hungry when she does not really need food. It is possible that allergies can temporarily impair the cells responsible for sending out these signals.
Some clinical ecologists estimate that 80 to 90 percent of all cases of arthritis are either allergy induced or are allergylike reactions to some food the patient has eaten. The arthritis may also be related to an environmental factor to which the patient is sensitive, such as gas inhaled from constant proximity to a gas stove. Examining arthritics for both food and environmental allergies may help reduce current symptoms, prevent recurrences of symptoms, and minimize the damage that eventually results from joint inflammations.
Dr. Marshall Mandell successfully treated hundreds of arthritis patients by putting them on a five-day distilled-water fast and then allowing their usual foods, one at a time, back into their diet. If a food causes the arthritis symptoms, the symptoms will return when it is reintroduced into the diet and should be permanently eliminated.
I had an interesting case a few years ago where this woman had developed chronic intestinal problems seemingly out of the blue. We tested her for food allergies and I told her it has to be something you’re eating all the time for it to be such an ongoing problem. For something you eat only twice a year well then you know it’s not going to cause problems like that. So we tested her and the only thing that came up was hazelnuts, and I thought well this can’t possibly be what’s causing these chronic issues. But sure enough when we went back through her diet she had started drinking hazelnut flavored coffee every day, and just that little bit of flavoring was enough to make her really sick. She had been to so many doctors, and you know so that’s where the value of the testing sometimes comes in. But it brings up the point that it doesn’t take much of a food if you’re allergic to it to really cause pretty dramatic symptoms in your system, but you do need to be exposed to it on a regular basis.
—Dr. Christine Doherty