A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
—Lao Tzu
Current research suggests that food allergies and sensitivities are far more common than we might have imagined. The number of people having immune reactions to foods is increasing. This is due to the many changes our immune systems are experiencing. Changing levels of beneficial bacteria, drastic increases in chemical exposure, and poor nutrition are making our immune cells more reactive to their environment.
Gluten, dairy, and eggs are some of the most common foods that people can be sensitive to. The majority of clients that we see are sensitive to at least one of these food groups. Upon providing them with options that are gluten-, dairy-, and egg-free, their lives change.
The following conditions can be associated with a food sensitivity:
People often don’t realize just how much of their health concerns are associated with the foods they eat. Moods, intestinal health, body weight, and other issues can be directly correlated with food sensitivity reactions. I see it time and time again in my practice—someone has a host of symptoms and, in the end, it’s actually a food sensitivity that’s wreaking havoc on his or her body. For instance, in December of 2006, Sally came into my office with a laundry list of symptoms. She had been diagnosed with asthma, acid reflux and other digestive imbalances, chronic fatigue, and a host of psychiatric disorders, including atypical bipolar disorder, anxiety, and depression. Due to Sally’s chronic fatigue, she could only function for about 5 to 6 hours per day. After bouncing around from specialist to specialist for 10 years, Sally was referred to my office by one of her neurologists. It appeared obvious from her symptoms list that she was reacting to gluten and potentially a few other food proteins. After three sessions, Sally (and her husband) reluctantly agreed to try an Elimination Diet to identify possible foods that could be making her symptoms worse. On day 12 of the diet, Sally’s chronic fatigue all but disappeared. The asthma vanished and her mood stabilized. After 9 months of dietary changes, Sally is healthier than ever and experiences 15 hours of abundant energy per day as long as she avoids gluten, dairy, eggs, yeast, and soy. In addition to cooking many of the recipes from this book as daily staples, Sally also added a number of cultured and fermented foods to her diet, including kombucha, cultured vegetables, and homemade, gluten-free sourdough bread. The only complaint she has now is that she needs to spend money on new clothes as she continues to lose weight.
A food sensitivity can occur when the immune system considers a food a potential threat to the body. As a response, the immune cells secrete chemicals called inflammatory cytokines. These chemicals are signaling molecules that alert other cells of the body of the perceived foreign invader—the food you just ate. This starts a cascade of events, which can lead to inflammation and disease in the body. The term “food sensitivity” literally means that your body is sensitive to eating a particular food. We are all biochemically unique. It seems logical that we would all respond differently to the biological chemicals in food. As world-renowned nutritional biochemist Dr. Jeffrey Bland often says, “The food of one can be the poison of another.”
Let’s look a little more closely at three of the most common food sensitivities: gluten, dairy, and eggs. If everyone in my clinical practice were to remove just these three foods from their diets for 28 days or more, I can confidently say that many of their health concerns would improve. These foods all contain higher levels of proteins that are not always easily broken down. If there are imbalances in a person’s digestive capacities (their ability to break food down from large pieces to small pieces) partnered with a leaky gut (openings in the intestinal wall), these proteins can sneak into their bodies and wreak havoc on the entire system.
Gluten is a protein complex that is found in wheat, spelt, kamut, barley, and rye. The immune system in people who are either celiac positive, gluten sensitive, or allergic to wheat perceives gluten as a foreign invader. This leads to an activation of the immune cells in the intestines when exposed to gluten. These immune cells release chemicals that lead to a host of symptoms (see list on here). One particular problem caused by gluten intolerance is destruction or disruption of the surface, or villi, of the intestines. When the intestinal villi are not functioning, there is a decreased ability to absorb nutrients from food. This can lead to malnutrition conditions including anemia and osteoporosis. One can also be sensitive to gluten and not have any damage to the intestines with reactions ranging from foggy thinking and joint pain to skin disorders.
There are three primary gluten-related disorders that are commonly researched. According to scientific studies, wheat allergy accounts of .4% of gluten-related reactions, celiac disease is around 1%, and non-celiac wheat sensitivity accounts for around 6%. If there were no crossovers in these groups, that would imply that over 7% of the general population would have a negative reaction every time they ate gluten-associated foods. From what we are seeing in our clinical practice, this number seems rather low as the majority of our clients feel improvements in health when going on a gluten-free diet. Certain populations of people may be more likely to have sensitivity reactions to gluten. For example, it was shown in one study that 30% of clients presenting with irritable bowel disease were actually suffering from a sensitivity to gluten. We have witnessed that many cases of chronic diarrhea, arthritis, chronic fatigue, migraines, and irritable bowel disease are associated with a gluten sensitivity. When our clients transition to eating foods free of gluten and other irritating substances, many of these conditions either disappear entirely or improve considerably.
Gluten is found everywhere in our food supply. Baking powder can contain gluten. So can cottage cheese, soy sauce, beer, and lentils. Many gluten-free foods may also be cross-contaminated with gluten because they are grown, stored, transported, or processed in the vicinity of gluten-containing grains. In addition, nonfood sources of gluten include lip balm, playdough, toothpaste, and baby powder.
Adhering to a gluten-free diet can be challenging. We would estimate that over 90% of our clients who attempt a gluten-free diet still consume a small source of gluten without ever knowing it. It often requires a thorough diet diary evaluation to find all the potential pitfall foods. Once these foods are replaced in a gluten-sensitive individual, changes in health are often seen immediately. See our website, www.WholeLifeNutrition.net, for more information.
We invite you to explore this topic further with your local health-care practitioner and Gluten Intolerance Group, www.Gluten.net. You can find a Certified Gluten Practitioner at www.TheDr.com. Celiac disease is now being accurately diagnosed via four blood markers (IgA anti-dpgli, IgG anti-dpgli, IgA anti-tissue transglutaminase, and IgA anti-endomysium). This negates the need for an invasive biopsy. Saliva tests, blood tests, and even biopsies are not able to diagnose a gluten sensitivity. The only diagnostic tool available for gluten sensitivity remains an Elimination Diet—eliminating gluten from the diet for a minimum of four weeks and then challenging it back in to determine if you have a reaction.
For many years, cow’s milk has been advertised as the elixir of health. Whether it was for strong bones or big muscles, most of us were told to drink up. In formula, and in bottles, some of us started drinking it at birth. Because cow’s milk was designed for an entirely different species of animal, a large portion of the population has an adverse reaction when consuming it. Beyond the majority of the world’s population that are lactose (milk sugar) intolerant, many people also have various reactions to the proteins in cow’s milk. There are at least 30 antigenic primary proteins in milk. Casein is the most commonly used milk protein in the food industry; lactalbumin, lactoglobulin, bovine albumin, and gamma globulin are other protein groups within milk. Milk proteins are listed on food labels with a variety of names such as milk solids, skim milk powder, casein, caseinates, whey, and albumin.
The feeding of cow’s milk formula has been well documented as contributing to cases of eczema, colic, diarrhea, and sinus conditions in infants. When breast-feeding mothers consume dairy products, their exclusively breast-fed children may test positive to having a cow’s milk protein immune reaction as well. Later in life, a cow’s milk sensitivity can contribute to sinus conditions, asthma, eczema, headaches, arthritis, acid reflux, constipation, and other bowel problems.
In our own practice, we have seen that by eliminating or reducing dairy products, many health conditions resolve on their own, without the use of medications. When milk antigens get through the gut mucosa intact, they may be responsible for a host of delayed immune responses that do not depend on the standard antibodies that people associate with allergies called IgE antibodies. These delayed immune responses depend on antibodies, like IgA, IgG, IgD, and IgM antibodies, that do not show up on standard allergy skin prick tests designed to pick up IgE related reactions. To determine if you react to dairy, we recommend following a 30-day dairy Elimination Diet. See our website, www.WholeLifeNutrition.net, for more information.
Eggs have long been known to be one of the most common allergens in children. This may be due to early exposure to egg albumin that is in vaccines. We have noticed that people with conditions such as eczema and migraines often improve on an egg-free diet. Four proteins in eggs that cause much of the problems are ovomucoid, ovalbumin, ovotransfferin, and lysozyme. Eggs can be an ingredient in many processed foods including glazes on pastries, ice cream, some margarines, noodles, processed meats, sauces, candy, a wide variety of ready-made foods, custards, and breads. Egg proteins can also hide in lotions, shampoos, vaccines, and in some medications. Always read labels to determine if a product contains eggs. Eggs listed on the label may appear as albumin, globulin, livetin, lysozyme, or lecithin. In addition, many people who react to hen’s eggs will also react to eggs of another species, including duck and turkey.
We have found the process of removing potentially irritating foods from our clients’ diets to be incredibly effective in improving a host of diseases and disorders. In order to find out what foods are contributing to your health disorders, it is necessary to take out the 10 most common suspect foods (see list on here) for at least 28 days. If your body was getting inflamed when you consumed these foods, you will likely notice a huge change when the irritating foods are removed. Many of the common symptoms of stomach upset, bowel problems, skin rashes, headaches, and mood will calm down or go away all together. At that time, you can add back in the suspect foods one at a time to see which ones are responsible for your reactions. This process of eliminating foods and then adding them back in is called an Elimination Diet. After recommending these diets to thousands of people, we have come up with some valuable resources and tasty recipes to help you get the best possible results from your dietary experiment. You can find this detailed information on the Elimination Diet at www.WholeLifeNutrition.net.