The list below shows the most common symptoms that can be caused by hidden food "allergies".
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The list above shows the most common food allergy symptoms. However, if you have a health problem that is not getting better, food "allergy" should be considered as a possible factor. A clue that food "allergies" may be causing problems is the fluctuating nature of a person's symptoms - sometimes a person who suffers from food "allergies" will have a good day and be symptom-free, and other days he or she will be totally incapacitated.
Your immune system includes teams of specialized cells. These cells are armed with chemicals such as histamine. Their job is to defend you, twenty-four hours a day, against foreign invaders like bacteria, virus, and parasites. When these specialized cells recognize an invader they release an outburst of chemicals which destroy the invader, and this is what keeps us safe. Occasionally a glitch occurs - for example, when your immune system overreacts to an otherwise harmless substance such as peanuts or cat dander. Then, the same powerful chemical response that is usually directed at a virus now reacts as powerfully against an innocuous substance. Now you have a flood of chemicals into your bloodstream with no invader to attack. These chemicals cause fluids to "leak" into the wrong places causing the above list of health problems.
Imagine fluid leaking into your joints (ouch, this hurts and causes joints and muscles to hurt), fluid leaking into your intestines (argh . . . diarrhea, cramping, bloating, and abdominal pain), fluid leaking into your lungs (asthma), fluid leaking into your brain (headaches and emotional problems like mood swings, A.D.D., hyperactivity, depression, anxiety) and all these chemicals in your blood can contribute to chronic fatigue, hormonal imbalances, blood sugar imbalances, and immune system malfunction.
In very simple language, food intolerance or food "allergy" is an abnormal reaction of your immune systems to foods that are usually wholesome and harmless. Why does this happen when you eat healthy food?
First, let's look at the process of digestion and how your immune system gets involved in digestion. It's really simple to understand - let's imagine we lived a long time ago and we're wandering around in the forest and we're hungry. We pick some berries and eat them. Oh, we're also only 10 years old and our parents aren't with us. They aren't there to point out what's good for us and what's bad. So we see some berries that look good and we start munching. After the digested berries leave our stomach and enter our small intestine our immune system recognizes that we ate the wrong berries - they are mildly poisonous. Now, 30 minutes after eating we start to get cramping, abdominal gas, and pain. Our body wants to get rid of this poison and we get a severe attack of diarrhea. Even though we have all this discomfort, we have to thank our immune systems for seeing that these were the wrong berries. Our immune systems automatically recognized the problem and took care of it for us.
On the next day, it's very hot and we stop at the local watering hole for a drink of cool refreshing water. It looks good and tastes and smells good. BUT. . . . . there happens to be an abnormally high count of bacteria in the water. Now our immune systems are awake 24 hours a day; they recognize these bad bugs and we start to vomit. Again, the immune system comes to the rescue and gets rid of the poison.
Now, with food, it's not that our immune systems make a mistake; it's that we don't live in the same world that we lived in several hundred years ago. Our immune systems are confused by all the man-made artificial ingredients and chemicals in food. They recognize these chemicals as foreign and now have to react to these chemicals all the time. So our immune systems are getting overworked and have a difficult time sorting what's good and what's foreign.
Another factor is that we eat foods that our body isn't genetically suited for. I can best explain this with a story of the Eskimos. Imagine you lived up with the Eskimos before modern civilization got there and you didn't like their food choices. You could go outside, hijack a sled, and ride for hundreds of miles but you'd still be stuck with Eskimo food. You couldn't get away from it. There were no airplanes to fly in oranges and bananas. The Eskimos' digestive systems and immune systems have been recognizing Eskimo food for thousands of years. Nothing else was available and their systems got used to what was readily available. The problem now is that we eat apples from all parts of the world at any time of the year and they can be sprayed with almost anything. Whereas years ago, apples might be only available for 2-4 weeks out of the year - our immune systems would have gotten a break and would have been naturally on a rotation diet as foods came in and out of season. Now our immune systems and digestive systems never get a break.
Now, add to that, medications that people take - more man-made concoctions that our immune systems can't recognize. Do you begin to get the idea of how confused our immune recognition cells must be?
And, if we eat in a hurry, or when stressed, we don't adequately digest our food. If our food isn't completely broken down into it's smallest components it gets into our bloodstreams as foreign particles. Ideally, your body wants things in certain sizes of particles. If these particles are too big because of poor digestion, then they are seen as a foreigners and attacked by our immune systems.
Another factor is what we call a "leaky gut". This can be caused by taking aspirin and other over-the-counter pain pills. These medications wear tiny holes in the lining of your intestine and then these holes allow bigger than normal food particles to be picked up in your blood stream and, voila, your immune system comes to the rescue and attacks these particles of food as if they were monsters.
This leaky gut is also caused by reducing the fats and proteins in your diet. Fats and proteins are the building materials for your intestines. Without adequate fats and proteins your body can't repair the "potholes" in you intestines caused by all the action of acids and fibers scrubbing the intestinal walls. The end result is you get holes in the walls and hence a "leaky gut".
If you have persistent health problems, even if they're mild, this is the first clue. If you've tried other approaches with only limited success this is the next clue. The old and difficult way to track down food allergies is to keep a detailed food journal with daily notes as to how you feel. Then see if you can correlate your bad days with eating more of a certain food for two to three days before your symptoms came on. Then, eliminate the offending food for about two weeks. Then add the food back into your diet. If you feel better when you're not eating the food and then you get worse when you add it back into your diet you have identified one offending food. As you see this can take a long time and is very painstaking. It's also very difficult, if not impossible, if you are allergic to several foods.
The new and better way to uncover your hidden food allergies is to take a blood test called the ALCAT test.
One point to understand is that all allergy testing is not the same. In 1967, two independent teams of researchers identified a substance that causes the familiar symptoms of classical allergies. They called this IgE or immunoglobin-E. This was quite a breakthrough for people who had allergic reactions to things they breathed in like pollen, dust, molds, etc. The air has so many things in it that just because you got watery eyes when the wind blew you still couldn't sort out what the cause was. This IgE test allowed doctors to pinpoint your inhaled allergies and then they could give you desensitization shots.
After IgE was discovered, four other types of immunoglobins were discovered that are involved with allergic reactions. Immediate or classical allergies are mediated by IgE type antibodies while IgG and IgM antibodies mediate the delayed or hidden food allergies. Unfortunately, most conventional allergy doctors believe food allergies are only mediated by IgE and they ignore delayed food reactions.
Finally, in 1983, a blood test was perfected that examines how your blood cells react when exposed to certain foods - it's called the ALCAT test and the lab can test your reactions for up to 100 foods. It's easy - no skin pricks - just a simple blood test that is analyzed by a lab that specializes in this test. There are only a few labs in the country that know how to do this test properly. The results come back in about a week's time.
While it's not the easiest thing in the world to give up foods that you like, here are some of the terrific results that have happened just by eliminating the "allergic " foods as indicated by the ALCAT test.
Weight loss is a welcome benefit that almost all the patients experienced when they identified and eliminated their allergenic foods that showed up on the ALCAT test. When people who are overweight remove problem foods from their diets, their brain chemicals, metabolism, and digestive systems normalize, their food addictions vanish, their metabolisms function at optimum rate, and their water retention problems disappear. All this can happen without the deprivation of extremely low calorie diets, without dangerous diet drugs, and without endless hours of exercise.
There's a lot we don't yet understand about food intolerance, but one thing is certain: food intolerance is a real thing, it is happening to many people with chronic health problems, it is something that can be easily tested for, and the results can help you dramatically.
If you'd like to know if the ALCAT test could help you call my office at 1-866-952-5483 or send an email (hyperbaricconsulting@gmail.com).
Sincerely,
Dr. Harold Grams