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Food Allergies and Sensitivities: Part I

As most of you already know, one of the many things I will test as part of your first visit as a new patient, are food sensitivities. I have hundreds of food testing vials, but routinely test maybe 40 of the most common allergens. These may include wheat, corn, soy, eggs, chicken, tomatoes, citrus, cow's milk, nuts and the allicin family which includes garlic and onion. If you come in with any kind of a pain syndrome, then I will check the nightshade family as well which includes tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, tobacco and eggplant since the nightshades can ratchet up any physical pain to intolerable levels. Fibromyalgia - another name for full-body muscle pain with no discernible reason - can sometimes be completely eradicated just by eliminating all of the nightshades.

I had a friend named Gail many years ago who had a peanut allergy. One lunch time, she ordered a tuna salad. Unbeknownst to her, it contained peanuts. She was, of course, always very careful, but the peanut ingredient was not noted on the menu and when asked, the waitperson said it had no peanuts. She took her first bite and before she knew it, Gail had swallowed a peanut. She swelled up immediately - eyes, lips and throat - she started to turn gray and we raced her to the ER. This story has a happy ending: She was fine once a huge dose of epinephrine was administered. But, others, especially kids, may not be so lucky.

Food sensitivities, on the other hand, are much more subtle and don't usually cause the extreme and immediate symptoms of a true allergy. In fact sensitivities or intolerances may even cause what is called a "delayed hypersensitivity reaction." This makes it really hard to figure out why you feel run down, or have cloudy thinking or are prone to panic attacks; why your joints hurt, why you are so tired; or maybe you just have a pesky rash that won't go away or get colds all the time. Most of us just aren't geared to think that maybe we woke up all achy on Friday morning because of the wheat pasta we had on Wednesday night.

Feel sort of down after eating certain foods? Sleepy? Confused? Do you think that you have hypoglycemia? Well, studies have shown that exposure to food allergens can precipitate hypoglycemia. There is a strong link between the two.

I see many kids who have been diagnosed with ADHD or some sort of behavioral problem and they usually suffer from the delayed type of sensitivity reaction. In fact, a pediatric neurologist, Dr. Joseph Edgar, found that 90% of ADHD children had food sensitivities. When I inform parents that their child's behavioral or attitude or learning problem may be due to the pizza they had for dinner several nights prior to the in-school misbehavior event that precipitated the call from the school nurse politely suggesting Ritalin, they find it difficult to understand the pizza connection.

Avoid these pharmaceutical behavior controlling drugs at all cost, since they can cause long-term brain injury and will engage the part of the brain that later on will continue to crave stimulants like cocaine, meth and crack. And before you know it, your third grade ADHD kid will be replaced with a high-school sophomore on a dangerous street drug.

I know this sounds far-fetched, but it's true that over 70% of the functioning immune system is in the gut in a system called the gut-associated lymphoid tissue, AKA GALT, so this makes it very important for your long-term health picture to find out what foods you are sensitive to and stop eating them.

Intolerances or sensitivities involve a type of immunoglobulin called IgG. IgG has the ability to persist for weeks, months and even years in the blood stream just waiting to pounce on even a molecule of the offending food. Furthermore, the continuous agitation of the IgG can cause prolonged illnesses of unspecified nature. Usually the MD will say, there is nothing wrong, take this Prozac to calm you down, and then will write in his or her chart something like "Ongoing Fatigue, etiology unknown." (S/he may not know the "etiology", but we do: It's food.)

What the IgG does is bind to the food allergen/protein. This devilish twosome then becomes implanted in your tissues where it hangs around creating toxic havoc and causing symptoms for years - or until you come to someone like me and find out why you have felt so rotten for so long. These nasty immune particles are called "immune complexes" and they are routinely observed in a number of autoimmune diseases, like RA, lupus, thyroiditis, etc. This explains also why food reactions can worsen these diseases.

Next time: More about immune complexes, wheat allergies, ear infections and food phenolic compounds.

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