Allergic to good health: the right food may be wrong for you - Natural Remedies - includes related articles and a list of resources

Vegetarian Times, June, 1997 by Phyllis Herman

For 20 years, Sariel Beckenstein, a shipping executive from New York City ate a healthful vegetarian diet; yet he suffered from a multitude of unpleasant physical symptoms, headaches, itchy skin and joint pain. Fortunately, he met Adrienne Buffaloe, M.D., director of Healthcare for the 21st Century, a N.Y. medical center for the treatment of chemical sensitivities, who suggested that his symptoms might be food-related. Under her care, Beckenstein embarked on a six-week rotary diversified diet and found out that he was allergic to at least 25 different foods: tomatoes gave him heartburn; celery, violent stomachaches; potatoes, headaches; dairy, diarrhea; and wheat or yeast left him feeling tired and lethargic. Now he either avoids these foods or is careful not to eat them more often than every fourth day. All of his symptoms have resolved -- and he has lost 15 pounds to boot.

How can these perfectly healthy, nutrient-rich foods that most people enjoy every day make someone ill? Perhaps, as Lucretius wrote over 2,000 years ago, "What is food for one, is to others bitter poison." According to many latter-day experts, adverse reactions to foods can affect virtually every part of the body -- the skin, joints, digestive, respiratory and the nervous systems -- and can vary in intensity from a runny nose to life-threatening anaphylactic shock. The reaction can come on almost instantaneously after the first spoonful of an offending food or not until hours, or even days, later. Food sensitivities or allergies may or may not be present at birth but, contrary to conventional wisdom, can develop at any age.

Andrew T. Weil, M.D., Tucson-based author, teacher and editor of Dr. Andrew Weil's Self Healing, a monthly newsletter, writes: "I think food sensitivity is a factor worth considering if you suffer from any of the following conditions: chronic digestive problems such as ulcerative colitis or irritable bowel; autoimmune, disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis; skin conditions such as eczema; and even unexplained fluctuations in mood or energy." Of course allergies can affect virtually every part of the body, but these conditions are the most prominently associated with food allergies. Moreover, as Jacqueline Krohn, M.D. from Los Alamos, New Mexico, co-author of The Whole Way to Allergy Relief & Prevention (Hartley & Marks, 1996), observes, "Untreated allergies can lead to more serious problems as we get older. Blood pressure problems, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, arthritis and other degenerative diseases can develop as a result of untreated allergies."

Not everyone agrees about what constitutes a "true allergy." According to Dean Metcalfe, M.D., Chief of the Laboratory of Allergic Diseases at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., food allergy occurs only when, for some unknown reason, an allergic individual's immune system targets an otherwise harmless food as a dangerous invader, placing it in the same league as bacteria, viruses and toxins. The subsequent outpouring of antibodies (specifically immunoglobulin E or IgE), meant to vanquish this intruder, starts a chain of reactions that results in an assortment of respiratory (asthma), digestive (vomiting and diarrhea) or skin (hives) symptoms.

This kind of measurable allergic response involving the IgE antibody is easily confirmed by a doctor with a scratch or prick test in which a drop of concentrated allergen is placed on the skin that is then scratched so that a minute amount is absorbed. If a wheal or bump surrounded by redness erupts at that spot, an allergy to that substance is confirmed. This type food allergy afflicts about 4 percent of children and up to 1 percent of adults, according to Metcalfe. Such allergies produce symptoms shortly after eating the offending food. Generally these allergies are with you for a lifetime, and the only solution is to avoid the allergenic food or foods forever.

James Braly, M.D., medical director of Immuno Labs in Ft. Lauderdale, author of Dr. Braly's Food Allergy & Nutrition Revolution (Keats, 1992) and a nationally known expert on food sensitivities, views allergies differently. He states that "most food allergies do not provoke a skin response or an immediate reaction of any sort." He says that 95 percent of food allergy reactions are "delayed responses showing up one hour to three days after eating the allergic food and involve the antibody immunoglobulin G (IgG) rather than IgE."

Hidden food allergies lie at the root of 80 percent of the chronic complaints that baffle doctors, says Braly, who favors the IgG ELISA Food Allergy Assay, a blood test, for pinpointing his patients' food sensitivities (see p. 33). Once identified, these reactive foods must be totally eliminated for two to three months. Braly says that in most cases the foods can then be gradually reintroduced into the diet without recurrence of symptoms as long as they are rotated, combined and cooked properly.

Buffaloe agrees with Braly that not an allergy is IgE mediated. "Some are mediated through the nervous system, " she says and not antibody-mediated at all. Instead, a neuropeptide, possibly Substance P, is released from nerve endings and causes symptoms in sensitive individuals. Research has not yet pinpointed the exact mechanism that causes neuronally-mediated symptoms. Buffaloe estimates that 20 to 25 percent of the population diagnose themselves as food sensitive although she believes that up to 40 percent may in fact be so.