Positive Health Online

Good digestion is something that we should all be able to enjoy and take for granted. To be able to eat anything on your plate without worrying about the possible consequences is the ideal situation. Unfortunately, increasing numbers of people are experiencing the misery of food intolerances.

Regrettably, there is much misinformation on the subject of food intolerances. A recent trawl of internet sites revealed advice that was both unhelpful and incorrect. One site,[1] for example, failed to explain the difference between an enzyme deficiency intolerance and an acquired food intolerance. It went on to advise that the best treatment was simply to avoid foods to which one is intolerant - a gross oversimplification of the situation that could cause unhealthy nutritional deficiency.

The websites completely failed to inform their readers that food intolerances are completely curable when one understands the true causes. Knowing that the internet is often the first port of call for those searching for health information, I find it worrying that many people may be getting advice that will condemn them to suffer food intolerances indefinitely. Such web sites are merely prolonging the problem.

In fact, if one fails to tackle the underlying causes, the digestion and immune system will go on getting worse over time. Instead of one or two intolerances, I’ve had patients who became intolerant to many foods. In addition, their immunity became so compromised that they became intolerant to things in their environment such as pollens, household cleaning fluids, pets, perfumes and exhaust fumes. Eventually some of them were hardly able to leave home safely.

Wikepedia[2] manages to offer probably the most technically correct description of intolerances, but they recommend exclusion diets - a rather primitive and possibly harmful strategy that most holistic therapists would prefer to avoid. Moreover, they make only a passing reference to the most useful information, i.e. the link between food intolerances and Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

A recovered sufferer myself, I was prompted to write a book to explain the true causes and methods for overcoming Food Intolerances. There’s an old saying “Know thine enemy” and this is certainly true in the case of food intolerances.

It was my own illness that prompted me to undertake the study of an amazingly powerful therapy known as Kinesiology (pronounced kin-easy-ology) and to gain the appropriate qualifications to become a professional therapist. Since becoming a practitioner of functional medicine I’ve had the privilege of helping many people completely overcome food intolerances.

The Historical Context

To give the reader the historical context, I had been training for three years in London to attain my acupuncture qualification. The pressures of this study may have brought things to a head, but I was already in the process of becoming ill. I started to have digestive problems, and my energy levels plummeted. I had bowel problems - diarrhoea, pencil thin slimy stools, pain, gas, urgency etc. Another distressing symptom was sudden weight gain, which I found later was linked directly to food intolerances.

Luckily a close friend, who at the time was studying Kinesiology, was able to test me for food intolerances. At the end of the testing session she gave me a long list of foods that I should avoid. As soon as I followed her advice I started to feel much better, but I was still quite unwell and didn’t know why.

In order to understand the situation better I enrolled on a course of Kinesiology and I ended up studying this extremely useful therapy for over two years. A fellow Kinesiologist tested me to find out the causes of my weight gain and other health problems. She pronounced that the cause of all my misery was a pathogenic yeast that had invaded my gut.

The yeast burrows into the lining of the gut creating a condition known as Leaky Gut Syndrome. The gut lining becomes porous, allowing molecules of food to pass into the blood stream. Then the body does what it is programmed to do; it creates anti-bodies that are targeted specifically at those foods. The trouble is that when such antibodies are present in the blood, the body then reacts whenever that food item is eaten. Eventually the reaction becomes stronger and results in abdominal discomfort and bloating. In addition, other symptoms such as urgency ‘to go’, cramps, diarrhoea and all of the things that we think of as Irritable Bowel Syndrome start to manifest. In my book I explain why this occurs.

Another big problem caused by the yeasts is that they undermine the body’s ability to absorb nutrients from food as it passes through the gut. This gives rise to constant tiredness and contributes to the chronic fatigue illnesses that afflict many people in our society. It also causes hair thinning and poor healing.

My Own Healing Experience

Thanks to the understanding I gained through my illness and subsequent Kinesiology training, I started to recognize when my own clients were suffering from a yeast related problem. Often they would present with illnesses that they’d had for years. Their doctors had failed to find a cure, and treatment was mainly focussed on managing a plethora of seemingly unlinked symptoms rather than curing the one underlying problem.

Once I treated the underlying problem - i.e. the yeasts - my patients would start to improve in many ways. They would start to experience better digestion, better bowel health, and slowly their energy levels would start to recover

Often, not surprisingly, patients were very depressed by their situation. However I came to understand that this illness causes toxicity in the body. Yeasts are members of the Fungi family, and just as many fungi are poisonous, some strains of yeast are also able to form toxins within the gut. These toxins further stress the immune system, especially the liver, contributing to the many unpleasant symptoms that my patients have reported over the years.

A Self-help Guide for Food Intolerance Sufferers

I had the enormous good fortune to be contacted in 2011 by an American publishing company, Self Healing Expressions. They’d read some of my articles on health and encouraged me to write a book to help those who are suffering from Food Intolerances.

In my book  Food Intolerances: Understanding and Overcoming them Naturally I go into detail about the true causes of Food Intolerances. I go on to describe how this condition can be healed using natural methods and natural supplementation.[3]

Wherever possible, I believe that the body should be helped to heal itself. Food intolerances often arise because the gut is disrupted by chemicals and medications. The trouble with medications is that they often have side effects; sometimes these have long term health implications, including destruction of the beneficial gut flora.[4] Each of us needs a healthy colony of these health promoting bacteria which keep the digestive system running smoothly. Once the beneficial gut flora are depleted, harmful pathogenic flora (yeasts, moulds and bacteria) are allowed to flourish.

One thing that I have tried to do in my e-book is to clearly explain to the reader how food intolerances come into being and how they relate to other illnesses such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Restless Leg Syndrome. I’ve also included an Action Plan to guide the reader back to health.

Knowing how complex and fraught the whole topic can be, I talk about how to go about getting food intolerance tests. Once one has this information it becomes a lot easier to follow the yeast detox programme that I describe in the book. Reading my book will provide the important background information needed in order to successfully overcome food intolerances.

It takes approximately 12 weeks to restore health to the digestive system. During this time there are certain foods that one needs to avoid in order to speed up the process. All of this information is in the e-book. Once the ‘baddies’ are eliminated, the gut can heal. This stops the process of antibody formation and foods can be reintroduced. By following the advice in my e-book you can, like me, completely overcome the problem of food intolerances.

Allergies and Enzyme Deficiency Intolerances

Right now, it might be useful to look at the differences between acquired intolerances, allergies and enzyme deficiency intolerances, since I mentioned them at the beginning of this article.

An acquired intolerance, as already described, comes about when yeasts (or other organisms) damage the gut lining, allowing molecules of food to enter the blood stream.  The immune system responds by creating antibodies against that particular food. The good news about this sort of intolerance is that it is fully reversible, once the gut is cleansed and healed.

Allergies are a much more serious immune system response, often due to being exposed too early in life to foodstuffs or substances that the immature system cannot cope with. There is a suggestion that allergic reactions to peanuts were caused by peanut oil in nappy rash cream. Allergies are not the subject of my book.

Enzyme deficiency intolerances come about when the body is unable to make sufficient of a particular enzyme in order to digest a certain food. The example most often cited (because it’s very prevalent) is Lactase deficiency. Lactase is the enzyme that digests the sugars in milk and cheese (Lactose). A good Kinesiologist can test for Lactase deficiency intolerance very simply.

Enzyme deficiency intolerance needs to be managed. In the case of Lactase deficiency, people often opt to purchase lactose free milk, or they will eat yogurt (where the lactose has been pre-digested by the yogurt culture). It is also possible to purchase lactase enzyme in the form of drops that can be added to milk, although I haven’t had personal experience of how effective or safe this is.

Another source of confusion is the difference between wheat intolerance and Coeliac disease. Coeliac disease is an allergy to gluten that can’t be cured. Again, a good Kinesiologist will be able to test for gluten intolerance, but the best way to know for sure is to be properly tested by your doctor if you suspect a gluten allergy. They will do a blood test and then, if necessary, a biopsy. There are home test kits available but, not having experience of them, its not something I could recommend.

Knowledge is Power in Overcoming Food Intolerances

Understanding the problem is crucial in overcoming food intolerances. If the underlying problem of yeasts isn’t rectified, it won’t just go away and the long term things can become much worse. It is essential to take the problem seriously in order to avoid life threatening illnesses later in life.

I hope that you will be very blessed and benefit hugely from reading my e-book, a description of which you can see on Self Healing Expressions’ web site. The book has deliberately been priced very modestly so that it is available to as wide a readership as possible. I have written a sister e-book on the subject of IBS which is also available from Self Healing Expressions.[5] It is my hope and prayer that this information will ‘go viral’ so that the world can be a much healthier place.

References

1.www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/foodintolerance1.shtml#whats_the_treatment

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_intolerance

3. http://healingebooks.com/Food-Intolerances-ebook.html

4. Biological Testing Services / Higher Nature Symposium, Birmingham 2010

5. http://healingebooks.com/Curing-IBS.html