Sunday, November 8, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
You're allergic to what?
Let's talk allergies or food sensitivities for a minute. So many findings in the last few years have really revolutionized this area and opened it up.... so that is likely that you could not find person that is not affected by these findings. First let me shock you a bit. It is likely that everyone has allergies, or the word I prefer is sensitivities. This generally happens when a person or a parent of a person ingests something that essentially overdoses their body with a particular substance generally a group of substances that we call phenols. You can look that up on Wikipedia. We're not talking an overdose where someone always gets sick in some overt way but an overdose occurs in such a way that the body essentially begins to ignore that substance when it comes in the body again. An example of this happened in a study where pregnant rats were fed alcohol during their pregnancy. The offspring where then tested against their mothers for predominance of dopamine receptors in the brain. To their surprise the offspring had much less dopamine receptors than their mothers. Because alcohol releases huge amounts of dopamine it was surmised that the overabundance of dopamine cause the developing fetuses to reduce their number of dopamine receptors so that physical and emotional homeostasis could then be achieved. The problem then of course is when the same diet is not afforded to the newly born rats...they then have a dopamine deficiency because their receptors have been essentially downregulated.
Now....imagine this same scenario potentially happening, only with any and every substance that is in our diet. Think about it for a few minutes. Could it be possible that I overdose my body on Big Macs, or Thick Burgers, or understand it could be anything....I had a patient that at one time I treated for an overdose of what we sometimes call a super-food in the healthfood area....blueberries. Of course it wasn't the blueberries per say, it was one of the phenols (sometimes called phenolics) that was in the blueberries. The patient had developed a level of paranoia and obsessive compulsive tendencies. To our surprise and joy his behavior turned around in just two days. But just think, that health symptom that they can't figure out what is causing it.....it could be a food sensitivity. And understand there is treatment for these things....it is fairly short term, inexpensive, and it generally yields permanent results. No more trying to reduce or manage the symptoms with medication....you can now desensitize your body to the substance and then, once clear, you can actually consume the substance and do fine. What a break through!!!! What's the catch....just that most docs don't know about these treatments or don't use them because once your cured you don't need them anymore. Why would a physician want to fix you totally if he can get you to come back again and again and again?