Even deeper than that, we shared a philosophy of life that was profound and all-encompassing. Life is about living; it’s not a form of accountancy, with calories or nutrients IN, versus toxins and excreta OUT! The whole dynamic process of biology is much richer than just substances or “stuff”.

Yet most scientists and doctors don’t seem to get it: they think life is the result of organic physical processes. In fact it’s the other way round: the organic physical processes arise as a result of life dynamics

Steve and I in brighter times

I thought I would celebrate “a life” by sharing with you an interview I did with Stephen. We were talking about inflammation, as it applies to weight loss, and you can feel his warmth and wisdom shine through.

It’s a bit different to my usual newsletter but it is my message, this week, to the world.

Let’s remember a true medical “rock star”!

Follow this link to watch the interview: https://vimeo.com/727356122

Love to All,

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

If you want more notes about the fact that I was the first person to write about Grounding (Earthing) for which Stephen became very famous, check it out here below:

Allergics and Electricity

My nurses know a lot about allergies and electricity. Frequently, when giving test injections, they get unpleasant static shocks. This happens far more often than in encounters with normal healthy individuals. Certain patients seem to be particularly bad in this respect and the effect can be most unpleasant, taxing the nurses’ saintly devotion to the limit.

There is something special about allergic patients and electricity. Many of them seem able to cause damage to electrical equipment: kettles burnout, plugs and light bulbs explode, TV sets stop working, electric clocks go backwards. These and many other strange occurrences tell us that something out of the ordinary is happening. We don’t as yet know what it is, but to scoff—just because you don’t understand—is the hallmark of a fool. Sadly, there are plenty of those, even among so-called experts.

Some cases on record are truly remarkable. Certain individuals seem able to disrupt whole computer or telephone systems, merely by their presence. A number of strange individuals have been struck by lightning, many times over (see The Guinness Book of Records). There are even cases of people able to illuminate light bulbs by holding them in their hands.

Surprisingly, these curious individuals seem unharmed by their unusual electrical nature. The unfortunate fact, however, is that the majority of electrical sensitives are made ill by their experiences and, until recently, theirs was an unhappy lot. Nobody knew the cause of the trouble. They were, if you like, ‘allergic to electricity’, which sounds like nonsense.

What To Look For

As with true allergic phenomena, manifestations can be almost infinite, according to which part of the body is affected. However, those symptoms which give rise to the most concern are those connected with the nervous system. These include headaches, dizziness, weakness, poor concentration, insomnia and even nausea.

Typically, symptoms are worse near electrical equipment. Some patients know, for example, that when the television is switched on, they feel worse (I will avoid the obvious joke). Overhead cables are a hazard, but so are sub-stations and the small kerbside relay boxes. Some patients can ‘feel’ cables in the walls and floors at home.

Generally speaking, patients feel worse if they are in a field created by electrical appliances on either side. In a kitchen, the oven and fridge may be on one side and the kettle, radio and perhaps a microwave on the other, the poor housewife trapped between the two. A better arrangement is to have all appliances against one wall.

What To Do

What does an electrically sensitive patient do to cope with our modern environment? As with all allergies, we say avoid it! That isn’t easy, of course, though some are so ill they need to move to the country (avoiding overhead transmission lines), to get away from the worst urban power concentrations.

If you can’t avoid it, other steps may be necessary. One patient finds he is helped by wearing a copper plate on his back, wrapped in fabric to fit a wide belt. Others have tried metal screens, from foil to chicken wire, and some swear it helps. Science tells us, however, that to be truly effective, such a screen would need to be many inches thick, and clearly this is impracticable. My personal advice is to avoid this sort of approach until we understand the subject better It is possible for metal to concentrate the field, instead of dissipating it. This would clearly be harmful.

Another approach is Earthing. One way to do this, silly as it sounds, is to go outdoors barefoot. Contact with the earth will remove static build-up within the body. Feeling the grass between your toes may be more than a poetic way to feel good.

This is the exact opposite effect to our modern buildings, where synthetic carpets and dry air-conditioning help to build up considerable static charges. This contributes to the sick building syndrome. It’s also not good for your heart, which relies on electrical circuits.

If outdoor Earthing isn’t practical, trail a wire round your wrist while sleeping and connect it to the central heating pipes or some other metal ‘earth’. Standing barefoot on an earthed metal plate is another solution BUT BE CAREFUL. You must avoid the temptation to do this while handling electrical appliances. A comparatively minor accidental shock could well turn into a fatal one if you ignore this caution.

These tricks can easily become a habit, and patients swear by the beneficial results. It begins to sound cranky. I think it is better to keep these remedies for times when you really need them and not become psychologically dependent on such props.

Synthetic fabrics, of course, create static and are best avoided. Wear only cotton and silks where possible, especially next to the skin (underwear). Women might like to know that tights with a cotton gusset and soles to the feet are available. These will allow discharge to the floor; and reportedly feel better.

[Extract from The Allergy Handbook, Thorson’s, Wellingborough, England, 1988]

I wrote this in my 1986 book, Allergies: What Everyone Should Know (Unwin, London). I was feted by the BBC for numerous interviews about this ground-breaking book. But one interviewer—Nancy Wise of the BBC World Service—was obviously not convinced.

She sent a roving microphone out onto the streets on London, outside Bush House, and they stopped people to question them about it. I had no idea of this trick when I agreed to the interview or even when I showed up! But in fact Nancy told me this, live on air! The outcome was that 18 out of 20 people stopped said “Yes, I do have a food allergy.”

You need to ask the right questions. Many people say “I don’t have any allergies to food,” but will admit that chocolate gives them a headache, or eating onions causes their joints to swell, eggs give them bellyache, or whatever…

Suffice it to say that Nancy was impressed and she gave me a very friendly interview.

I have always held to the view that reactions to food are very common indeed. A great many of the problems are simply missed (not observed) and Amelia Nathan-Hill, I think it was, coined the expression “the unsuspected enemy”. It sums it up nicely. Doctors are not going to find food allergies if they don’t look for them (using an effective testing method).

What I investigated in my early years was rubbished as “mumby-jumbo” in the local hospitals. Eventually they had to eat crow. Nevertheless, orthodox doctors have fought tooth and nail over the decades, to insist that food allergies are very rare: 5%, then it went up to 7%, 10%. Recently, I notice, it has suddenly gone up to 20%!

According to the January 4 report in JAMA Network Open, among more than 40,000 US adults surveyed, 10.8 percent reported the kinds of severe symptoms that are consistent with a recognized food allergy, and another 8.2 percent said they believed they had food allergies, but their symptoms suggested other causes.

That’s the usual scientific hubris: it couldn’t have been a food allergy; it was more likely to have been… (whatever the doctor wants to dream up “scientifically”). It’s weird how doctors think they know more than their patients! The point is, taking the reporting as given, one in five adults are aware of having a reaction to food.

That’s a long way from reaching the 95% mark, but we’re getting there.

It will be higher when doctors realize that food and other allergies can cause an almost blinding array of symptoms, from depression, ADHD and anxiety, to arthritis, eczema and irritable bowel. Recognized allergy symptoms, such as dermatitis, hives and asthma are only a small part of the whole.

“The main message from the survey is that one in five adults have some kind of food related conditions that are causing them to avoid certain foods,” said Dr. Ruchi Gupta of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “And one in 10 has what looks convincingly like a food allergy – and of those, only half are getting a proper diagnosis by a physician.”

It was a rather strange survey, truth told. Gupta and her colleagues turned to two internet-based panels of people, who agreed to fill out surveys for a small remuneration: the AmeriSpeak panel and a panel put together by SSI Dynamix, a market research company. All told, 40,433 US adults completed the food allergy survey, for which they received $5 each.

Those deemed to have a food allergy had least one convincing food allergy symptom, which meant a severe reaction involving the skin or oral mucosa, gastrointestinal tract, cardiovascular or respiratory tract.

People who didn’t have these reactions were assumed to have a food intolerance, such as celiac disease or lactose intolerance, or a non-allergy mediated reaction in the mouth.

It’s a moot point that has been debated over the years. Gastroenterologists and immunologists INSIST that food allergy means only a reaction mediated by antibodies. When there is no immunological evidence, that allows them to dismiss the patient as an idiot or faker, who doesn’t know what he or she is talking about.

So if he or she eats apples and gets severe migraines (one of my many cases), he or she is deluded. It “couldn’t be” and therefore it must be all in the mind! The patient was weak-minded and was making up the story of reactions to food in order to cover their inadequacy. Back in the day, the patient was often referred to a psychiatrist.

IT WAS NEVER QUESTIONED THAT THE DOCTOR HAD MISSED THE REAL DIAGNOSIS BY FAILING TO EVEN LOOK FOR IT!

Back To The Survey

Among those who were determined to have a “real” food allergy, 48 percent reported developing at least one of their allergies in adulthood, while 26.9 percent developed food allergies only in adulthood. The most common foods causing allergies in these adults were shellfish, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, and fish.

Fewer than a half of the people with food allergies (47.5 percent), said they had gotten a diagnosis from a physician, 38.3 percent reported they had been to the emergency room for a life-threatening reaction, while fewer than one quarter (24 percent) said they had a prescription for epinephrine to be used in case of a severe reaction. So the problem is still being negligently under-diagnosed.

The thing that seemed to startle orthodox doctors was that food allergies are being developed in adulthood. Apparently, patients are not supposed to do that! (why? Because doctors haven’t thought of it yet!)

Dr. Gupta herself reported hearing adults saying they used to be able to eat a food like shellfish, but had to give it up because of severe reactions, she was most surprised that among those with food allergies, “almost half reported developing at least one food allergy as an adult. That’s a big number.”

Food allergies haven’t been studied much in adults, so “I think this is a really important article,” said Dr. William Reisacher, director of allergy services at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. “There was definitely a need for a study like this. The results are very compelling. It was thought that maybe four to five percent of adults had food allergies. This is double that.”

No, Dr Reisacher, it was four or five times more than that.

Reisacher was among those surprised at how many people had developed food allergies in adulthood. “It makes you wonder what is happening in adults causing all these allergies,” he said.

Try answering yourself junk food and mass vaccinations, Dr. Reisacher!

The new study “points to the fact that this is not something that receives a lot of attention and it needs to receive more attention,” said Dr. Corinne Keet, an allergy specialist at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore. “We think of food allergies as a childhood disease and clearly there are a lot of adults who have food allergies and their management and treatment may be different from children’s.”

According to this Dr. Keet, “Almost half of the people who thought they had food allergies in this study did not. That’s a lot of people on unnecessary elimination diets that could have consequences in terms of cost, worry and nutritional impact.”

Keet is really wrong. The surveyors said it was ASSUMED that they did not have a legitimate allergy. Their position was that some reported symptoms “suggested” there were other causes. No testing was done to exclude a food allergy in that group of patients. They simply dismissed the reports that didn’t suit their prejudice.

So Keet is talking off the top of her head. Making it up as she goes along. You see how easily and quickly science and facts get twisted and mis-reported.

Just for fun, I tried to find an image of me back in my pioneer heyday! I couldn’t find me doing tests (had one of my nurses). The best I could find was this one, with the original shock of hair!

(circa 1985)

To your health and happiness, as always!

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

SOURCE ARTICLE:

Food Allergies Common in U.S. Adults – Medscape – Jan 04, 2019.

At the 18th International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders, in Stockholm, Sweden (June 8-12, 2014), a very interesting paper was presented showing that a combination of acupuncture and bee venom improved symptoms of patients with Parkinson’s Disease.

It’s a bit of a surprise. Acupuncture has been used for years in Asia to relieve Parkinson’s symptoms—it seems to protect nerve cells like the ones the disease destroys—but it’s not like Western drug-bound science to even cast a glance in its direction. This is a milestone!

Bee venom (Apis mellifica) is another holistic remedy that’s been around for centuries. Homeopaths use it for pain and swellings (because bee venomcauses pain and swelling: like treats like, get it?)

Bee venom also eases inflammation in nerve cells; again, because it causes it. The venom was injected into acupuncture points.

This highly innovative study is one of the first studies ever to test whether acupuncture combined with a remedy like bee-venom can work therapeutically.

In the study, 35 patients with Parkinson’s disease who had been on a stable dose of medication for at least a month were randomly assigned to three groups. One group received only acupuncture, another received bee-venom acupuncture, and the third group received neither. The treatment was repeated twice a week for 8 weeks.

Symptoms improved in those who received bee-venom acupuncture or regular acupuncture. There were no serious side effects in either group. One person who received bee-venom acupuncture complained of itchiness. Those who received no treatment had no change in their symptoms.

How Could It Work?

Many of the symptoms from Parkinson’s develop when brain cells that make the brain chemical dopamine are destroyed. Why this happens isn’t clear.

Researcher Seong-Uk Park, MD, who presented this paper, says acupuncture may help by increasing dopamine levels. Acupuncture may also enhance the effects of the Parkinson’s drug L-dopa and lessen the drug’s side effects, he says. Park is with the Stroke and Neurological Disorders Center, Kyung Hee University Hospital, Gangdong, Seoul, Korea.

The treatment involves injecting bee venom under the skin at an acupuncture point. It’s thought this may help enhance and prolong the effects of stimulation of acupuncture points. “So the mechanism of bee-venom acupuncture might be similar to those of acupuncture. Or there could be another effect due to the bee venom itself,” Park says.

Another expert (who wasn’t too impressed by the study) suggested that bee venom could act like botulinum toxin (the toxin in Botox), causing a temporary paralysis of the muscles. Some Parkinson’s symptoms include muscle spasms that can cause pain and trouble moving. Bee venom may help relax these muscles.

“Acupuncture is quite commonly used for Parkinson’s disease, but hard evidence of benefit is lacking,” this man is reported as saying. Well, he can’t say that now, can he?

The results are promising, but more research is needed before we can draw any firm conclusions, Park says. He says a second study is now under way, and it’s expected to be completed later this year.

^{Reference: Presented at the 18th International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders, Stockholm, Sweden, June 8-12, 2014. The International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society’s.}

PS: I should have said: the bee venom was not a homeopathic preparation, just “neat”.

We now believe that at least some activity we call allergy or intolerance comes, not from the physical substance, but its characteristic coded molecular “signature”. To explain this, let me start by introducing a simple observation – startling, maybe – but quite simple. I have observed it many times, so have other alert open-minded physicians: occasionally a patient may become sick, simply being near or in the presence of their key allergen. This means they did not swallow it, breathe it or touch it in any way whatsoever. It does not mean the patient is neurotic and “afraid of their allergen” or reacting through a Pavlovian conditioned response; it happens even if the patient is unaware of being in the presence of their allergen.

That’s odd. It must mean that the substance is transmitting some kind of signal. If so there would be an energy field and modern physics thinks a lot about fields and their properties. All fields are infinite in size; they may become very faint but if the tomato you are allergic to has a field, it extends to the ends of the universe! This field effect would explain another frequent observation of the allergy doctor, especially those engaged in skin or challenge testing: sometimes the patient will get sick INSTANTLY before any of the substance can have diffused or been transported to the body tissues.

And here is where the up-to-the-minute science comes in, thanks to Professor Jacques Benveniste, the man who set the scientific world alight by showing that diluting a substance even beyond the point where even a single molecule is left, does not stop it having a biological effect (predictably, he was attacked as a fraud since “it couldn’t be true” and therefore he must have cheated in some way). Davenas E, Benveniste J et al. ‘Human basophil degranulation triggered by very dilute antiserum against IgE’, NATURE, 1988, 333: 816-818). Fortunately, several other laboratories have since confirmed what he found (Effects of embryonic bursectomy and in ovo administration of highly diluted bursin on adrenocorticotropic and immune response to chickens. International Journal of Immunotherapy (IX:169-180) 1993, B.J. Youbicier-Simo, F. Boudard, M. Mekaouche, M. Bastide, J.D. Baylé). But by then Benveniste had been hounded out of his top scientific job.

What Benveniste had shown is that the traditional model of biochemistry is flawed. If it doesn’t need the presence of the substance to have an effect, it means the idea of molecule reacting with molecule or the lock-and-key model for “receptor sites” was not strictly correct. Since all of molecular biology is based on these supposed truths and molecular biology at the moment is regarded as the (only) path to the holy grail of understanding nature, it is easy to see why Benveniste was howled out of office. But his turn of fortune may have been lucky for science. He went on to investigate the electromagnetic properties of substances and discovered that each chemical had a unique identifying “signature” that could be copied through a transducer and recorded on a computer hard disc. This may sound weird but to prove his point, Benveniste sent the chemical signals around the world on the Internet, to different laboratories, including top universities. When copied and decoded at the other end, the “digitized” substance had exactly the same effect as the parent substance, though none was present.

For example, acetyl choline was recorded through the transducer and the file shipped off to a distant laboratory. It did not matter if it was sent on a floppy disc or even as an e-mail attachment. When the digital recording was “played back” to guinea pig hearts thousands of miles away, they responded just as they should if acetyl choline had been administered as a physical substance. All this was done with controls and digitized plain water for comparison, using verifiable standard protocols by the way, and has been repeated with many different chemical substances (J. Benveniste, P. Jurgens, J. Aïssa, Digital recording/transmission of the cholinergic signal. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal (10:A1479(abs), 1996). And in case you are wondering, these remarkable findings too have been confirmed by other workers on many other substances (P.C. Endler, W. Pongratz, R. van Wijk, K. Waltl, H. Hilgers, R. Brandmaier, Transmission of hormone information by non-molecular means. FASEB Journal (8:A400(abs) 1995).

From these results Benveniste has constructed a hypothesis which may help us further understand the allergy/intolerance phenomenon. He calls it the “electromagnetic signalling” theory. The key points are:

• it requires only a very weak field to have an effect
• direct contact between molecules is not required
• range is not a problem
• the effect is instant over small distance

QASR

This stands in direct contrast to the standard model, known as QASR for short (Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship), which requires that molecules come into contact and thus there must be sufficient of the chemical present for this to be likely, or even possible. The more is present, the quicker the collisions occur and therefore the faster the chemical reaction (hence: quantitative). This may be fine for chemistry but how relevant is it, really, to biology, where only tiny traces of a substance, such as an enzyme or a hormone, may in fact be present?

Benveniste is quick to point out that this old-fashioned theory requires frequent random collision on a trial-and-error basis at a rate that is statistically virtually impossible. Even the simplest biological event would require a very long time.

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Hans Selye, a Viennese by birth who moved to Canada and practiced medicine in his adopted country, began with the observation that many people ill from different causes had similar symptoms. These were general symptoms, which seemed common to all afflictions, such as pallor, fatigue, loss of appetite, vague pains and a coated tongue. Selye, still a medical student, likened this to the ‘syndrome of being ill’ and he couldn’t’ understand why his teachers didn’t pay more attention to these symptoms: they were obviously important, since everybody got them, no matter the illness.

Selye eventually pursued his interest to the point of describing a mechanism of stress and adaptation that seems to be universal. It is not just applicable to humans but to all life: any organism, any stress – from an amoeba crawling into tainted water to a busy executive having a tough time at board meetings. The stages of ‘adaptation’ to outside stress he called the General Adaptation Syndrome, or GAS for short.

Briefly, stage one is the first encounter, when the body reacts and alarm signals herald the onset of some adversity (a stressor). These signals we know as symptoms: These signals we know as symptoms: pain, discomfort, etc,; some unpleasant response that entails a desire to limit the exposure by escaping from whatever is causing the symptoms.

Avoidance brings the reaction to an end and the symptoms go away. But if the individual does not desist and instead keeps on, eventually he or she might learn to tolerate the stressor and find it doesn’t worry him or her too much. For example, someone moving to a much hotter climate might feel very unwell at first, but with persistence learns to tolerate heat at a level that would have been dangerous to him or her on first arrival. We call this adaptation process stage two.

It might be possible to go on coping with a stressor to which we are adapted for a long time, perhaps indefinitely. But circumstances may come about where there is too much load at one time, or something might cause resistance to run down (a virus infection, too many late nights, intemperate drinking or even the gradual process of ageing). The adaptation is then lost and the stressor begins to produce symptoms once again. This is stage three.

But this time, the consequences are more serious. The individual concerned no longer has any powers of resistance. His or her body has run out of fight and the stress can become overwhelming. This is the stuff of coronary heart disease, perforated ulcers, cancer and strokes. When the effect is less threatening to life, increased allergies can certainly be a possible outcome. If stage two is ‘adaptation’, this stage could be termed maladaptation.

We can illustrate this with an example from an allergy doctors’ experience: If an individual, as a child, is allergic to milk, he or she will experience unpleasant symptoms when ingesting it, such as mood changes, rashes, hyperactivity or whatever (stage one).

If the parents insist that the child must continue to drink milk ‘because it is good for you’, not knowing that is the cause of the condition affecting the youngster, the child may get used it and learn to tolerate it. The rash or other symptoms may even clear up. Doctors often say that a patient can ‘outgrow’ an allergy this way. He or she is now adapted to the milk allergen (stage two).

As the years go by, little of note may be observed; perhaps just the occasional bout of illness or digestive disorder, probably made worse at examination times and other periods of stress. But gradually the clock is running down. That individual’s intolerance of milk is slowly wearing out the body’s resistance. Trouble will inevitably follow.

Either because of ageing or at a specific trigger, the milk allergy will return and symptoms start up all over again. This time it could be asthma, migraine, arthritis or any one of dozens of conditions. The patient may be quite unwell and yet never suspect milk – because he or she has always drunk it and has never had any previous trouble.

In fact patients often become addicted to their allergy food and may find that avoiding it for any period results in unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. This encourages further ingestion of the food; the patient may even feel it ‘does me good’ since it tends to relieve the symptoms. At this stage eating the food ‘masks’ unwanted symptoms; it keeps them at bay. Providing he or she eats the food regularly, ill effects are kept at a minimum. This is what we mean by a masked allergy.

You probably know that milk is often said to soothe stomach ulcers; patients who suffer this complaint are encouraged by their surgeon to drink it in great quantities. It does sometimes appear to work – you now know why!

One other example might serve, and that is smoking. Those who smoke will doubtless remember that their first attempt was accompanied by unpleasant consequences: headache, dizziness and nauseas are not uncommon (stage one). But by persisting, the would-be smoker gets used to tobacco and the symptoms are no longer experienced (stage two). Finally, as the addiction takes hold, the individual will find that unpleasant symptoms come on with a vengeance when going too long without a ‘fix’ for the nicotine craving. This is stage three and one of the hardest of all addictions to break.

Signs of Danger

Selye published a list of warning signs that patients should look for when they are under stress and about to become maladapted to foods and other stressors. It is remarkably similar to the lists that allergy doctors have arrived at, traveling via a different route.

I reproduce them here without any comment:

Now we come to yet another model of health and disease, concerning the way food residues are dealt with by the gut.

It is important to realize that the contents of the bowel are outside the body. If you imagine a piece of string entering at the mouth and emerging from the anus, you will readily see this is true. The defined space of the bowel (or lumen) contains a considerable immunological and toxic burden, including potentially allergenic food residues, waste toxins, food toxins (both natural toxins and artificially added man-made chemicals), bacteria, parasites and free radicals released by many processes taking place. Precisely because of our very intimate entanglement with this space, our bodies need to be protected from these deleterious substances.

There are a number of defense mechanisms which ensure the danger is contained. The lining of the bowel is designed to be impenetrable to this degraded matter and accepts molecules specially chosen for absorption. There is also an important immune defense system right on site in the wall of the intestine, to overwhelm and contain suspect immune material, before it breaks free and enters the circulation. Naturally, at times, this membrane protective layer is overburdened, especially if our lifestyle is abusive, and may let through some of the toxins. These enter the blood in the intestinal network of veins and are then transported to the liver, where detoxification takes place. The liver is our major defense organ, designed to detoxify chemicals before the cleansed blood is allowed to re-enter the normal circulation.

A serious problem can arise once the impenetrability of the gut mucosa is impaired. We call this “leaky gut syndrome” (of course!) and a whole cascade of problems can ensue, giving us yet another model of food allergy/intolerance and toxic overload.

The commonest causes of damage to the gut wall are:

• Viruses
• Bacteria
• Protozoa (amoeba etc)
• Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
• Oxidative damage by active oxygen species

What is supposed to happen is that our food is broken down in to small generic molecules: sugars go to glucose, for instance and proteins to amino acids. But if the digestive process is defective, the food remains considerably unaltered and remains identifiable by its immunological source. In other words “wheat-ness” or “pork-ness” of the food survives. This is then capable of setting up and allergic reaction, to wheat or pork, or whatever culprit is to blame. Even this wouldn’t be a problem, if the larger food molecules would only stay put: in the lumen of the bowel.

Unfortunately, as a result of increased permeability, the larger immunologically-active molecules escape into the blood, set up immune complexes, and wreak havoc. This results in an inflammatory process, which can affect all parts of the body, including the gut. This in turn leads to further loss of integrity of the gut wall and further leakage. Thus food allergy can become a cause of the problem, as well as the result, and a kind of vicious circle is entered.

The liver tries to handle these extra-large molecules and remove absorbed toxins, which should have remained behind in the bowel. When this happens the liver is also overloaded, leading to compromise of the cytochrome p-450 detox system, with resultant escape of toxins, production of excess free radicals and loss of nutritional essentials, such as glutathione and other sulphur-containing amino acids. The liver has to dispose of toxins somewhere and usually this ends up in the bile (most mercury, for example, is excreted into the bile). “Toxic bile” in turn will injure the gut mucosa and a second vicious circle is in progress. Toxic bile is also known to lead to chronic pancreatitis and possible pancreatic cancer (Braganza, J.M., Pancreatic disease: a casualty of hepatic “detoxification”? Lancet, 1983. ii: p. 1000-1002.).

But it is worse. For every toxic molecule excreted in the bile, the liver has given up one molecule of precious glutathione, to create a conjugate. That is what is supposed to happen. But when the conjugate enters the bowel and encounters more toxic bile with active free radicals, these attack the conjugate and release the toxin once more. The glutathione molecule is wasted and the toxin is back on the loose.

You will see at once why a diet rich in antioxidants is really essential in combating the chemical plague of our world. We cannot go on squandering our biological reserve in this way, without facing increased risk of cancer and, of course, accelerating the ageing process.

Table of symptoms which may indicate leaky gut syndrome

1. Chronic fatigue
2. Joint and muscle pains
3. Fevers of unknown origin
4. Food allergy and intolerance
5. Abdominal pain
6. Abdominal distress
7. Variable bowel habit
8. Skin rashes
9. Toxic feelings (“constipated”, “liverish”)
10. Woolly brain syndrome
11. Schizophrenia
12. Poor exercise tolerance
    Beware: with all such lists, there can be more than one cause of these symptoms.

Verifying leaky gut syndrome

A neat and useful model. But is it valid? A test has been developed to establish whether or not the gut is releasing larger molecules than are biologically acceptable. It concerns absorption of two complex sugars, mannitol and lactulose.

Mannitol is a relatively small molecule and should be absorbed, lactulose is larger and should not be absorbed significantly. The patient fasts and both sugars are administered simultaneously.

The information which can be gained is interesting:

• If the absorption of mannitol is low, suspect malabsorption
• If the absorption of lactulose is high, suspect leaky gut
• If both are normal, this suggests healthy gut performance

In fact what is normally measured in the mannitol/lactulose ratio. A recent study published in the Lancet found that the lactulose-mannitol ratio was an accurate predictor of relapse when measured in patients with Crohn’s disease who were clinically in remission (Wyatt, J., et al., Intestinal permeability and the prediction of relapse in Crohn’s disease. Lancet, 1993. 341(8858): p. 1437-9).

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Hypersensitivity (a heightened state of extreme sensitivity) is another word you will hear applied to allergy. There are four distinct types of hypersensitivity: Types I to IV. These divisions are useful for discussion but may not necessarily occur as single entities in an individual.

There is good evidence that Types I and III hypersensitivity can cause food-allergic symptoms, and some evidence that Type III mechanisms can be associated with gut disorders such as colitis. However, it is vital for doctors to appreciate that reactions to food and environmental substances may occur, proven empirically, without any of these mechanisms appearing to be invoked.

Type I Hypersensitivity

Type I reactions are basically antigen-antibody reactions. This is what is usually meant by a classic allergic reaction. Mast cells release chemical mediators such as histamine, bradykinin, anaphylotxin, slow-reacting substance-S and others. This gives rise to severe local inflammation, which may cause bronchospasm (asthma), sneezing (rhinitis), urticaria (or other skin rashes) or diarrhoea and vomiting if the gut is the target organ.

The occurrence of Type I reactions to foods is undisputed. Typical offenders are milk, eggs, fish and nuts, though any food can do it. Reactions normally occur shortly after food ingestion and are usually associated with positive skin prick tests and generally a positive radio allergosorbent test (RAST) to the relevant food (see conventional allergy tests).

Type I reactions are more common in children and have a tendency to disappear as the patient gets older.

Reactions to insect bites and stings are Type I in nature and can be fatal, if severe, though this is rare.

Type II Hypersensitivity (Cytotoxic)

This type of reaction occurs when an antibody is directed against a cell-surface or tissue antigen. Complement activation leads to the generation of inflammatory mediators, with resulting tissue damage. Cytotoxic tests probably rely on this process.

Diseases caused by Type II hypersensitivity include certain haemolytic (cell-destroying) anaemias, purpura (bruising) and systemic lupus erythematosus; it is also usually to blame in incompatible blood transfusions. The infamous Minamata disease (mercury poisoning) was of this type.

Diagnosis is done by detecting serum antibodies. Raised levels of circulating serum anti-bodies are seen in many cases of bowel disorder thought to be due to food sensitivities but, unfortunately, they are also seen in healthy individuals and their role in food allergy seems confusing and unclear.

Type III Hypersensitivity

Type III reactions result from the deposition of antigen/antibody complexes in the tissues. These complexes are commonly produced after eating, and indeed would be expected. Normally they are removed by the reticulo-endothelial system. But if the formation of immune complexes is excessive, the quality of the complex is abnormal or the reticulo-endothelial function is impaired, then this normal process is unworkable and disease results.

Tissue damage occurs as a result of the inflammation surrounding these abnormal deposits. Rheumatoid arthritis is an example deposits. Rheumatoid arthritis is an example of a Type III process, systemic lupus another. These are all types of auto-immune (self-damaging) diseases.

Type IV Hypersensitivity

This is often called the delayed hyper-sensitivity reaction, so-named because of the fact that in skin testing the reaction may not show up for 12 to 48 hours. Antibodies are not involved. Contact dermatitis is one clinical condition caused by this process.

Conventional allergists say this reaction has little to do with food allergy. Clinical ecologists disagree: it quite commonly causes food allergy. Many patients react late after challenge testing. The reason the patients’ reactions are considered irrelevant is that most doctors do not see them (the patients have gone home) and, since some doctors are not in the habit of listening to information from their patients, they miss it!

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By means of chemical language (a sort of local hormone called a lymphokine), the macrophage attracts nearby T-helper lymphocytes. They ‘read’ the antigenic matter and go off to program B-cells to produce antibodies to this pattern. The antibody is our own, the good guys’ response, to lock onto antigen carriers and cripple them.

T-helpers also secrete other lymphokines, which attracts further T-cells, killer cells and boosts the function of the B-cells, resulting in more antibodies against the invader.

Eventually, the enemy is overwhelmed by force majeur.

Two further steps are important. One is the introduction of memory T-cells. This really is the essence of lasting immunity; the cells learn to ‘remember’ the particular antigen involved. When a subsequent infection takes place, they can almost instantly mount the antibody response, without going through the above steps, because they remember the antigen and already have the antibodies ‘on tap’.

Finally, there must be some way of switching off the reaction. This is where the T-suppressor lymphocytes come in. They scale down the whole process and limit further response. Nature doesn’t want this destructive process to go on any longer than necessary.

It is a clever and spectacularly successful system, the detailed complexity of which surpasses our full understanding so far. The main drawback is that the body has to meet the foreign protein (antigen) before it can mobilize its counter-attack (the antibody). In other words, we must be invaded before we can fight back. This may not matter much with an illness like German measles or chicken-pox, but it is a serious inadequacy when it comes to potentially fatal diseases such as smallpox and diphtheria. Basically, those who survive such dangerous infections do so because their immune systems work very fast and start to produce antibodies in the nick of time, just before death supervenes. Those with a slower immune response are not so lucky and will die.

Or at least they used to. Now we can use vaccination to prevent such deaths. We introduce an artificial infection, commonly done by injecting a dead or weakened virus which does not harm the patient, but teaches his or her body to recognize the virus protein and make antibodies. Thus when the real invaders come along the body is ready and can start its counter-offensive by mobilizing antibodies within hours, instead of days, and so beat off the attack.

The frightening new disease AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) destroys T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes so that the body cannot make enough antibodies. The victim, therefore, dies of simple everyday infections which can no longer be resisted in the way in which a healthy individual routinely shrugs them off. Ironically, of course, it means also that the body is hampered in its ability to round on the AIDS virus and so this is a particularly grim infection. The search for a vaccine seems very bleak.

Other Cells which may be involved

The eosinophil is a cell mobilized especially against parasites and allergens. The monocyte is a short-lived circulating phagocyte that differentiates into the macrophage, a cell that may live from months to several years. The macrophages (literally “great gobbler” cells) are the sweep clean army of the immune system, engulfing bacteria, viruses, circulating cell debris and aggregations of immune complexes.

These cells tend to reside in various organ systems, where they selectively differentiate according to the needs of their host organ. For example, macrophages in the liver are celled Küpffer’s cells, and those in the lung are termed alveolar macrophages. The macrophage, like other phagocytes, depends on the generation of free radicals such as peroxide to destroy its target matter.

Mast cells are involved in the histamine response (redness, swelling and itching) that characterizes allergic reactions, such as dermatitis.

Click here to learn more about mast cells and histamine release.

Complement

The complement system is another immune response highway which helps to amplify the efficacy of immune reactions. “Complement” is actually a group of active enzymes which work in a cascade or tumbledown effect; the release of one triggers the next and so on, in sequential fashion. They are generally identified in the laboratory as C1 to C9.

The antigen-antibody complex combines with C1, which in turn acts on C2 and C4. This acts on C3 and son on, in what is called a cascade effect, each step leading to the next. The resultant enzymes act on the invader in a variety of ways and also participate in a local tissue reaction, familiar to us as inflammation. Although this is unpleasant and can be painful, it does serve a purpose in containing the attack.

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Here’s the story: the patient is me (truly, this happened to me yesterday afternoon). I was sitting in a restaurant on the shores of lovely Lake Lucerne (photo), eating a plate with Parma ham and melon salad–a mix of watermelon, canteloupe and honeydew, drizzled with a balsamic dressing. It was delicious.

Suddenly, there came a sharp pain in the side of my cheek. Gosh, I thought, a fish bone spike! Then I realized that was silly; but it could have been a spicule of bone from the ham. I felt it with my tongue and it seemed soft and small.

Nevertheless, the pain rapidly increased until I was forced to borrow a pair of lady’s tweezers from a fellow diner and dash to the restroom.

It was too dark to see much in the toilet so I literally groped blindly with the tweezers inside my mouth and, after a few minutes, got lucky. I pulled something out and the pain lessened a little.

Back outside in the sunshine, I could see a strange object: it was a tiny soft round sac, about 3 mm in diameter, with a little spiky “tail”, another 2.5 – 3 mm long. It reminded me of a small piece of berry fruit with a spike, called a drupe (like in a blackberry).

All was suddenly clear!

YOUR QUESTION: what is the diagnosis? (what was this object?) and what two treatments should you always have with you, for casual emergencies, that would have made this immediately more comfortable for me?

It was a bee sting! The strange object I removed from inside my cheek was the actual sting. That meant it was a bee: the bee loses its sting when it is activated. The bee dies.

But I did not have a bee inside my mouth; trust me! The bee sting arrived on the salad. I called the attention of the management to this unfortunate event and they were profusely apologetic. The boss arrived, very concerned and offered me compensation. I was quite sure at that point that they knew. I think an employee must have swatted the bee hovering over the melon salad, killed it, that pushed out the sting and… lucky me!… I got to swallow it. Most people don’t know that a bee sting is detachable.

But here’s the second part of the question: what two simple remedies should you always have with you, that would have made me more comfortable?

Rescue remedy (Bach flower remedy) and homeopathic Traumeel. Rescue Remedy is great for shock and upset of all kinds; worth taking. Traumeel is an OTC remedy, widely available, designed for traumas of all kinds.

Unfortunately, I had neither with me! Ouch! But if I had, I would have asked for a glass of water, dropped a Traumeel tablet in it and then added 10 drops of Rescue remedy. That’s for sipping slowly over an hour or so. It would have made a big difference. As it was, I had to take the cable car back up the mountain to my apartment, feeling very sore inside my mouth!

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Learning something about the functioning of the immune system is essential to understanding the classic view of allergy. For those of you who want to know a little about this fascinating defense mechanism, take a deep breath and here goes!

First of all, immunity is the ability to fight off unwanted pathogens. There is natural (innate) immunity and acquired (adaptive) immunity. The former has been known about for a long time and relies on non-specific processes taking place within the body designed to repel intruders.

For example, in normal circumstances the skin is impenetrable to nearly all microorganisms and is therefore a very good line of defense. The nasal and respiratory passages have minute hairs (cilia) for their defense: these cilia beat constantly to and fro, sweeping out a stream of mucus to the back of the throat, which in turn washes away bacteria. This mucus, along with other secretions such as tears and saliva, contains lysozyme, a chemical substance that inhibits the growth of bacteria and breaks down their protective coating.

pH (acidity) regulation can also be a crucial factor. For example, the vagina contains malic acid, which keeps the pH too low to be suitable for most organisms to flourish or grow comfortably. Caprylic acid seems to serve the same function in the bowel.

If all these fail there are phagocytes (literally “gobbling cells”) throughout the body to eat up mould spores, dead bacteria, carbon particles and any other rubbish. Phagocytes generate on-board hydrogen peroxide and superoxide anion. These free radicals are lethal to invader cells. But of course they could also damage the phagocyte and high levels of antioxidants must be present to prevent the defender cell from being destroyed by the process (note that this phagocytosis takes place whether or not a fully-fledged immune response is being mounted).

Finally, the inflammatory process itself (reddening, swelling, tissue oedema) has an important function in keeping foreign matter from leaving the site and reaching the rest of the body. Although unpleasant for you, the sufferer, it is nevertheless a very helpful survival process.

All the above processes are common to everyone. They are not dependent upon the exact nature of the invading organism. Hence the term natural or ‘innate’ immunity. Cellular memory is not involved.

Factors Operating in Innate Immunity

• Skin and other physical barriers
• Ciliated epithelium
• Lysozyme in secretion
• PH regulation
• Phagocytosis
• Inflammation containment

The rest of this section concerns itself with responses of the all-important acquired or adaptive type of immunity, since it is disharmony in this mechanism that leads to troublesome allergies and other problems considered in this book. In contrast to innate immunity, acquired immunity is all about cell ‘memory’ – the cells’ ability to recognize an invader that they have net before. In fact there are two aspects to acquired immunity: the cellular response and certain chemical activities that supplement this.

Factors Operating in Acquired Immunity

Humoral

• Antibodies
• Complement cascade
• Opsonins

Cellular

• Macrophages
• Granulocytes
• B-lymphocytes
• T-cells
• Natural killer cells
• Memory cells
• Intercellular messenger chemicals (lymphokines)

Cellular Response

Several groups of cells are involved in a cellular response to ‘invasion’:

1. Phagocytes of various types, that is, cells that eat bacterial and viral particles and other debris. Principal among these are the macrophages – wandering scavengers found in all parts of the body and particularly geared to respond to immune system signals.
2. T-lymphocytes, which have a complex role. Two main types of T-cells are recognized: so-called helper T-cells and suppressor T-cells. Helper cells work with macrophages to generate the immune responses and elicit antibodies that partly paralyze the invader and so help the macrophages lock on to the enemy cells or particles. Suppressor T-cells come into play towards the end of an infection to bring a halt to this process. They effectively terminate the battle with the invaders. Balance between the two types of T-cell helps to keep the reactions orderly and stop them getting too fierce or going on too long.
3. B-lymphocytes, which secrete the anti-bodies
4. Natural killer (NK) cells. As their name implies, they are destroyers – but in a regulated, specific way. They are taught to recognize sick body cells, such as cancerous tissues or cells invaded by viruses, and to puncture and destroy these cells, thus releasing their contents which can then be attacked by antibodies and cleaned up by the macrophages.