Health-Wise:
The Monthly Newsletter of Integrative Health Solutions

Dr. Michael Culp, MA, ND, editor

Is Your Food Making You Sick?

              Published in Capital Doctor, June 2006.

Hippocrates once wisely said, “Let your food be your medicine”. But it would be a mistake for us to think that all food is beneficial for us. Indeed, anything that has the power to heal also has the power to harm, and food is no exception. In my clinical practice,

I have found that sensitivity to specific foods is common in both children and adults. Food sensitivities can play a significant role in digestive disorders like irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease, and colitis; in psychological disorders like depression, anxiety, and hyperactivity; in asthma, eczema, acne, chronic ear infections, and bed wetting. Food sensitivities are often accompanied by constant low energy, dark circles under the eyes, chronic fluid retention, swollen glands, and chronic mucous production. What’s more, by identifying and eliminating the offending foods, most of these conditions will improve significantly.

  It is important to understand that sensitivity to foods extend well beyond food allergies per se. The blood tests on the market to try and identify food sensitivities have never been shown to be reliable. The only way to identify food sensitivities, including allergies is using a 2-step elimination-challenge diet. The main idea of the elimination phase of the diet is to remove most of the foods you eat regularly and to eat foods you don’t consume regularly for a period of two weeks and then begin reintroducing your often-eaten foods to your diet to see if you react to any of them.

 Elimination

The classic Naturopathic elimination diet used to be nothing but lamb and pears for 2 weeks before beginning reintroduction of other foods, but trust me, you get pretty sick of lamb or pears by the end of the 2 weeks! In the 15 years I have been in practice I have almost never seen anyone react to the following list of foods, which makes the elimination phase much less painful. It is very important not to eat any food 2 days in a row but to rotate foods. In other words if you eat lamb one day, do not eat it the following day. For people with digestive disorders, I recommend avoiding all of the foods listed under “starches” for the 2-week elimination phase.

 A few additional rules of thumb:

• Drink only water.

• Use only olive oil.

• Avoid condiments, herbs, and spices, except sea salt. No one should ever use artificial sweeteners.

• No fruit juice, sugar, or other sweets.

It’s only for two weeks, and it gives your gut, your body, and your immune system a chance to rest and recover. Most people start feeling significantly better is a few days and feel great at the end of the two weeks. Some people feel so good that they want to stay on the elimination diet, but the point of this process is not to limit the foods you eat but to expand it. In order to do that, you need to challenge foods, one at a time to see if you react to them.

 Challenge – Reintroducing Foods

After 2 weeks on this restricted elimination diet, re-introduce one food at a time and only one food every other day, while still rotating all other foods. Watch for reactions. They are usually very pronounced and obvious. Typical reactions include immediate fatigue, severe headache, stomach or intestinal pain, a racing pulse, light headedness, a panic attack, etc. Or if you have one of the conditions I listed at the beginning, your symptoms may get dramatically worse. The most commonly reactive foods are wheat, dairy, corn, soy, oranges, eggs, and sugar.

If you have no reaction to a food, you can add it to your list of eatable foods, and you may eat it every other day. However, if you react to any food in any noticeable way, you should avoid that food for at least three months and then challenge again in the same manner. It is rare that you have to give up any food completely and forever, but it does happen occasionally. The point of the elimination-challenge diet is not to restrict the types of foods you eat but to expand your diet to temporarily remove harmful foods and increase the variety of foods which you eat.

Adele Davis perhaps said it best, “You are indeed much more than what you eat, but what you eat can nevertheless help you to become much more than what you are”.

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Are Your Mercury Fillings Damaging Your Health?

Many people ask me if their mercury fillings may be contributing to their health problems. Until recently, it’s been a very difficult question to answer. In fact, the only way to find out for sure has been to remove all your amalgam fillings and see if your health improves: incredibly expensive, time consuming, risky, and effective in maybe 5-10% of patients.

Mercury toxicity can lead to a slew of symptoms like fatigue, irritability, aggressive behaviour, mood changes, depression, memory loss, poor concentration and coordination, hyperactivity, as well as skin rash & hair loss. And it’s not just

mercury. Ten metals are commonly used in dental work, and any of them can cause problems. Many diseases are associated with metal toxicity include chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, multiple chemical sensitivity, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, Crohn’s disease, ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, MS, autism, eczema and psoriasis.

Toxic metals can affect your health is two main ways:

• Direct Toxicity: where the metals have accumulated to such a degree that they impair your health directly by blocking critical enzymes

• Hypersensitivity: where even small amounts of a toxic metal can activate your immune system and stimulate an allergy-like reaction and chronic inflammation
   

At Integrative Health Solutions, we’ve developed a 3-part Comprehensive Toxic Metal Screening Programme using state-of-the-art diagnostic tools to identify those individuals harmed by heavy metal exposure.

• Part I: Comprehensive medical history and HLB Microscopy screening of the blood for evidence of toxic metal burden, chronic inflammation, antioxidant status, thyroid and other hormone imbalances, and leaky gut.

• Part II: a hair mineral analysis that evaluates your total body burden for 12 toxic metals and also your nutritional status for 15 minerals. Learn more at: http://www.gsdl.com/home/images/reportpdf/ToxElemNutrtChart.pdf

• Part III: a Melisa® blood test to diagnose metal hypersensitivity or allergy to toxic metals. Learn more at www.melisa.org

Aesthetic Medicine: Dr. Zulya Maizetova, MD

How you feel and how you look are often closely linked. Many disease processes inside and of course ageing itself can cause changes in your skin and the way you look. But just like your overall health, your skin can look radiant with prevention, protection, and correction. We are pleased to announce an association with Dr. Zulya Maizetova, who is a Russian-trained medical doctor specializing in aesthetic and anti-ageing medicine. She can help you discover a younger, healthier you, naturally. Skin analysis, comprehensive skin care, including rejuvenation, nutritional support, and soft-tissue skin augmentation, and treatment for hair loss are available from Dr. Maizetova in her Chelsea office at 82 Sloane Street; SW1X 9PA. An initial half-hour consultation is only £50 in January and February. Call her office directly to book an appointment at 020-7235-6771. Dr. Maizetova is also spearheading the Body Balancing Programmes. So don’t wait, look great and feel great today.

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