By Dr. Frank Sabatino

Many years ago, a woman came to me after suffering for years with the most intense constellation of allergies I have ever seen. Any food she had ever been exposed to previously in her life, including most chemicals in her known universe, triggered classic allergy symptoms of hives, mucus discharge, blood red eyes, sneezing as well as overwhelming, relentless colitis, chronic joint, body and migraine like head pain.

Her physicians attempted to manage her symptoms with typical antihistamine and anti-inflammatory medication. This was just a temporary fix because meds did not even get close to addressing the underlying causes of her problem. Since it was impossible for her to eat anything that her body was even remotely familiar with,  bizarre dietary recommendations included lion steaks from Africa, snakes from exotic parts of Indonesia, bear meat from who knows where etc. You think your food bill is high. Just imagine her devastated quality of life and the cost of her routine eating plan! 

Under my care, she completed a 30 day water only fast, followed by a restricted plant exclusive diet, after which she was able to eat a wide variety of healthy food and roll around in fields of things that previously drove her crazy.  In fact, the process and detoxification of fasting is one of the most powerful tools for addressing underlying causes involved in the challenging process of allergy and chemical sensitivity.

The body’s immune response is a well orchestrated symphony of defense and protection. This response has evolved to respond  forcefully to things that dangerously threaten the integrity of the body while responding mildly, if at all,  to things that pose a minor threat. However, allergic reactions to food and environmental chemicals are typically exaggerated reactions to fairly non-threatening circumstances. If you have an severe allergy to strawberries, this is not a major threat, but the body is reacting as if it is. Yet, consistent with the fasting experience, it is important to realize  that this process of sensitivity is remarkably affected by a variety of lifestyle and nutritional factors and can change and heal at different stages of your life regardless of how intense it may be at its worst.  

The chemicals in your environment (food, pollen, chemical toxins) provide antigens (mostly protein molecules) that challenge the immune system. This challenge can manifest as several types of hypersensitivity or allergic reactions. Typically, food or environmental antigens activate specific white blood cells (T and B cells) of the adaptive  immune system to promote the production of antigen specific antibodies, immunoglobulin E (IgE). IgE binds to the surface of other white blood cells (mast cells) to release pro-inflammatory agents (cytokines) and histamine that dilate blood vessels, increase blood flow, constrict lung tissue and results in the classic symptoms of acute allergy (sneezing, swollen red itchy eyes, coughing , skin rashes, runny nose etc.).  

There can also be a more delayed sensitivity reaction when antigens promote antigen-antibody and protein complexes on cells or in the circulating blood stream, that recruit and activate a series of helper,  clean-up cells that promote inflammation, swelling,  joint and tissue damage over longer periods of time. These delayed reactions take place days after the initial antigen exposure and play a role in autoimmune and chronic diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, migraine headache, colitis etc. Regardless of the type of reaction, there are several things to consider as factors that affect allergic sensitivity.

Impact of Nutrition and Gut Microbiota

Essentially all dietary antigens are proteins. High animal protein diets, low in fiber and water, are the most difficult to digest and have the greatest potential to provide antigenic protein fragments that promote allergic sensitivity. While more digestible diets high in fruits and vegetables and polyunsaturated fats in omega-3 rich foods including, deep greens, whole grains, legumes, flax and hemp seeds, are associated with the lowest risk of allergic sensitivity. (1) (2) 

Typically, the most common allergenic foods across the human population are milk, eggs, wheat, soy, fish and shellfish, peanuts and tree nuts.(3) In recent years, there has been an alarming increase in affluent Western industrialized nations in the incidence and severity of food allergies and autoimmune diseases that has coincided with dangerous lifestyle changes including refined compromised diets, increased antibiotic use/vaccinations and exposure to an onslaught of environmental toxins like glyphosate.

More importantly, a plant exclusive diet has a significant positive impact on the extensive microbiota of the gut, which plays a major role in modulating our allergic reactions and the function of the immune system. Striking evidence clearly shows that the pathological alteration and destruction of the healthy gut microbiota (dysbiosis) is associated with increased sensitivity to food antigens and stimulates protective pathways that create allergic hypersensitivity. (4) (5) This is not surprising when you consider that the environment of the colon has more immune cells than any other organ in the body and the highest density of bacteria, especially life enhancing commensal organisms, than any environment ever analyzed on planet Earth. (6)

A plant-based diet provides high fiber content that promotes the greatest, healthiest diversity of organisms in the gut. This high fiber input favors genera of organisms (Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, Prevotella) that produce short chain fatty acids (SCFA), butyrate and propionate, which feed and maintain the healthy plush mucous lining of the large intestine and provide innate immune protection. 

Elevated cortisol from chronic stress, alcohol consumption, low fiber refined carbohydrate diets, GMO foods/ glyphosate exposure, and antibiotic use promote dysbiosis that damages the healthy gut flora, increases toxic organisms in the gut, causes a damaged leaky gut lining and promotes antigen entry in the damaged gut. In dysbiosis, the microbiota also promotes the release of a class of proteins (alarmins) from the mucous cells of the colon that increases allergic hypersensitivity in the intestine and throughout the entire body.SCFA have also been demonstrated to have supportive immunogenic activity both locally in the gut and systemically throughout the entire body. (7) Certain supportive commensal bacteria in the gut, induced by high fiber plant intake, increase circulating helper T cells associated with protection against food allergens. (8) In fact, healthy plant food works in cooperation with bacteria derived T cells that can migrate in blood to the small intestine and protect against food allergies while reinforcing a healthy protective environment of the entire intestine. (9)

The Impact of Adrenal Function and Stress

Healthy function of the adrenal glands plays an important role in modulating the histamine release and inflammation that promote allergic hypersensitivity. 

The adrenal glands also release the hormone cortisol and other neurotransmitters that regulate the fight or flight stress response to help you resolve threatening and traumatic situations. Unfortunately, stress for so many people has become chronic and relentless from overwhelming relationship and life concerns. As a result, you are more likely to disengage from present time awareness and get stuck in past traumas and/or anxieties and worries about an insecure future that may or may not occur. This can make you incapable of dealing with the stressful situations at hand.

Chronic stress drives over stimulation of the adrenal glands, and chronic cortisol release that promotes excessive inflammation, dysbiosis, damage to the gut lining and increased sensitivity to toxins and food/environmental antigens. Ultimately, this chronic stimulation creates adrenal fatigue and exhaustion that leads to a dysregulation of the immune, allergenic response. 

All too often you can be overwhelmed by the relentless demands of modern life. As you get exhausted by the stress and pace of your busy life, you often lean on stimulants (coffee, sugar, chocolate, energy drinks) to mask exhaustion and propel yourself through the day. But whatever goes up has to come down with equal and opposite force. So, all stimulants by their nature just reinforce exhaustion and depression. preventing anyone from ever getting any closer to the true causes or resolution of fatigue/exhaustion of the entire body and the adrenal glands. Therefore, participating in stress response management (meditation, yoga, tai-chi, etc.) and eliminating the causes of adrenal exhaustion (sleep deficiency, stimulant abuse, refined junk food diets) are invaluable tools to decrease allergic hypersensitivity.

Protein Digestion, Enzymes and Allergy 

As I mentioned, allergens are basically proteins and protein fragments made up of small chains of amino acids. Therefore, the complete digestion of dietary protein is also important for overall antigen sensitivity in the body. 

When food enters the stomach, certain cells release hydrochloric acid that creates the acid environment required by stomach enzymes which begin the digestion of protein. This acidic environment is carried into the small intestine to promote the action of pancreatic enzymes that complete protein digestion so that individual amino acids, or small blocks of amino acids, can be absorbed in the small intestine. (10) (11) Typically these amino acids and small aggregates are too small to act as food allergens since they can’t be recognized by IgE antibodies. 

Unfortunately, stomach acid secretion decreases with age, alcohol use, chronic stress, long term use of antacids, zinc deficiency and poor dietary choices and can compromise the digestion of protein.  As a result, larger antigenic fragments of protein are available to penetrate the mucous barrier of the intestine to provoke allergy and food sensitivity. This reduction in hydrochloric acid (hypochlorhydria) has been associated with autoimmune diseases and conditions seen as pathological allergic hypersensitivity (gastritis, celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, urticaria). (12) 

A significant number of adults in the US (25-54%) are affected by dyspeptic disorders (gastritis, ulcers, erosions and reflux) and they are often treated with antacid drugs that promote long term suppression of stomach acid. This decreased acidity can promote adverse bacterial overgrowth in the stomach and intestines, as well as interfere with the complete digestion of protein, promoting an increase in food antigens and allergic hypersensitivity. (13) Maintaining a high fiber, plant-based diet, that is free of added salt, oil and sugar, is the most gentle approach for supporting the integrity of the stomach and intestine. It will allow hydrochloric acid producing cells to stay healthy and function at their best while optimizing protein digestion and minimizing allergenic antigen production. 

There are a variety of ways that clinicians evaluate allergies and chemical sensitivities, these include scratch tests, blood tests, resonant frequency tests, pulse diagnosis and kinesiological muscle testing. Every one of these tests has its own shortcomings. But it is important to realize that allergies and chemical sensitivities can come and go inexplicably at various times in your lifetime. And while doctors can manage the symptoms of allergies with a variety of drugs, that have their own adverse effects, they typically do not resolve the lifestyle choices and environmental factors that are often causing allergic sensitivity.You can also reduce the severity of symptoms and discomfort of allergies by eliminating offending foods and substances for extended periods of time with eliminating diets and avoidance. And while this might have some value, it also does not address the underlying causes of the problem. Simply because in most cases the food is not your problem; you are. As you adopt a more holistic approach; improving factors of nutrition, gut health, stress, hormonal and digestive function, and even incorporating healthy supportive interventions like water only fasting, you will be amazed how you handle and tolerate foods and chemicals that previously elicited debilitating allergic sensitivity, thereby eliminating allergic symptoms at their root cause and dramatically improving your quality of life.

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