Healthpharmas. About Health & Medicine

A slightly different kind of problem was presented by Karen Black. She complained, not just of hyperactivity and restlessness, but of headaches, stomachaches, skin rash, and a peculiar “spaced out” feeling in her head much of the time.

Her history provided a good clue: the symptoms became much worse after the family had moved so that she had to travel for a long time to get back and forth from school. In retrospect, this may have been due to an increased exposure to exhaust fumes. She developed stomachaches and an itchy rash under her armpits. A perceptive doctor advised her to stop wearing synthetic garments, and the rash went away, but the stomach problem and other symptoms persisted.

The family moved again, and now Karen developed a headache whenever she rode in the family car. Her teachers complained that she was in a world of her own, and before the end of the fifth grade the family had to remove her from school entirely and seek home instruction for her.

Because there was a strong family history of allergies, Karen was taken to a clinical ecologist. He diagnosed her as allergic to a variety of foods, including apple, chicken, grape, milk, peanuts, and rice, all of which made her feel “spaced out” on the provocative test.

To get a more definitive answer, Karen was referred to me. Upon fasting, she underwent withdrawal symptoms which, as I shall explain more fully below, are typical for those suffering from this syndrome. On the fourth day of the water fast, she felt sick to her stomach and threw up. Soon, however, she felt better—better, in fact, than she had in a long time.

Deliberate test feedings revealed a very serious allergy to cane, chicken, peanuts, corn, grapes and raisins, beef, milk, wheat, lobster, and peas, and lesser reactions to lamb, yeast, apples, and cherries.

Eating these foods would bring on her old symptoms, including periods of anger or tiredness. She complained of being “spacey” and “down,” although this alternated with irritable periods.

Smelling chemicals made her angry, tired, dull, and almost catatonic. Two consecutive meals of commercial foods contaminated with the “normal” amounts of chemicals made her tired, irritable, with episodes of staring vacantly into space.

The testing was quite successful, and Karen was like a new person upon leaving the hospital. Unfortunately, she went back into a house which was ecologically harmful for her. It had brand new carpeting with a foam rubber pad, both of which are often the source of adverse reactions among those with the chemical-susceptibility problem. What is more, the family’s furniture had been put into storage several months before and appeared to have been fumigated—a common practice among storage companies. All of these factors combined to make Karen’s recovery less complete than it could have been.

Hyperactivity and related syndromes are a growing problem in the United States. Rather than dealing with this problem at the level of environmental causation, orthodox medicine prefers to perpetuate the problem through the use of drugs. Of the 750,000 children seen for “minimal brain dysfunction” (another term for hyperactivity) in 1978, 212,000 were put on medication, and about 75 percent of them, or nearly 120,000 on methylphenidate hydrochloride (Ritalin Hydrochloride).

A child psychologist recently complained that labeling a hyperactive child as in need of drugs eliminates the necessity of discovering the underlying problem which is causing his behavior problems. While the psychologist probably had in mind psychological causes, the same can be said, even more emphatically, about the chemical and environmental causes of this disorder.

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In recent years, energy policy has become a prominent topic of debate. What is almost never taken into account is the long-term harmful effects of petrochemical fuels on susceptible individuals.

The odors of various hydrocarbon fuels such as coal, gasoline, and natural gas can be a source of chronic illness for certain people. Prolonged exposure to such odors or even to their undetected fumes can result in a full spectrum of diseases.

Some of the worst practices of the past are now gone. In the old days, for instance, when coal was delivered by chute to the basement of one’s house, kerosene was often sprayed on the coal to control dust. It slowly gave off fumes, contaminating the basement or dwelling.

Today, fuel oil and natural gas have replaced coal and wood in most areas. These can give rise to their own set of problems, however. Old oil tanks, for instance, may leak and give off fumes which are almost imperceptible to those who have lived in the house for a while. With oil, there is always the danger of an overflow while the tanks are being filled. If a basement floor has been flooded with fuel oil, the odor tends to remain for several months or even years, despite the best cleanup efforts. This has caused numerous problems for susceptible individuals; in a few cases they have been forced to abandon their homes entirely.

Most fuel-oil installations, whether furnaces or space heaters, give off a characteristic odor. Although they tend to smell worse when they are actually operating, there may be enough odor coming from them even when they are shut down to cause reactions in highly susceptible patients.

Natural gas is advertised as the “clean fuel.” This may be so from the point of view of visible or smog-producing residues, but for the chemically susceptible individual this gas may be the worst form of fuel.

In the early part of this century, most cities were supplied with artificial gas derived from coal. Especially after World War Two, with the completion of a national gas line network, most cities switched to natural gas. From the point of view of chronic disease, it does not really matter whether artificial or natural gas is used, since both can cause problems for those with the chemical problem. Natural gas, however, is delivered at much higher pressures than the artificial product. This, in turn, can cause a serious problem of leakage if the pipes were originally constructed for the transmission of artificial gas. In Chicago, for instance, joints and turns in the old gas line become potential or actual sources of leakage. Gas, being lighter than air, tends to rise from the basement or kitchen into the rest of the house. The greater the amount of piping and the number of outlets, and the more pilots and other automatic devices on gas appliances, the greater will be the probability of leaks.

Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of this gas problem is the incredible sensitivity of some people to its presence. Merely shutting off a gas range is not enough to bring relief to such patients. The gas stove must be completely removed from the premises. This is because even a non-working range continues to give off odors from the gas which it has absorbed over the years.

In the course of my practice, I have directed almost 3,000 patients to remove their gas kitchen ranges because I found these people to be susceptible to chemical odors and fumes. This decision was not taken lightly or on the basis of blind hunch but after scientific tests, such as those conducted in the Ecology Unit. To date, none of these patients has complained that the changeover was not worth the cost or trouble.

In many cases, in fact, when the range was removed for the benefit of one member of the family, other members of the family also reported an improvement in health. A gas range was removed from the home of one patient, a girl with persistent headaches. Her mother, who was not a patient, reported an unsuspected benefit, however. While cooking with gas, she had often become highly irritable. She would scream at the children or anyone else who came into “her kitchen.” Since she frequently had a kitchen knife in her hand when she started screaming, this frightened the children and created a bad atmosphere at dinnertime. With the removal of the gas range, her temper tantrums quickly subsided. What had appeared to be a potential “mental” problem was solved simply by removing a hidden environmental pollutant.

In cases in which actual removal of the gas range has been impossible, certain halfway measures have proven useful. They have included increased ventilation of the kitchen; installation of a kitchen door, which is kept closed during the time the stove is on, keeping fumes from reaching the rest of the house; or disconnection of the stove, without actual removal. For many people, such measures are beneficial; for the seriously ill, however, there is no substitute for complete removal of the offending appliance.

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If an allergic patient is given a skin-prick test there will be a strong response -known as a wheal-and-flare reaction – almost immediately. This redness and itching subsides after some time, but then a different sort of reaction can set in, producing a larger, less itchy, but more painful lump. This is known as the late-phase reaction, and it is produced by the messenger substances called prostaglandins (see p28).

When a person encounters allergens in everyday life, late-phase reactions are more difficult to discern, especially if there is frequent exposure to the allergen. But such a

reaction can sometimes be observed in asthmatic patients, for example. Brief exposure to their allergen will produce an acute reaction almost immediately, followed by recovery, followed by a more insidious return of the asthma between four and 12 hours after the exposure. The late-phase reaction has usually exhausted itself by the next day.

Late-phase reactions are important, because they probably contribute substantially to the development of ‘chronic’ allergic reactions a long-term condition in which the patient is scarcely ever free of symptoms, although the severity of the symptoms may fluctuate. During late-phase reactions, the affected organ (eg the bronchi or the skin) tends to be more sensitive to non-specific irritants, so the symptoms may be sparked off again very easily, even if the allergen has been removed. A succession of late-phase reactions can easily lead to a situation where the organ is constantly over-reacting to minor irritants.

Certain drugs block late-phase reactions by preventing cell membranes from releasing the phospholipid molecules that would normally be used to make prostaglandins. The drugs that do this are

corticosteroids {eg prednisolone) which mimic the action of hormones produced by the body. The fact that corticosteroids are so useful in controlling asthmatic symptoms shows what an important role late-phase reactions can have in allergic illness.

Corticosteroids are not simply used for allergy treatment – they suppress inflammation generally because prostaglandins are widespread messengers, produced in a variety of ways. They therefore find a use in diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis where inflammation needs to be controlled.

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Viruses are tiny agents that cause infectious disease. They are the smallest known living bodies. They comprise a strip of DNA or RNA encased in a protein coat. They cannot reproduce themselves in the free state and so seek out a living cell to provide them with both the energy and the chemical building blocks needed for reproduction. Viruses are parasites whose protein coat makes contact with the cell wall and injects the strip of DNA or RNA into the cell to float through in its free state. The protein coat eventually drops away from the cell wall. Once inside the cell the DNA heads for the nucleus to try and reorganise its DNA to make the cell’s metabolism conducive to the virus reproduction. In this way the virus acts as an independently existing gene. The viral RNA latches onto the cell’s messenger RNA to try and change the messages it’s giving to the cell’s organelles and so change the cell’s metabolism. Viruses are pirates whose aim is to take over a normal cell, alter its function and take from it what they can.

If the cell is strong and energetic the virus’ effect is minimal— the cell is able to resist it. Control of the cell’s nucleus and messenger RNA is minimal and although the cell is infected little or no harm is done to it. Healthy, energetic people can have many of these silent, unapparent viral infections and be totally unaware of the fact, as no energy is lost and no tissue damage is done. Once the virus has invaded the cell it is there for good and as long as the cell stays strong the virus will not be able to reproduce itself.

If the cell becomes weak the virus is able to gain the upper hand. It gets into the nucleus and changes the genetic instruction to the cell. The cell then yields up energy, proteins and enzymes for the manufacture of millions of more viruses whose numbers swell to the point where there is not enough room for them all. Many of this new generation of viruses emigrate to new susceptible cells where by sheer weight of numbers they have a good chance of taking it over. As this process continues the definitive symptoms of viral infection begin to manifest in the host. These symptoms differ slightly from virus to virus. The wart virus produces warts which look different to the herpes lesion of the herpes virus. The symptoms of polio are different to the symptoms of colds and ‘flu, yet all these are caused by viruses.

Because all viruses rely on the host cell’s energy supplies to live and reproduce they all have one thing in common: they are energy suckers and the more of them there are in your body the more energy they suck from it. Fatigue is a symptom of all viral infections.

Because there are no really effective medicines to kill viruses and because close contact between humans makes it so easy to contract them the secret is to keep the body so strong that there’s enough energy to allow a few to live in your cells without detracting from the, body’s overall energy reserve.

The rules that apply to gaining and maintaining high energy levels are the same rules for fighting off viruses. The following should be maintained:

• adequate nutrition, which these days means a diet supplemented with a complete multi-vitamin and mineral formula;

• adequate fluid intake;

• adequate oxygen intake;

• adequate sleep;

• adequate rest and recreation;

• adequate warmth—an even warm body temperature is imperative for keeping viruses at bay (chilling slows the metabolic rate of cells allowing resident viruses to gain the upper hand; colds aren’t called colds for nothing);

• containment of all allergies and yeast infections.

You’ve achieved adequate rest, sleep, oxygen and fluid intake and nutrition when you’re feeling energetic. Especially when you’re feeling energetic on rising in the morning. You’ve achieved adequate warmth if you’re not catching head colds.

The best treatment for a viral infection is rest and warmth. Rest allows the body to direct all its energies to the task and warmth raises the metabolic rate of the cells, which gives them the heat and energy needed to contain the virus. A balanced diet, comprising three meals a day and supplementary vitamins and minerals, is needed to provide the fuel for the high metabolic rate.

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If you are eating a meat, seafood, poultry, egg or cheese sandwich you have no choice but to eat protein and carbohydrate together. This is not the end of the world. Granted, it’s not the ideal way to eat, but it’s better than going without food If you eat it slowly, masticate it thoroughly and don’t, stuff yourself the sandwich will be reasonably well digested in the small intestine. Although it won’t yield as many nutrients as it would if you ate the protein content first and the carbohydrate bread later, it will still give you enough sustenance to get by on. Don’t be fanatical about food combining. The stress of fanaticism will undo the good of the food combining. So long as the main meal of the day is being properly combined you will get enough nutrients into your body to sustain optimum health.

Histamine is a chemical needed to transmit nerve impulses from one nerve to another. A deficiency means that the metabolism slows and fat accumulates around the hips and thighs. Most cells manufacture histamine by way of a complex interaction between vitamins B12, B3, P (rutin) and folic acid and if there is a deficiency in any of these, histamine cannot be produced. If there is a deficiency in B12 and folic acid the T-lymphocytes function below par—yet another example of the way metabolic imbalance can be responsible for a weight problem, a predisposition to cancer, colds, ‘flu and allergies.

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1. Don’t attempt this program if you are not guaranteed ninety uninterrupted days. Breaking it will enable Nystatin and garlic resistant Candida colonies to grow back. Birthdays, weddings, house guests, business trips, holidays, moving house and home renovations disrupt your routine, causing an unplanned breaking of the diet. Plan these out of your ninety days. This program works best the first time around.

2. Don’t overdo it. Rest is needed for any treatment regime to work, be it antibiotics for pneumonia or a strep throat, acupuncture for headaches or diet for Candida infection. Nothing works without adequate rest.

3. Don’t buy fruit or garden salads ready made from take-away outlets. Invariably they have been sprinkled with MSG or metabisulphite to prevent discolouration and loss of flavour. Often these salads have been made early that morning or even the night before. Be very careful in restaurants for the same reason. Quiz the waiter/waitress.

4. Don’t eat Chinese or Italian food unless the restaurant owner guarantees it’s free of MSG and metabisulphite.

5. Don’t eat sauces and gravies in restaurants—the risk is just too great. Eat only the sauces and gravies recommended in this book. Pre-cooked meals, such as roasts, are usually sprinkled with MSG and metabisulphite—be careful.

6. Don’t eat chips or potato balls in restaurants. They have been delivered in large plastic bags with toxic chemicals to prevent them sticking together and discolouring. Eat only whole or halved fresh potato. Home-made chips are OK, cooked in oil you are not allergic to.

7. Don’t drink any alcohol whatsoever,

8. Don’t take the contraceptive pill for the duration of the program. The program won’t work if you do. Oestrogen replacement therapy for those at the menopause is OK. Progesterone is the hormone that encourages Candida.

9. Don’t use toothpaste. They all contain sugar. Use a mixture of bicarbonate of soda and sea salt crystals. Don’t use your old toothbrush. Buy a new one and hang it up so that it drips dry. Wet toothbrushes grow mould.

10. Don’t do anything to increase the chances of catching a cold or ‘flu while on this program. Antibiotics will send you back to square one.

11. Don’t buy cut meat from the deli—it will have MSG and/or metabisulphite or nitrates on it.

12. Don’t buy frozen, pre-cooked meals, especially Chinese or Italian. They contain MSG and/or metabisulphite. Buy all meats fresh from the butcher and all fruits and vegetables fresh from the greengrocer or supermarket.

13. Don’t take gelatin capsules if you are allergic to beef. Slit them or pull them apart and empty their contents onto a spoon.

14. Don’t eat leftovers. Leftovers grow mould very quickly, even when left in the fridge. Eat only those foods that are cooked or prepared that day. The exception to this rule is frozen food. Leftovers may be put in several small plastic containers (soup, casserole, etc.) and taken out one serve at a time to eat. Cuts off the roast may be wrapped in greaseproof paper and taken out to thaw one serve at a time.

15. Don’t buy unleavened breads from the local baker. Invariably, these breads are made with yeast or from sour dough.

16. Don’t have any tofu or miso—these are fermented foods. Have homous if you like. Add it to any lunch/main meal option.

17. Don’t go on this program until your baby is weaned from your breast (10-12 months)—(a) because of the reduced spectrum of nutrients, and (b) because the kill-off could turn the baby off also.

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You must consume at least 1 x 230 ml (8 oz) glasses of water or juice between the evening meal and going to bed.

You must consume daily the amounts of fluid for your weight shown in the following table. Your metabolism needs these amounts to stay balanced:

Lean body weight

10 st (63 kg) or under 9 glasses

11 st (70 kg) 10 glasses

12 st (76 kg) 11 glasses

13 st (83 kg) 12 glasses

14 st (89 kg) 13 glasses

And so on up to 15 glasses per day. Don’t go over 15 glasses per day as most people over 16-17 st (102-108 kg) have an excess of fat tissue as opposed to muscle tissue. Fat, being a very inert tissue, doesn’t require much fluid. If you are a lean athlete, footballer, weight lifter of 16 st (102 kg) or more, then drink as many glasses over 15 as you need.

These fluid tables are based on a sedentary lifestyle—after each significant physical work-out you must consume an extra 0.5-1 L of fluid. In summer, it would pay to add 1-2 teaspoons of Staminade to that litre of fluid. (Note: An hour’s strenuous physical exercise can cause the loss of at least 1 L of fluid.)

Although the program sets down definite times for drinking, you may need to drink between these times to reach your optimum fluid intake. You can do this by having extra cups of tea or coffee while you are working.

Don’t have more than five cups (and preferably only two or three) of tea or coffee combined per day and don’t drink either of them for at least one hour before and three hours after taking your vitamins and other supplements. The acids in tea, coffee and cocoa interfere with digestion and absorption of vitamins and minerals. It’s best to take a large bottle of water (with glucose if required) or juice with you to work, to sip at while working.

Note: Alcohol and the caffeine in tea, coffee and cocoa has a diuretic effect on the kidneys, causing water to be lost from the body. You must add an extra glass of water to your daily fluid consumption for every three glasses/cups of alcohol/caffeine-containing beverage you consume. These extra glasses are best consumed just before bed.

In summer, raise your sedentary fluid intake to 1 x 230 ml (8 oz) glass for every stone (6.5 kg) in lean body weight. That is, if you are 10 st (63 kg), then you need 10 glasses; list (70 kg), 11 glasses, and so on.

Make sure you get all the fluid into your system through the day. To be drinking up your quota in the evening could mean too many trips to the toilet through the night. Broken sleep negates the energy-raising effect of the Metabolism Balancing Program. Sleep is the most potent of all medicines and is needed to overcome all illnesses including allergies.

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These raise the stress levels. Avoid these:

1. ‘Life, the world and others should provide me with everything I require to be happy, and if it and they don’t, it’s terrible and I can’t stand it.’

2. ‘One should be dependent on others. I must have someone strong to lean on.’

3. Things must go my way. It is terrible, awful and unbearable when they don’t.’

4. ‘People should treat me fairly at all times because I treat all others fairly. If they don’t, they are damnable and should be severely punished.’

5. ‘I must at all times be loved and approved of by all those who are significant in my life.’

6. ‘I must be successful and achieve at all tasks. If I fail, I’m worthless and useless.’

7. ‘All human unhappiness is caused by external events. Humans are victims of circumstance.’

8. ‘I must feel anxious about perceived threats, be they real or imagined. I must ponder the possibility of their occurrence.’

9. ‘It is easier to avoid than face self-responsibility and life difficulties.’

10. ‘I should upset myself over the problems and disturbances of others.’

The words ’should’, ‘ought’ and ‘must’ engender attitudes of inflexibility. They are demands that set us up for a life of frustration which, in time, leads to significant emotional disturbance. The world is impartial and does not respond to the demands of individuals. Substituting the words ‘I prefer’, ‘it would be nice’, ‘I would like’ (preferences), will do away with the emotional disturbance and the raised stress levels caused by ’should’, ‘ought’ and ‘must’.

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There are no medical tests to detect this kind of intolerance. The only method of detection is exclusion dieting, leaving out foods and reintroducing them systematically, while monitoring symptoms. Almost any food can cause intolerance but the most common culprits are also those which often cause allergy. Why this should be so is not understood.

Some people seem to be intolerant to specific groups of foods. Some people do not tolerate proteins (for instance, meat and poultry) but have no problem with other types of food. Other people find, by contrast, that they do not tolerate fruit and vegetables well, but tolerate proteins or grains better.

Most people with food intolerance are sensitive to only one, or a tiny number of foods, and find that their problems can be resolved by avoiding those foods. Sometimes it can be something as simple as leaving out tea, coffee, chocolate, monosodium glutamate, alcohol or sugar. People with multiple food sensitivities often find that totally excluding their main troublemakers helps their overall tolerance level and they react less severely to foods that sometimes upset them. The ‘load factor’ that applies to chemical sensitivity appears to operate with food intolerance as well.

The only treatment for this type of food intolerance is managing your diet with the aim of reducing or totally avoiding the foods upset you. Advice on managing diets is given below. Some people are also helped by high doses of vitamins and minerals, especially if they are also chemically sensitive. Again, why this should be so is not known. Some people respond to neutralisation – a form of desensitisation.

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Reducing your load of common allergens, taking certain precautions with general diet, and limiting your exposure to chemicals can help generally in managing multiple sensitivity, and in preventing further allergies developing if you or your family have the tendency.

House dust mites and moulds both thrive in damp, poorly aired environments. Keep your surroundings as dry, warm, and aired as you are able to help keep them at bay. Ventilate properly and, in particular, keep beds and bedding (which harbour mites and moulds) aired and dry. Dry laundry (and anything else damp) outside the home and avoid creating damp and steam where possible. Gas and paraffin fires, heaters and cookers create damp when burning and it is best either to avoid their use altogether, or to take extra care in ventilating and removing condensation if you do use them.

To remove allergens, and to avoid dispersing them when cleaning, use filters on a vacuum cleaner or a special vacuum cleaner. This helps enormously to protect against all kinds of allergen which are usually blown back into a room by the exhaust. Over time, vacuuming with filters helps to remove allergens already lodged in furniture, flooring and furnishings. Also ‘damp dust’ – do the dusting with a cloth that is slightly damp, so that dust and allergens do not disperse into the air.

Avoid keeping pets and animals if you can. If you do have pets, make sure that they sleep outside the home, if possible. Above all, do not let them sleep on beds or in bedrooms (even during the day).

If you are allergic to pollen or mould spores, take care about going out at seasons when they are present at a high level in the air. Keep windows and doors closed as much as you can during peak periods.

To help prevent food sensitivity, vary your diet and limit the frequency at which you eat the most allergenic repeatedly each day; keep the whole diet full of choice and variety. Eat fresh and wholesome food and keep your use of processed food to a minimum. Sort out your diet properly if you need to, and avoid any foods that clearly upset you – even if you love and crave them. Variety plus avoidance of troublemakers will do more than anything to reduce your tendency to react generally.

Keep your use of any chemicals to the absolute minimum. Think before you use anything on yourself, your home, or at work or school. Do you really need it or is there a less aggressive alternative? Stop smoking and avoid smoky atmospheres. Take care with perfumed products of any kind. Air and wash anything new, and avoid situations or places where chemical fumes are high.

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