A couple of weeks ago I encountered a patient that had a very unusual condition, an allergy to red meat – any type
of red meat. Even more interesting was that he told me that this allergy came from a tick bite. I had never heard of this before. I went home and checked it out and sure enough, the bite of the Lone star tick can cause this weird condition. The bite injects a particularly odd sugar, called alpha-gal, that triggers an allergic reaction. Within two weeks to three months, this bite causes a true allergic response to meat from any mammal, and sometimes even poultry.
Recently, I was listening to a podcast about keto diets and gut issues when the doctor being interviewed started discussing his food sensitivity to any foods containing high amounts of sulfur. For him, this triggered brain fog and gut issues right away, and joint pain the next day. These two weird and different food sensitivities got me thinking about the hugely diverse sets of food sensitivities that show up in the lives of normal people. Much of the time most people have no idea that their symptoms are the consequence of some food they have eaten. Food is probably the biggest cause of health issues in humans. That might look like immediate reaction symptoms, or it might look like slow, long-developing conditions like
obesity, heart disease, cancer, or dementia. In fact, other than accidents and war, food is the biggest enemy to our health that we have. Even diseases, like our current Covid 19, are basically only killing people that already have one or more other conditions that are basically food caused – metabolic syndrome, dementias, and heart conditions.
I started making a list of food triggers for symptoms, from the obvious to the obscure:
Sugars and simple carbs Diabetes & heart disease
Too much food Obesity & metabolic syndrome
Trans fats Hypertension & atherosclerosis
Saturated fats Immune hyperactivation & inflammation
Polyunsaturated fats Hormonal imbalance
Cured meats Cancer
No fiber Bowel disease/ constipation
Specific fibers IBS, SIBO
Gluten, casein Leaky Gut, neurological disease
Food allergens (IgE) Asthma, anaphylaxis, shock, hives
Food sensitivities (non IgE) almost any symptom
Lectins Autoimmune, diverse symptoms
Salicylates Asthma, hives, GI distress
Histamines Inflammatory reactions
Solamine Arthritis
Sulfur Headache, joint pain
Saponins GI complaints, itching, hives
Tannins Headaches, gut pain
Oxalates Fibromyalgia, kidney stones, death
Sulfites Dizziness, vomiting, hypotension
Glutamate Headache, ADHD increase
Latex Hives
Food additives almost anything
This is only a partial list. Clearly eating is a highly dangerous activity. No wonder I always feel so much better when I fast. Unfortunately, avoiding all eating is not really an option for long term health. Ellen and I just finished a three week modified fast in which we only
consumed certain fibers and avoided almost all protein, fat, and carbohydrates. This was to trigger an extended autophagy period in our bodies in order to clean out junk proteins from our brains and other tissues, which is important for preventing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. It is also good for tightening up loose skin.
But enough of our good times. What are we to do with this huge list of potentially dangerous things that naturally show up in food? If we have no symptoms and look younger than our years, then we probably would do nothing. Only some people have reactions to each of these food chemical families. But if you have mysterious symptoms that your doctor has not been able to pin down the cause for, then food is the most likely culprit. Most of the items on this list have no particular medical test that works to diagnose their impact on us. This list is the result of a hundred years of trial and error. Unfortunately trial and error is still the only real way to test for most of these possible reactions.
Recently I tackled the trial and error process myself for
food reactions. I still have a long way to go as each food needs about three days, at least, to see if it has a symptom reaction. I wrote about my efforts a few months back when I started a carnivore program in which I only ate beef and salt for three weeks. This is the first step in any trial and error food testing. You need a wash-out period of about three weeks to eliminate the effects of any suspect foods. Since all foods are suspect for me, that meant eating a mono-diet (one food) for three weeks. Beef is very unlikely to trigger a reaction for most people. But as the article started today, I had a patient allergic to any red meat. Basically you have to eat only foods that you are fairly certain you don’t react to for three weeks and see if your symptoms resolve. If they do, then you can start trial testing other foods. If your symptoms don’t get better, then you may be reacting to foods that you thought were safe. Virtually any food could be a trigger – any food! Some foods are good only when cooked while others are only okay when eaten raw. Some foods are only a problem when eaten with specific other foods. This stuff is complex. When it comes to food triggers, you have to be a super detective.
Since this is so hard, why would anyone do it? Answer: Because this is often the only answer to the chronic suffering you are going through. Medical science knows this stuff is all real and true, even when they have not yet figured out how it all works. But medical doctors
generally don’t know much medical science. Once you are in the field working, you have no time to spend trying to keep up on what is going on out there in the research world. What you learned in school was already 20 to 30 years out of date as it was. That is how long it takes for medical discoveries to be thoroughly vetted and then included in textbooks. You might find the occasional doctor, that because of a personal interest (meaning trying to solve their own problems), that actually keeps up on the current research in specific areas, but even this is becoming very difficult as so many research papers are being published that are simply fake. So we are left to do the research on our own bodies the old fashioned way – trial and error.
I urge you to look up the various triggers I have listed above and the types of reactions (I listed only a few of the many) each typically produces to see if any sound like they might apply to you. If one or more sounds like it is a match, then the first step would be to avoid the list of foods they say contain that food trigger for a few weeks to see if you get better. Yes, you can have many different food triggers all at the same time. That is what makes this such a detective game.
For me, this is all about the quality of life. I am not a fan of suffering. I don’t like it in anyone, especially myself.
Pain and suffering interfere with the quality of life. Anything I can do to improve my quality of life is a good investment of my time. For many people distraction from pain and suffering is good enough, so pain killers and mood-altering drugs are sufficient. But I don’t like how these things affect my ability to think and feel clear, so I don’t use them. Foods can also mess with my mind and feeling heart, so I try to find the trouble makers and avoid them just like drugs. It is a lot of effort, but for me, it is worth it.
Take care,
David