How Toxins Affect Your Health – Allergies

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Tony, a businessman, was in good control of his health. He practiced yoga and exercised regularly, ate at good restaurants when he went out, and cooked with high-quality organic ingredients. But in the three years since turning forty, he’d noticed a dip in his energy. He was get­ting more headaches than in his younger days. His body wasn’t as lean as he’d expected from all his yoga; he had love handles that wouldn’t leave. The most pronounced change was seasonal allergies that got worse each year. They were now so bad he had to take prescription medication. He had heard that allergies were getting worse in today’s “dirtier” environment. He hoped a detox might help his problem and get him off the medication.

On questioning Tony more closely about his lifestyle, I found out that he ate bread and pasta frequently and loved ice cream. I explained that his diet, more than the dirty environment he lived in, was prob­ably the primary cause of his problem. Wheat is a classic trigger of allergic responses. So are dairy products and refined sugars. They irri­tate and erode the intestinal walls, resulting in a “leaky gut,” the origin of inadequate allergic responses. Intestinal dysbiosis also contributes to exaggerated allergic responses. I suggested he follow an elimination diet for a couple of weeks, cutting out those sweet, milky foods along with the wheat, which would allow any leaks in the intestinal wall to heal. Then I recommended a three-week cleanse to restore a healthy intestinal environment by repopulating it with good bacteria.

Tony followed the instructions with the dedication of a true yogi, though his first week without ice cream he said was horrible. After three weeks he reported with some shock that he’d lost twenty-two pounds. He simply did not understand where those pounds had come from, as he had never considered himself overweight. He was leaner, though not overly thin, with the same good muscle tone and shape from his yoga. His love handles had almost entirely disappeared, and his skin was taut and firm. He also reported having the energy he’d had at age twenty. But the most important change revealed itself over the year that followed. He did not have seasonal allergies at all. Removing the root cause of the allergy, the damaged intestinal wall that keeps the gut-associated lymphatic tissue (GALT) overstimulated, had allowed for true healing to happen. Not only had the accumulated mucus been removed; his intestinal wall had started to heal.

Allergies are one of the most common symptoms of toxicity. But detecting the cause isn’t as easy as staying away from the things that make you sneeze. Allergic responses to food don’t necessarily play out in an obvious cause-and-effect way, like drinking milk and immedi­ately getting hives or a stomach cramp. They can be delayed by hours, expressing themselves as diarrhea or headaches later in the day. Or sometimes the thing that seems to trigger the attack is only the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” as it was for Tony. The true cause of his problem was the irritating foods and toxic chemicals that caused a leaky gut and kept his immune system on heightened alert mode throughout the year, not simply the pollen he breathed in at the change of seasons, which tipped his system into crisis. A cursory look at the problem of allergies often leads to an incorrectly identified source. Trying to avoid trees and plants would not have cured Tony—likely some other trigger would have become the instigator of itchy eyes and nose.

As Tony learned, if the intestinal wall is intact and the good flora alive, the gut-associated lymphatic tissue is awake, but calm. If the intestinal wall is damaged, it is hyperactive and ready to cause havoc, even when the allergen makes contact with the interior of the body at a far-off point, like pollen inhaled in through the airway. The body picks up the message that invaders have arrived and initiates a defense response, forming mucus and calling your attention through itchiness. Removing the most common irritating foods from the diet during the Detoxification program is the first step to restoring order in the body and pre­venting allergies. But because ice cream, wheat, or whatever food item is the true cause of the problem seems unconnected to the sneezing, eliminating foods from the diet is not always the obvious step to take. Years go by and we are still eating irritating foods while suffering symp­toms that we are convinced are triggered by anything but food.

Each of us has our own constitutional weakness that is affected by a problem in the intestines. Tony didn’t have any symptoms of constipa­tion or bloating, yet his damaged intestinal environment manifested in the area of his weakness—nasal and bronchial irritation. Others might be doubled over with belly cramps from excess gas, while still others experience the downward dip of exhaustion or foggy brain.