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Symptom Assessment, Food Diary and Elimination Diet in Food Intolerance and Allergy - A Primer

March3

Celiac disease, gluten sensitivity, cow’s milk protein sensitivity and other food intolerance may be associated with numerous digestive and non-digestive symptoms. Some of the most common non-digestive symptoms include fatigue or sense of being overly tired, headaches, bone, joint and/or muscle pain, mental fogginess or impaired attention, nerve pain (neuropathy), and painful or severely itchy skin rashes. The most common digestive symptoms include feeling of excess fullness with meals or afterwards, bloating or distended abdomen, diarrhea, excess or foul gas, constipation, heartburn, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

Rating the severity and frequency of common symptoms, in particularly creating and tracking your own individual ‘Top Ten Symptoms’ will be very helpful to you and your doctor, especially when combined with a detailed food-symptom diary. In addition to medical tests like blood work, stool samples, and endoscopic exams, assessing symptoms for severity and frequency before, during and after an elimination diet trial is critical. This helps determine if certain foods are causing or aggravating your symptoms.

The foundation of treating food intolerance usually includes an elimination diet. Prior to an elimination diet, a food diary is usually kept and reviewed for trends by a doctor. In the context of your medical history, symptoms, family history and medical evaluation a medical evaluation is usually recommended that may include blood and stool tests, skin testing for food allergens, and scope examinations of the upper and/or lower digestive tract. Your medical evaluation however could vary widely based your doctor’s experience, specialty, biases about food allergies or intolerance and your history, symptoms and age.

Before seeing a doctor for an evaluation for possible food intolerance or allergy you should establish an initial symptom’s list that includes your baseline rating of the frequency and severity of your symptoms. This should be done before making any change in your diet or eating pattern. A scale of 1-5 or 1-10 is commonly used to rate symptom severity and frequency. Within 2-3 weeks I will be publishing a very inexpensive symptom-food diary. You may try using a spiral notebook to record what you eat and track at least weekly your personal ‘Top Ten’ list of the most common or troubling symptoms by severity and frequency. With a written record, you and your doctor can more easily track your progress and identify any trends.

For 28 days, I recommend you eliminate all grains, legumes, and dairy as well as processed foods. Foods in those categories are the most common foods that cause people problems. In those categories you find the foods that have commonly identified food proteins, lectins, gluten or casein that are known or suspected to cause symptoms. The foundation for the elimination diet is commonly referred to as the paleolithic, neanderthal, hunter-gatherer, caveman or simply Paleo diet as popularized by the health scientist Loren Cordain, Ph.D. in his numerous scientific publications and book The Paleo Diet.

The basis for the initial diet consists of lean meats and fish (unless fish allergic), fresh fruits and vegetables with additional foods eliminated based on your personal history. For example, you eliminate any foods that are specific to you based on any known food allergies, intolerance or suspected food intolerance because of your genetics, family history, presence of nasal, pollen or skin allergies, or prior medical tests. In particular, certain foods are known to cause reactions in some people who have documented allergies to grass, weeds, and/or tree pollens, house dust mite and latex. The latter food sensitivity association is well recognized clinically as the oral allergy syndrome (OAS). The modification of the Paleo diet based on individual assessment I have termed the Neo-Paleo Specific Diet.

4 weeks or 28 days of following your Neo-Paleo Specific Diet is recommended before attempting to re-introduce foods one at a time, every week to two weeks, while continuing to track your symptoms. This allows your gut time to heal and establish a long enough time to establish a pattern of adequate diet elimination and symptom pattern assessment. Theoretically, this should allow those with dietary induced gut injury or irritation associated with any ‘leaky gut’ predisposition to heal adequately to reduce abnormal immune reactions or absorption of foods and/or food derived proteins and gut bacteria. It also may take some time for you to identify hidden sources of possible problem foods and adjust to your new eating pattern.

You should also be aware that some people experience classic withdrawal like symptoms in the first 3-7 days of eliminating certain foods, in particular grains and dairy products. Gluten, in products made from wheat, and casein, in products containing cow’s milk, contain morphine like substances. These can be addictive.

The key to determining if certain foods are contributing to how you feel and the kinds of symptoms you are experiencing, is an adequate trial of elimination combined with accurate recording of what you eat and how you feel. A commitment of 4 weeks strictly eliminating the foods recommended according to your specific assessment while recording accurately what you are eating and how you feel will help you identify patterns and stay motivated to eliminate, restrict or rotate regularly any problem foods.

An online symptom survey is available at http://www.thefooddoc.com Help can also be found reviewing my other articles. Finding a doctor who is experienced in the area of food intolerance increases the likelihood that an undiagnosed food intolerance is not missed.

Dr. Scot Lewey is a physician who is trained and board certified in the specialty of gastroenterology (diseases of the digestive tract) and has a growing practice focused in the area of food intolerances, especially gluten and cow’s milk protein. He is a published researcher and author and founder of an educational website thefooddoc.com - helping people with food intolerances.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dr._Scot_Lewey

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Get Your Omega 3 Essential Fatty Acids With Krill Oil

February26

Omega-3 oils are high in two types of essential fats that your body needs to maintain its good health. These two fats are DHA and EPA. DHA and EPA are very important in maintaining your health. Scientific research has indicated that these substances may also help prevent a variety of very significant and sometimes common but life threatening diseases.

If we lived in a perfect world where we were getting the optimal nutritional benefits that are needed from our diets we would be able to get all the Omega-3s we needed by simply eating fish. However, it is unfortunate that fish oil is weak in antioxidant content. Fish oil is not only weak in antioxidant content but as you try to increase your intake of Omega-3 essential fatty acids by eating more fish or taking oil, you are actually increasing your need for more antioxidant protection.

Besides that there are several other problems when taking fish oil to get the proper amount of Omega 3 fatty acids. For one, fish oil is extremely perishable. To make sure that the fish oil doesn’t become oxidized and rancid antioxidants are necessary. When the fish oils start to oxidize it leads to the formation of more unhealthy free radicals. Researchers and scientists believe that one of the main reasons we age is because of these free radicals.

So, you are left with a cycle that is hard to break. You not only need to get more antioxidants for your health in general, but your will need to increase your intake of antioxidants even more when you use fish oil to get the proper amount of Omega 3 fatty acids.

This cycle has been a problem for most people. However, there is a solution to this problem. The solution begins with a new discovery of Krill oil. Krill oil has not only given us a top-quality alternative to fish oil but it has given us an arsenal of important nutrients that help in fighting the aging process. Important nutrients that have been responsible for helping the Inuits in Greenland stay young and vibrant.

Krill oil is very special marine oil that is exceptionally high in DHA and EPA, a unique food from the sea some may say. Krill oil also has another property that has been know as a secret weapon that is not found in fish oils. This secret weapon explains why it has superior phospholipids, which help deliver the fatty acids directly to your body’s cells. Scientific evidence to date has shown that the safest and most effective carriers of EPA and DHA are these phospholipids.

Phospholipids are the building blocks for your cell membranes and are critical for protecting cell membranes from toxic injury and free radical attacks which allow more EPA and DHA to directly enter the cells and improve your Omega-3 to Omega-6 ratio.

The most principal phospholipids in Krill oil is phosphatidyl chorine which make it a rich source of choline. Various studies have established the importance of choline in brain development especially learning and memory. Chorine is predominantly important for fetal and infant brain development in pregnant and nursing women.

Choline is the predecessor for the vital neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Acetylcholine sends nerve signals to the brain, and also for trimethylglycine which is a recognized liver protector. A shortage of acetylcholine has been associated with brain-related disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and autism.

A product such as Bio-Krill Oil is loaded with phospholipids-backed Omega-3s and it also includes a full complement of necessary antioxidants that are not in cod liver or fish oil.

Steven Johnson is committed to helping people maintain healthy and effective lifestyles. For more information on any other health supplements please visit his website Alternative Health Supplements at http://alternative-health-supplements.com/weight-loss-supplements.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_A_Johnson

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How to Get Super Healthy by Drawing a Real Vitamin

February23

The human race walks a common road but once in awhile there is a revelation so profound that it changes the journey and all observations. It is then not possible to return unaffected and compliant with old beliefs, but begin to embrace a vision of wholeness and balance in all of Nature’s cycles. It is a return to the bounty of what Nature has provided immemorially for total health; thereby, redressing our shopping habits, dinner tables and dietary supplements.

This exercise is guaranteed to make you never look at a vegetable or fruit in the same way again. Nature’s plant foods are intrinsic to our body’s structure and function. As importantly, when we choose our supplements, it is Nature’s whole plants that best meet the needs of the internal pharmacist inside us.

A couple years ago I was walking in similar shoes as most people believing several commonalities. Clearly, there is a direct link between the food we eat and the structure and function of our cells. Clearly, it is wise to eat several servings of fruits and vegetables daily highly recommended by many organizations, but often not substantially followed. Commonly, we understand that modern agricultural and food manufacturing processes have depleted and denutriented our natural plants of many of the essential elements Subsequently, we are informed to do the next best thing …SUPPLEMENT…SUPPLEMENT… SUPPLEMENT

Now there are whole volumes that deal with vitamins, their role in health, best sources and more. But without a lot of training, most of us go to a store and decide to buy but based on what criteria. And on store shelves we are accosted by every kind of fancy labeling, claims, pills, capsules, powders, potions …and for some of us, the cheaper the better buy, right? And once in awhile there appears a new buzzword of something vital for your body, accredited by a doctor or two, and so we have to purchase that, too. Often, to make sure we were getting a full spectrum of essential nutrients, we end up swallowing a handful of pills. Sound familiar? The latest advertising images of various vitamins are shown as brightly colored blocks with human bodies jostling each other to try and rank importance. What insulting balderdash, in my opinion.

But how much do we truly understand what constitutes a vitamin ? Here’s an interesting exercise… Can you draw the elements of a vitamin (in the same way that you can draw the descriptive details of a cat, a dog, an apple or any other basic concrete object) I’ve asked this question many times and am not surprised by the responses. In truth, a couple years ago, I would have responded in like fashion with a simple sketch of a pill or capsule form speckled with dots to show different vitamins. A vitamin is not a dot, or speckle, a pill, a habit or a label. A vitamin cannot be manufactured by the body and must be obtained from our diet (or supplements). A vitamin is a biochemical catalyst for growth, maintenance and reproduction of all cells in the body. It is an integral part of hormones, genes, amino acids, minerals, enzymes and immune components.

We need vitamins and minerals to help fill in the gaps in our modern food supply to benefit from total nutrition and who doesn’t want that. Your choice of dietary supplement is one of the most important choices you can make for long term health for you and your family. The question is which kind of supplement? We better get the right source and validation. Undoubtedly, the most important drawing you’ll ever do is to see the real components of a vitamin. So take a few minutes now and draw what you understand to be a vitamin. Don’t worry about different kinds (B, C, D, A, etc.) because they all have three common features.

Don’t read ahead until you have actually drawn something because you’ll be amazed at the picture of what constitutes a vitamin. It is the revelation that transfigured my perception of what Nature’s provision is all about.

So what are the features of a vitamin?

A vitamin is an organic compound composed of three elements: carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.

Different vitamins have different combinations of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, some more a complex than others. A drawing of a vitamin is a series of Carbon atoms linked with Hydrogen atoms linked with Oxygen atoms…all interconnected. For example, Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) shows a fixed matrix with 2 Carbon molecules, 7 Hydrogen molecules, and 6 Oxygen molecules

You can check out the actual configurations for different vitamins by google searching ‘vitamin structures.’ Some structures are impressively complex which further asks how best to replicate them or keep them as natural forms found in plants already.

Furthermore, an antioxidant is also a series of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen molecules…

A phytonutrient, or natural phytochemical, found in plants is a set of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen molecules…

An amino protein is a combination of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen with a Nitrogen element…

A fatty acid is a long chain combination of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.

Our natural whole plants are also composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen molecules with the extra elements of minerals drawn from the soil. Make sure your mineral supplements also come from plants, not ground up rock or metals that can actually accumulate in the body’s tissues.

A natural question is to find out how many different configurations are found in plant foods. The answer is a second revelation. Fruits and vegetables contain hundreds of nutrients, vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, anti-oxidants, phytochemicals, enzymes, other co -factors and fiber. For example, if an apple is ‘labeled’ correctly there would be over 600 nutritional elements that scientists can identify. Just imagine, if Mother Nature in the spirit of fair advantage, could also label the nutrients found in fruits and vegetables, their lists would be very long and very impressive! A bottle of manufactured supplement pills with 20 or 30 elements could never compare with Mother Nature’s nutritional powerhouses.

This is such a simple revelation in a market of information overload. Dietary supplementation is huge garnering about 17 billion dollars a year. There are least 29,000 supplement products made by at least 500 manufacturers, many with ingredients from the same supplier (some of which are pharmaceutical subsidiaries selling chemically derived, isolated vitamins and minerals). Strangely enough, some forms of chronic diseases have not changed and even increased. In my opinion, in the same way that refined foods are robbed of essential nutrients, so I believe ‘refined’ or processed pill formulations also cause imbalances, especially if taken at high levels over a long time.

This personal revelation finally led to a crossroads…how to best supplement…increase our portions of whole foods, supplement with whole food extracts, or take manufactured pills with ‘fractions’ of natural plants.

In making the decision, a few principles stand strong. First, the body functions properly with proper ‘fuel’ (food) a synergy of at least 100 nutrients. Second, the body is designed to draw nutrients from a natural food supply all working synergistically. Third, be aware that our genetic paleolithic blueprint hasn’t changed and that for thousands of years ‘ethnobotany’ was the basis for healing. Fourth, was the choice to focus preventatively on natural whole foods to treat any prevailing unhealthy condition, rather than on the disease itself hoping for a chemical cure.

I decided to put my faith and trust in omniscient Nature rather than sifting and sorting through a huge number of products made in laboratories on conveyor belts. I decided to align with the natural environment believing that the ‘whole food best treats the whole body’. I chose a whole food supplement that comes from the ocean because of its natural mineral formulation as well as many other vital ingredients, including the essential fatty acids. I can now drink all my essential nutrients as a delicious nectar. Just try and reproduce a bottle of sea water in a laboratory.

Article Source: http://matrixsearches.com

Anne-Marie Berukoff is a certified Nutritional Supplement Distributor. She took early retirement from a 24 year teaching career to pursue her interest in WELLNESS based on using natural whole foods for preventative health. She has compiled two workshops with CD’s and an e-booklet: 101 Reasons to Plug Into Powerful Phytonutrients for Powerful Health. Currently, she is an independent distributor for The Limu Company. She welcomes all questions and comments annemarie7@telus.net1 866 866 3611 www.4healthlimu.com

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Learn the Benefits of Krill Oil

February18

Krill are little shrimp like creatures that are crustaceans. they are on the bottom of the food chain and whales eat them in mass quantities. They have many health benefits to humans when taken as a supplement. They are a rich source of Omega-3 fatty acids and are very easily absorbed into the body. Krill oil has much more nutrients than Fish oil. In Fish oil Omega-3 fatty acids are present as DHA and EPA in triglycerides, where Krill oil they are present as phospholipids. This what makes them so much easier to be absorbed by the body.

Krill oil can reduce the risk of heart attacks as well. It keeps the levels of cholesterol at a healthy level by reducing the amount of bad cholesterol. The anti-inflammatory properties it has are also very good for your cardiovascular health in general and can also lower blood sugar levels too.

There are a lot of antioxidants in Krill oil too. The antioxidant properties of it are 40 times greater than that of Fish oil. Free radicals cause aging, cancer, and other problems. The antioxidant found in Krill Oil is known as Astaxanthin. The antioxidant can protect you from the sun’s damage, cancer, aging, and other health risks.

Astaxanthin is a cartenoid, it belongs to the same family as cartene. It is the stuff that makes carrots orange and it makes Astaxanthin orange too. It is also a better antioxidant than vitamin E as well. Astaxanthin keeps the krill oil from spoiling because of the antioxidants. Keeping the oil in the refrigerator will keep its shelf life longer.

Krill oil can be very helpful for depression and other mood or personality disorders. It has positive effects on the brains function. The Omega-3 acids that are in it are crucial for brain function and because the oil is absorbed so easily it takes just 2 hours to start noticing the positive effects of the oil. It can help with Premenstrual tension and dysmenorrheal and ADHD too because of the great benefits to brain function. It is excellent for memory as well. People with OCD, schizophrenia, and bipolar disease can benefit from it too.

Taking the oil can also help you lose weight. The Omega-3 fatty acids in it stimulate the storage of glucose to be stored in the muscles as glycogen, while at the same time diverting fatty acids away from the fat synthesis and oxidative pathways. It uses them as fuel instead of depositing them as fat.

Alternative Health Supplements offers a product called Krill Oil Rx. A lot of people use this product for the same reasons that a person would use fish oil, flax oil or other omega-3 fatty acids. But unlike fish oil, it does not cause any burping or after taste in the mouth. People can use this product for many things like skin care, inflammation, lowering cholesterol, lowering blood sugar, asthma, menstrual relief, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and gastritis. It will also help you protect your brain, eyes, and nervous system from the damages of free radicals.

Steven Johnson is committed to helping people maintain healthy and effective lifestyles. For more information on any other health supplements please visit his website Alternative Health Supplements at http://www.alternative-health-supplements.com/krill-oil.htm

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_A_Johnson

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A Day in the Life of a Hunter-Gatherer

February15

Ten thousand years ago sounds like a long time, but in terms of how long the human genus has existed (2.5 million years), 10,000 years is a blink of the eye. The lifestyle of todays hunter-gatherers still holds invaluable clues to the exercise and dietary patterns that are built into our genes. The idea of cross training could have been figured out much earlier had we taken notice of clues from hunter-gatherers.

Few modern people have ever experienced what it is like to ‘run with the hunt’. One notable exception is Dr. Kim Hill, an anthropologist at the Arizona State University, who has spent 30 years living with and studying the Ache hunter-gatherers of Paraguay and the Hiwi foragers of Southwestern Venezuela. His description below represents a rare glimpse into the activity that would have been required of us all, were it not for the Agricultural Revolution.

‘The Ache hunted every day of the year if it didnt rainGPS data I collected suggests that about 10 km per day is probably closer to their average distance covered during search. They might cover another 1-2 km per day in very rapid pursuit. Sometimes pursuits can be extremely strenuous and last more than an hour. Ache hunters often take an easy day after any particularly difficult day, and rainfall forces them to take a day or two a week with only an hour or two of exercise. The difficulty of the terrain is really what killed me (ducking under low branches and vines about once every 20 seconds all day long, and climbing over fallen trees, moving through tangled thorns etc.) I was often drenched in sweat within an hour of leaving camp, and usually didnt return for 7-9 hours with not more than 30 minutes rest during the day.’

‘The Hiwi on the other hand only hunted about 2-3 days a week and often told me they wouldnt go out on a particular day because they were tired. Their travel was not as strenuous as among the Ache (they often canoed to the hunt site), and their pursuits were usually shorter. But the Hiwi sometimes did amazing long distance walks that would have really hurt the Ache. They would walk to visit another village maybe 80-100 km away and then stay for only an hour or two before returning. This often included walking all night long as well as during the day.’

What hunter-gatherers had to do in their day-to-day activities is turning out to be good for modern day athletes. When the famous track coach Bill Bowerman advocated the easy/hard concept back in the 60s, it was thought to be both brilliant and revolutionary. Using his system of easy/hard, athletes recovered more easily from hard
workouts
, and their chances of getting injured were reduced.

Similarly, weight
training
combined with swimming was a stunning innovation at Doc Counsilmans world famous swim program in the 1960s. Now, it is a rare world class endurance coach who doesnt advocate cross training to improve performance, increase strength, and reduce injury incidence.

For humans living before the Agricultural Revolution, energy input (food) and energy expenditure (exercise) were directly linked. In the modern world, we have totally obliterated the evolutionary link between exercise and food. When we eat more energy than we expend, we gain weight and our health suffers. Two thirds of all Americans are either overweight or obese. Forty million American have type
2
diabetes
, and cardiovascular disease
is the leading cause of death in the U.S.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-huntergatherer-853993.html