At one end of the scale, some people can eat any food, in any volume or combination, at any time of day or night, and remain totally symptom free and healthy throughout the whole of their lives. Their immune system is totally in control, neutralising unwanted toxic chemicals, supporting the cells of the gastrointestinal tract to uptake nutrients, and working along with the liver, kidneys and lymph system to efficiently detoxify their body. These are the lucky people who can indulge in eating as they wish…and for most we can do this when we are young!
At the other end of the scale are those who have to restrict almost all foods. They respond with inappropriate immune responses to both the natural and man-made toxins in foods and their liver and kidneys have difficulty detoxifying these. In order to have symptom-free health, they need to uncover and understand any connection that may be occurring between certain foods and their symptoms. They then have a choice to eliminate these foods or simply treat their symptoms. It is easier to find this connection if a food causes a quick and obvious immune response such as a Type-1 allergy. It is much more difficult to connect the interaction when there are long delays (even up to 10 days) between eating a food and the triggering of symptoms. These long delays usually occur with autoimmune disease responses to foods.
In the case of the autoimmune response known as coeliac disease, while nearly 50 per cent of Australians carry the gene that can trigger coeliac disease, fewer than 4 per cent ever suffer the inappropriate immune response to the plant toxin known as gluten. Most with the gene live their whole lives eating gluten and suffer absolutely no symptoms. Emotional stress, a virulent infection, or injury are the main causes that trigger the gene response—which is irreversible and leads to a life of pain and premature death if the person continues to expose their immune system to gluten. For coeliacs to remain healthy they need to totally remove all grain-derived foods with gluten (less than 10 parts per million) from their diets for the rest of their lives. They can however, still eat rice and corn-derived products which contain other agglutenins, but not gluten. If their immune system deteriorates further, these agglutenins and other defence chemicals in rice and corn will also trigger symptoms. This happens in the other grain-related diseases such as gluten intolerance syndrome, the atypical coeliac diseases and the so-called pseudocoeliac diseases.
As you age, your immune system tends to lose communication efficiency between its immune cells, and between immune cells and normal body cells. It then becomes less efficient at recognising and isolating the broader array of natural toxic plant defence chemicals that occur in nightshades, legumes, certain fruits, seeds and nuts. In order to stay healthy as you age, you may need to restrict more and more plants in your diet and/or cook them more to help denature these harmful chemicals. You may have noticed how some older people often ‘overcook’ their vegetables to make them easier to digest.
Through the results of more than 10,000 case studies involving the Immunocompromised Diet Protocol, I have found that as a person’s immune system loses efficiency, they will maintain better health if they eat more flesh foods and less plant foods, particularly grains. This largely goes against the belief that a healthy diet should include a variety of fruit, vegetables and grains. (Note however, the exceptions are the rare allergy reactions to particular meat proteins. Flesh foods can also become more difficult to digest for some people as they age, if their stomach, liver, intestinal and pancreatic enzyme production reduces).
The key to remember is that we are all individuals and while ‘blanket’ advice may suggest eating a balanced diet including plenty of fresh veggies and cereals, while you are totally well, that is fine. However, if you are suffering with symptoms of ill health you must ask the question – why? Something is triggering your immune system to malfunction. If the symptoms are chronic the likelihood is, it’s something in your lifestyle…from emotional stress to the foods you are eating and many factors besides…All clients commence our Programs with an Immune & Organ Mapping to help identify these triggers and then we work with you to narrow the triggers down so you can reverse your symptoms and avoid the triggers to keep the symptoms at bay.
If you feel like you are doing ‘all the right things’ but getting no relief contact us today or call on 0421 889 164 – we will talk you through our approach and how we help you uncover and treat the root causes.
Why a Coeliac Becomes a Coeliac.
