The Goods

As part of my goal to provide satisfying alternatives to inflammatory foods, a new series in this blog titled The Goods, will provide recipes, tips, and recommendations for maintaining a low-inflammatory diet.

Elimination Diet

An elimination diet, modifying food habits with the sole purpose of identifying foods that trigger symptoms of inflammation (headaches, night sweats, blurry eyes, brain fog, fatigue, etc), was one of the most significant elements of my road to health.  My elimination diet trial phase lasted the better part of 8 years due to my experiments.  However, an elimination diet need not take nearly that long.  Below is a summary of lessons learned and a suggested starting point for a comprehensive elimination diet.  The results should help you to understand what foods your body reacts poorly to so that you can make intelligent decisions on when to indulge in those foods.

WHERE TO START

Eliminating Food-Born Inflammation

From my research and experience, reactions to food are specific to the individual and can include a very broad list of foods.  There are a number of recommended low-inflammation diets with conflicting lists of foods to include.  In fact, one weekend I saw two programs on PBS with conflicting low-inflammation diet information.  So where do you start?  The simple answer is with the most common food allergens.  I recommend three lists of common food allergens to start your elimination diet:  (1) a list of comment allergens – modified from the FDA list, (2) common allergens known or suspected in alternative medical communities as irritants, (3) your unique identified list of possible food irritants.   

Modified Food & Drug Administration (FDA) List of Common Food Allergens

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires food manufacturers to list the eight most common ingredients that trigger food allergies.  These foods are (1) Milk, (2) Eggs, (3) Peanuts, (4) Tree Nuts (e.g. almonds, cashews, walnuts), (5) Fish (e.g. bass, cod, flounder), (6) Shellfish (e.g. crab, lobster, shrimp), (7) Soy, and (8) Wheat.  The items in these foods that the body reacts with are often the proteins.  For example, in milk two proteins are known allergens, lactose and casein, and in wheat the protein is gluten – a wonderful.  Therefore, the FDA list is recommended to be expanded to the following categories: 

1. Dairy (e.g. milk, cheese, cream, butter)
2. Eggs
3. Peanuts 
4. Tree Nuts 
5. Fish
6. Shellfish
7. Soy
8. Gluten (Wheat, Barley, Rye, and non GF-Certified Oats)

Allergens Known or Suspected in Alternative (and Non-Mainstream Western) Medical Communities as Irritants

Diet is often overlooked by western doctors but is one of the first items looked at by a number of practitioners of alternative medicine.  The following is a partial list of foods known or suspected of being inflammatory by alternative medical communities.

1. Alcohol
2. Corn
3. Sulfates & Sulfites (Often used as preservatives in Wines)
4. Nitrates & Nitrites (Often used as preservatives in bacon, coldcuts, etc.)
5. Nightshades (Tomatoes, Potatoes, Chilies, Eggplant, Tomatillos, etc.)
6. Refined Sugars (Read Grain Brain by Dr. David Perlmutter)
7. Grains (Read Grain Brain by Dr. David Perlmutter)
8. Caffeine (Coffee, Chocolate, Teas)
9. Genetically Modified Foods – those approved for use in US designated as such.

o   Alfalfa (US)

o   Argentine Canola (US)

o   Beans

o   Carnation

o   Chicory (US)

o   Cotton (US)

o   Creeping Bentgrass (US)

o   Eggplant

o   Flax (US)

o   Maize, i.e. corn (US)

o   Melon (US)

o   Papaya (US)

o   Petunia

o   Plum (US)

o   Polish Canola

o   Poplar

o   Potato (US)

o   Rice (US)

o   Rose (US)

o   Soybean (US)

o   Squash (US)

o   Sugar Beet (US)

o   Sugarcane

o   Sweet Pepper

o   Tobacco (US)

o   Tomato (US)

o   Wheat (US)

Your Unique List of Food Items

During my experiments, at various times, I suspected a number of foods that were on and off the list based on daily fluctuations.  Below is a sampling of my list (though only to give you a sense of how diverse a list can be).

1. Coconut
2. Citrus (Lemons, Oranges, Grapefruit)
3. Beets 
4. Swiss Chard

EXECUTION

Execution of an elimination diet is the most difficult aspect.  The starting point for this diet is usually as restrictive as you are able to accommodate.  If you think it will be too difficult to eliminate everything on the above list, I recommend starting with the minimum restrictions.

• All items on the modified FDA list;
• Corn, Nightshades, and Genetically Modified Foods from the alternative list; and
• Items that you have previously identified as inflammatory for yourself.

*Note that this is not a restrictive diet, meaning you can eat as much as you want of foods that you have determined are safe.

Stick to the following regimen:

1.      Stick to the initial elimination diet for a minimum of two weeks and benchmark your health issues to see if they are getting better, worse, or staying the same. 

2.      If after two weeks your health is worse or the same…

a.       Attempt to make correlations between the remaining foods you are still consuming and ongoing symptoms (for example, if you feel great in the morning and then feel horrible in the afternoon, look at the food items consumed at lunch to draw conclusions on if a particular food item is still affecting you.  If you identify additional food items during this process, eliminate them from your diet and continue to track your progress.  Repeat this process of reviewing and eliminating foods for as many iterations as you continue to positively identify foods that cause inflammation.  Keep a list of all foods that you identify during this period.

3.      If after two weeks your health is better or after you have identified all foods that cause you irritation in Step 2a above…

a.       Start to reintroduce one food at a time that was initially excluded from the diet.  Consume this new food daily for the following 1 – 3 days, charting any aggravated symptoms during that time period.  If your symptoms increase in number, intensity, or frequency during this food reintroduction, exclude it from your list.

   

4.      Once all foods that you aggravate your symptoms have been identified and eliminated, the remaining list of good foods is your optimal diet for health. 

The Alternative Road - Diet

One of the major elements that has helped to manage my chronic illness is diet.  I began dieting back in 2006, when my father (also a physician) suggested that I might have Celiac Disease.  After eliminating gluten from my diet, I felt noticeable improvement but not complete relief - so my experiments with diet expanded.  After eight years, I have come to the conclusion that two specific diet modifications are worthy of attention for anyone traveling the alternative road.  The first modification entails eliminating any foods that caused inflammatory symptoms.  The second modification entails increasing the consumption of foods known to help the body deal with inflammation.      

REDUCING INFLAMMATION

Since 2006, I have dabbled in a number of fad diets and food restrictions. The fad diets included a Paleo Diet, a Vegan Diet, a Vegetarian Diet, a Raw Foods Diet, a Candida Diet, and the Grain Brain Diet.  Each of these diets have merit.  However, none of these diets eliminated all of the foods that I now consider inflammatory - in fact most of these diets emphasized many of the foods that I consider inflammatory.

The most useful tool in reducing inflammatory foods was a series of food restrictions that can be adequately described as an elimination diet - a modification of food habits with the intent of identifying foods that trigger inflammatory symptoms (headaches, night sweats, blurry eyes, brain fog, fatigue, etc.).  My elimination diet took eight years to develop, partly because I did not have a template to follow and partly because I didn't want to give up foods that I enjoyed eating.  It took years of ill-health to steer me away from some of my beloved foods.  Ultimately, my decision to minimize exposure to inflammatory foods opened my eyes to a world of food alternatives that are just as satisfying. 

INCREASING FOODS THAT FIGHT INFLAMMATION

To function properly, the human body needs vitamins, minerals, enzymes, fiber, and other items historically provided by food.  However, the modern western diet is largely a high-calorie, low nutrient diet, potentially resulting in nutrient and vitamin deficiency.  For thirty years, I was guilty of consuming many more simple carbohydrates and sugars than high nutrient foods like whole fruits and vegetables.  The result was a body ill-equipped to deal with inflammation.  Increasing consumption of whole fruits and vegetables is recommended by virtually every health care professional that I consulted with on my road.  And though I personally was unable to attribute specific improvement of symptoms to this modification, I do believe that my general level of health (energy level and ability to focus) improved as a result.          

IF YOU ARE SUFFERING

If you are suffering from symptoms that are attributed to inflammation (including headaches, night sweats, blurry eyes, brain fog, fatigue, etc.), I can't more highly recommend trying an elimination diet and increasing your consumption of whole fruits and vegetables.  Specifically, if you have any autoimmune disease (or symptoms that correlate to an autoimmune disease), I am confident that this diet will help alleviate some of the symptoms.  And I also believe (largely through anecdotal evidence - though in the case of neurological and heart disease there is scientific evidence) that this diet has the potential to help those suffering from other ailments that currently do not have a cure through western medicine including but not limited to Autism, Alzheimer, Dementia, ALS, Cancer, heart disease, and obesity.  I do not intend to imply diet can cure these items, only help alleviate some of the symptoms. I will provide guidance in a future post for those considering an elimination diet; and I will provide recipes and recommendations of resources in a series of future posts to help you feel satisfied while on the diet and beyond.

WHAT THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY SAYS

Sjogren's Syndrome Foundation

 

Oxygen Therapy - A Plausible Theory (Part I)

The shortened story goes like this...  A number of years ago I started to research hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) during discussions with Dr. Kurisu regarding natural treatments for herniated or bulging disks.  In HBOT, a patient is placed inside of a container that is pressurized with air that has a much higher oxygen concentration than normal air (normal air is mostly nitrogen, approx. 78%, and oxygen, approx. 21%, with the remaining percent going to various other gasses).  To be clear, Dr. Kurisu recommended swimming or sitting in Jacuzzis (a therapy that reduced the pressure on the ailing disk thanks to the buoyancy effect of water), not HBOT.  I made the connection between the buoyancy of water and the buoyancy of pressurized air in HBOT.  My research at the time was not particularly interested in the oxygen aspect and resulted in the following conclusions: (1) HBOT was not covered by insurance for back injuries, (2) HBOT would be expensive out of pocket, (3) there was significant risk to health if not done properly (e.g. wrong pressure, wrong oxygen content, etc.).  With those hurdles, I put HBOT out of my mind.

In the intervening years, the oxygen aspect of HBOT flickered in my thoughts as something that might help correct whatever was ailing me - though it was a dim thought.  I knew that oxygen was prescribed to those with certain medical conditions and that oxygen bars were popping up in certain cities as the latest craze, but testing out an oxygen therapy on my own condition didn't take hold until I met a colleague for lunch a few months ago at the Seaside Market in Encinitas.  Instead of talking shop, as I had intended, we chatted illness and therapy, as his wife had recently been diagnosed with a mitochondrial disease.  "Your symptoms sound strikingly similar to mitochondrial disease," John (pseudonym) told me. 

The mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cells - they create the energy that the body uses to function.  Energy is produced in one of two ways: (1) aerobically - with oxygen and (2) anaerobically - without oxygen.  In mitochondrial disease, the mitochondria are unable to absorb enough oxygen to maintain aerobic energy production, resulting in the body moving much more quickly into anaerobic energy production.  The result of moving into anaerobic energy production is fatigue.

The theory that my fatigue was caused due to oxygen deficiencies in the cells was fascinating.  I immediately started looking for more information.  I found the following two blog posts (the titles say it all) by Cort Johnson:

Poor Oxygen Uptake May Be at the Core of the Exercise Problems in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Are Oxygen Starved Tissues Causing Pain and Fatigue in Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS)?

These blog posts review current medical studies that suggest that oxygen deficiency may be a cause for both the pain associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrom and Fibromyalgia and a particular symptom of exercise-induced fatigue - a symptom that I was thoroughly familiar with (see blog post - The Depths of Illness - Exercise-Induced Fatigue).  The Cort Johnson blogs, though fascinating, offered little in the way of treatment and/or therapy outside of a few drugs (that may or may not work if you can get your doctor to prescribe them).  

The notion that oxygen deficiency leading to anaerobic energy production and fatigue matched my experiences too closely to ignore.  Uninterested in pursuing the suggested drugs, I wanted to know if any alternative therapies could help - the leading suspect, oxygen therapy (any therapy that would supersaturate my body with oxygen).  A brief mention of oxygen therapy in the comments section of one of these blogs noted that anecdotal evidence showed that oxygen therapy was helpful for some people but not for others.  More hours of internet research confirmed the same sentiment - all anecdotal evidence, all inconclusive.  However, oxygen therapy sounded both promising and plausible - almost without hesitation, I decided to give it a try...  

Click the links below to read other posts in the Oxygen Therapy Series:

Oxygen Therapy - A Plausible Theory (Part I)
Oxygen Therapy - Finding an Oxygen Source (Part II)
Oxygen Therapy - Trials and Tribulations (Part III)
Oxygen Therapy - Massaging the Truth (Part IV)
Oxygen Therapy - Cardio for a Day (Part V)
Oxygen Therapy - Strength Training (Part VI)

The Causes of Chronic Illness

Identifying meaningful alternative methods to health would not have been possible without theorizing on the causes of chronic illness and/or the symptoms of chronic illness.  To that effect, a new series in this blog titled The Causes of Chronic Illness, will chronicle suspects that may have the potential to cause or contribute to chronic illness or the symptoms caused by chronic illness.

The Alternative Road

During my experimentation with various healing therapies, I have kept in contact with licensed medical professionals - not for guidance on what therapies to try but for guidance on if a therapy that I'm thinking about trying has the potential to do harm.

With this in mind, a new series in this blog titled The Alternative Road, will identify the alternative means to health that I have found useful or that I believe are worthwhile for those looking for help beyond Western Medicine.  I will attempt to explain why each alternative means might work and what symptoms they might help alleviate.  Several, if not all of these therapies, have advocates in Western Medicine - though they are not mainstream and not known or practiced by the majority of western doctors.

Before trying any of these therapies, see your doctor first - not to seek her blessing, just to make sure you do not have a contraindication (a condition that would adversely react with the particular therapy). 

Fruitful Absence

I've been away from this blog for a long time. A new house, major renovations, the birth of two kids, and a new business left little time for writing. My lack of significant progress toward explaining my illness and/or healing from it left little inspiration. However I continued to experiment, explore, and evolve my thoughts in that time. My absence, though not intentional, has been fruitful - the results worth sharing. Five years ago, when I began looking for an alternative road to health, I had not a clue what it looked like. Now, however, I have a much better idea...