Laurent Bannock MS CISSN

Clinical & Sports Nutritionist

www.LaurentBannock.com

"Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food." More than 24 centuries ago, it was Hippocrates who first identified that 'We are what we eat'. Little did he know that this philosophy would never ring more true than in today's society, where our diets and lifestyles have become inextricably interwoven with the state of our health.

And as medical experts start, like Hippocrates, to take a more holistic view of illness and its causes, more and more attention is being turned toward the adverse effect of our modern diet. What is the problem? The food we eat has changed a great deal since Hippocrates' time. There are more exotic foods in our diet, new additives and new and advanced methods of containing and preserving foods.

But how does the food we eat affect our bodies? Why are some diseases on the increase and affecting both our children and ourselves? We all know our bodies are our most precious assets, yet how much do we know about what we are eating and how it affects us as individuals?

A large number of us have a hidden sensitivity or intolerance, or even an allergy to different foods. This can cause many potential problems. The most common symptoms (which may often take a long time to build up) include: Eczema ... Irritable Bowel Syndrome .... Migraines ....Hives ....Rhinitis .....General lethargy ....Fluid retention ....Asthma .... Arthritis ...Aches and pains ....Childhood hyperactivity

What Are Food Allergies and Food Intolerance? Adverse reactions to foods have been recognized for thousands of years; "What is food to one man may be fierce poison to another". (Lucretius, circa 75 BC)
The term 'allergy' is derived from two Greek words which mean "altered reactivity". That is, an allergy is an adverse reaction to a normally harmless substance which may be a food or other environmental agent such as dusts, pollens or chemicals.

The difference between Allergy and Intolerance

ALLERGY is used to describe those cases in which the adverse reaction to a substance occurs almost immediately, usually within an hour. The reaction is obvious and often quite violent, for example, developing a rash or hives after eating berries or being violently sick after eating shellfish. True allergies are quite rare. They affect only a small percentage of the population and most often develop during childhood.

SENSITIVITIES or INTOLERANCE'S on the other hand, affect a great number of people and develop at any time of life. The symptoms of food intolerance rarely occur immediately after the food is eaten. In fact, the reactions are usually delayed by many hours, or even many days. For example, the bread eaten on Monday could be the cause of Thursday's joint pain. It is these delayed reactions which make the detection of the culprit foods a most difficult task without the help of expert laboratory testing.

How Food Intolerance Affect Your Health

Food is intimately linked to your body's immune system. The immune system is the body's defense against foreign invaders, such as poisons and harmful bacteria. When you are sensitive to a food your body doesn't completely digest it, allowing incompletely digested food to enter the bloodstream where it is treated as an 'invader'. Therefore, if you are regularly eating foods to which you are intolerant, you are continually placing your immune system under stress.

This continual stress will eventually undermine and weaken the immune system, leaving you more susceptible to illness. By identifying the foods to which you are intolerant and eliminating them from your diet, you enable your immune system to do the job it was intended to do - protect you from illness.

Reactions produced by food intolerance are inflammatory and can be involved in a whole host of chronic health problems, some severe, some less so. The symptoms are often 'masked'; that is, they mimic the symptoms of common problems such as headache, fatigue and joint pains. Occasionally food intolerance will not produce the same reaction each time - one day they may show up as a headache, the next day as depression. The foods or substances which cause masked reactions are often the ones to which we are exposed to on a regular basis. In fact, you can even become addicted to the food causing the problem, so you then crave it and feel temporarily better for eating that food. As previously mentioned, the reactions are often delayed - therefore the sufferer doesn't associate the problem with the
particular food causing it!

Some conditions influenced by food intolerance:- bloatedness sickness ....stomach cramps ....constipation .... wheezing .....breathing difficulties .....sinusitis tension ....nausea ....hives rashes ...itching ....fibromyalgia ....loss of appetite .....panic attacks .....loss of energy ....bad headaches ...constipation ....general feelings of being unwell ....general aches & pains ....diarrhoea ....

And more specifically:
 arthritis rhinitis ....bronchial asthma ...sinusitis .....childhood hyperactivity ...multiple sclerosis (MS) ....migraine and other headaches ....urticaria (hives) ....eczema and other rashes .....premenstrual symptoms
.....irritable bowel syndrome ....schizophrenia .....anxiety .....epilepsy .....fatigue ....myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) .....depression ....infantile colic and colitis ...recurrent infections .....learning disabilities ....dyslexia ....conceptual difficulties ..... coeliac disease .... fluid retention ... weight problems .....crohn's disease ....psoriasis .....mouth ulcers ....gastric ulcers .....otitis media (glue ear).

**Dr. Bannock is a Clinical Nutritionist & Chartered Biologist, originally from the UK. Qualifications include a Doctor of Health Science Degree in Applied Clinical Nutrition, a Master of Health Science Degree in Clinical Nutrition and many certifications in Clinical Nutrition & Functional Medicine. www.LaurentBannock.com