Food triggers

[Nomad]

Very similar to Sleepy in Seattle...I feel better when I avoid sugar, flour, junk food, salty foods and eat lots of veggies.

I gained weight over the holidays and have been slow to get it off.  I'm buckling down now.  I've always felt better drinking lots of water between meals and it helps me lose weight.  And I like certain waters better than others.  My number one choice is Mountain Valley in the green glass bottles and number two is Evian.  When on sale, I buy a ton.  Anyway, I'm drinking a lot of these waters between meals and not only losing weight, but along with what I said in the first paragraph, my dryness is better.

Simply put, trigger foods are junk foods, too much sugar, flour and all salty foods.  Lots of good veggies throughout the day and a lot of good quality water between meals are noticeably helpful habits.

[wendyoh]

In 2008 an Integrative physician recommended that I take a food sensitivity test, the ALCAT, and it showed that my immune system is triggered by a number of things I wouldn't have expected, ie apples...and dairy was on there too, and I love yogurt, but did quit for 6 mo.s and when had some again got pain in my body within a few hours and the next day....if I eat it all the time its harder to discern
the test has gotten more expensive but you can find it easily online

[Deb 27]

MSG,  canned tomatoes, paste or sauce, too much gluten, potatoes and eggplant. I can eat some flour but there is a threshold.

[Sharon]

I recently added white sugar back to my diet and I believe it's made things worse again...

[Sharon]

Wendyoh- what is the cost of the ALCAT?

[wendyoh]

the company that makes the test is called cellsciencesystems---if you google them and go to their site they can send you providers in your area that do the test--they also show how much the tests cost if you look around on their site---it has gotten a lot more expensive sorry to say

When I was googling it just now I learned too that it is still considered controversial, not accepted by mainstream medicine apparently---I have to say though that a lot of the results were very helpful for me and the physician who prescirbed it for me, Dr. Paul Cheney, is a nationally revered integrative doc, quite intelligent


I also found that if I google alcat there are  a number of other sites that will offer it to you without finding a local doc and they will send someone to your house to draw the lab etc if you are interested

[Sharon]

Thanks Wendy!
I know it's considered controversial, however conventional medicine has not helped me in the least so far
while natural supplements have.

[SjoDry]

wendyoh,

Did you use the results of your alcat tests to adjust your diet? If so, has it helped?

SjoDry

[wendyoh]

hey Sjodry--I did adjust my diet--I went off all of the offending foods for about 6 mo.s and then started trying the ones I wanted to and if over time I noticed I still reacted I have tried to cut them out---for example, almonds garlic and eggs have just gotten worse over time for me so avoid them like the plague

dairy I struggle avoiding, but if I quit it for a while again I notice when I start it up again that I do get more of a certain kind of pain

[Wal]

It appears from reading about the Alcat testing is that it's not reliable. High probability for false negative and positive (kind of like autoimmune bloodwork) why are docs still use those tests I don't know. My doc told me before getting my bloodwork that they're not reliable. So it seems that a better way to test for immune triggering foods is through an elimination diet such as the paleo immune. You do it for at least 30 days or more then slowly introduce one new food. It sounds hard but it makes more since too me. Apparently our bodies are just too complicated for a magic blood test of any kind.

[wendyoh]

Wal I have also done elimination diets and found that method helpful with the Alcat---I don't think I would pay the prices of the Alcat today but I am glad I did it because a lot of the info did fit with my experience, I think it is a tool, perhaps not 100% reliable, but also with some merit in my experience

I do prefer science based medicine but I have to say, the "science" of modern medicine is incredibly lacking in my opinion.......I have found a combination of no. 1 my experience and knowledge of my body being most important guide and then a combination of integrative alternative and when tolerated, mainstream approaches to be the route I usually take
My guess is that we cannot find a fair assessment of the Alcat in today's world and reality is they are onto something helpful that your local allergist will not explore
there isn't the research money nor political drive to follow up on a lot of promising concepts and methods

here is an example of the slow glacial speed of medicine, antibiotics for h. pylori is another one that took about 25 years to become standard practice after the research came out---it was denied and ignored

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/health_med_fit/antibiotics-for-asthma-a-madison-doctor-decries-lack-of-interest/article_c459c6a4-dc9e-5b7a-960a-6437ab79de9f.html