Here is a novel idea, for some, and just common sense for others. A professor tells us if you have food allergies or sensitivities, when you reduce overall stress load on the body, very often the food reactions disappear. Hmmm. How come this works?

Hans Selye was a pioneering endocrinologist who was one of the first to demonstrate the existence of biological stress. He wrote about General Adaptation Syndrome which showed that early stages of disease produced similar symptoms, involving adrenals, thymus, and digestive system, even though the diseases were different. Later Selye wrote of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis as the body’s coping program. (more on that another time)

He noted there were three stages that lead to disease:

First is the alarm reaction. Your system puts up a fight to defend itself from the stress reaction caused by physical or emotional triggers. You breathe faster, your heart pumps harder, blood pressure goes up, digestions cuts out.

Second stage is resistance. With no relief you continue to resist the stress and keep up with daily functioning. Your immune system keeps defending while you keep on with life demands. You adapt to working under the stress load. It becomes your “norm”. You just keep on keeping on without looking at how to reduce the stress.

Third stage is exhaustion. You run out of steam, don’t have enough energy to fight and work at the same time, and the last straw results in a mental, emotional and/or health breakdown.

This is a common pattern leading to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and is associated with conditions like hay fever and asthma.

Hay Fever is often worse at certain times when grasses are producing pollen and being spread by winds or even gentle breezes. If you are plagued by hay fever in the spring for instance, Professor Keith Scott-Mumby says, “Stop eating grass.”

“Now hang on. I don’t eat grass,” you might say. Well you may not eat your lawn grass, but wheat, corn, oatmeal, rice and rye are all part of the grass family. You may often include foods like bread, pasta, corn, polenta, rice or rye bread on a daily basis. If that is the case, then your body has adapted by putting lots of energy into keeping symptoms at bay. If you are already resisting the stress caused by these foods in your system, then the spring conditions can be the last straw that collapses the resistance. Now the symptoms become very obvious, with no ability to adapt and disguise the internal stress.

So it’s not the fault of spring winds and pollen that you now have hay fever with streaming eyes and nose and feel lethargic and muddle headed. It’s the fact that you body has for a long time been resisting the stress of foods your body is sensitive to.

An asthma attack is very similar to seasonal hay fever except it is happening in every season for the sufferer. The body is adapting to functioning, even if poorly, but the last straw can be the final overload of adaption energy and an asthma attack is the result.

Well that’s interesting to know, but what can you do about it? You don’t want to spend the next two or three months in total discomfort and functioning under par for the season or having asthma attacks on a regular basis. Professor Scott-Mumby in his book Diet Wise says to take the grass foods out of your diet, at the very least during the season that highlights the stress and overloads your ability to cope or adapt.

His advice is reduce those foods in all seasons, but at least to definitely cut them out totally during your worst season.

Try it out and find out for yourself what many of his patients have learned from their own personal trials, that hay fever can be food allergy in disguise.
Cheers
Anna

PS You can use Kinesiology to reduce overall stress load: apply Emotional Stress Release technique, balance meridians to increase energy, muscle test to identify foods that deplete your energy and drop them out for now, identify the foods that regenerate and lift your energy and increase them in your diet – all are a useful steps in reducing food reactions.