Food allergies are a bigger deal than most people think. Did you know that food allergies affect about 60% of the population? Listen to this:
"The incidence of food allergy is greater than the incidence of any other type of illness affecting mankind."
Wow, that's pretty powerful! The quote above is from James Breneman, former chairman of the Food Allergy Committee of the American College of Allergists.
Now here's the kicker: we make ourselves allergic to food. No kidding. Let me explain.
How We Develop Food Allergy Symptoms
We can become allergic to just about any kind of food. To keep it simple, I'll explain what happens with just one kind of food: proteins. When we eat protein, the act of chewing starts to break the protein down into component nutrients, a process which is continued in the stomach and then the small intestine.
According to researcher Karl Abrams, our normal healthy digestive process allows about 2% of these proteins to slip through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream. Once in these proteins enter the bloodstream, our bodies no longer recognize them as "food." Now they have become "foreign invaders" and the body jumps into an immune response. It produces antibodies to fight off these foreign invaders, and food allergy symptoms are often the result!
When our bodies don't recognize food particles in the bloodstream, we become allergic to them. The next time we eat this kind of food, our body immediately goes into a food allergy reaction.
Food allergy symptoms can include digestive upset, such as diarrhea, gas, and bloating; skin conditions like hives; and swelling of various body parts, such as the throat or hands and feet. In fact, if it goes on for a long period of time, the liver becomes affected, since this organ is responsible for filtering the blood of excess toxins. When the liver is affected, then we can develop long-term chronic conditions like psoriasis.
What's worse is that most people don't have healthy digestion. So while a healthy digestive system let's 2% of the proteins we eat to enter the bloodstream, a body under stress lets even more proteins cross the intestinal wall, which produces even worse food allergy symptoms.
Natural Ways to Prevent Food Allergy Symptoms
Now that you know how we develop food allergy symptom, the next thing is to discover how to prevent them. Luckily, there are three nutritional supplements that can relieve and prevent these symptoms:
- AFA blue-green algae
- probiotics like acidophilus and bifidus
- food enzymes
#1: AFA Blue-Green Algae
Blue-green algae has two important nutrients to help prevent food allergies: beta-carotene and chlorophyll. Studies show that these substances in AFA blue-green algae help "dramatically stimulate specialized cells around the intestinal walls to secrete lubricating material and thus help prevent this type of allergic reaction" (Karl Abrams). In other words, the beta carotene and chlorophyll in blue-green algae strengthen the intestinal wall, so proteins and other food particles can't slip into the bloodstream. No particles in the bloodstream equals no food allergies. Abrams notes that the omega-3 fatty acids in the algae help as well.
#2: Probiotics like Acidophilus and Bifidus
Probiotics are the "friendly bacteria" that live in our intestines and do the bulk of the work of digesting our food once it has passed through the stomach. Acidophilus and bifidus are among the most important of these friendly bacteria, and provide a barrier between the intestines and the bloodstream, as well as helping us fully digest our food.
Stress, drinking chlorinated water, taking medication, or drinking alcohol can all decrease the population of probiotics in our gut, leading to what is called "leaky gut syndrome," the phenomenon discussed earlier in which food particles slip into the bloodstream. Taking acidophilus and bifidus orally on a daily basis keeps our probiotic population at healthy levels, which creates good digestion and prevents food allergy symptoms. In my experience, eating live yogurt is not enough to prevent food allergies. One needs to take highly-concentrated acidophilus and bifidus in capsule form that are stored in refrigerators (keeps the bacteria healthy and active).
#3: Food Enzymes
Did you know that there are enzymes and co-enzymes that digest every kind of food we eat? What's more, organic raw foods contain all the enzymes needed to digest themselves. For instance, Eskimos eat enough raw fish in their diet that they don't suffer from poor digestion or heart disease. Their food has enough enzymes to literally digest itself, keeping the Eskimos healthy. In fact, the word Eskimo even means "he who eats raw food." So, enzymes are very important because they are key to healthy and complete digestion.
Here's the really good news about enzymes: if your digestion isn't perfect, eating enzymes with and between meals can support digestion and help with food allergy symptoms. When taken with food, enzymes help ensure proper digestion and prevent food particles from entering the bloodstream. When taken separate from food, the enzymes are able to pass through the intestinal barrier (just like the food particles) to digest the food particles in the bloodstream. This prevents the immune system from thinking that food is an invader, thus preventing the immune response that causes food allergy symptoms.
Adding these three simple nutritional supplements to your daily regimen--AFA blue-green algae, probiotics like acidophilus and bifidus, and enzymes--can do a lot to support your body's digestive process, and relieve food allergy symptoms.
Simple, effective, and convenient ... now that's what works for most people when it comes to nutritional supplements!
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Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dan4th/ / CC BY 2.0