ENK DIET and WHEAT ALLERGY

Up to 1/3 of the population is gluten sensitive and will suffer nutritional issues to a variable extent as result due to deficiencies of B12, Folate, Zinc, Iron and Protein impacting on immune function and hence - Paill progression.

Erasmus : So you talked about diet as needing to not make you sick - to be healthy. Having an adequate fibre intake is one basic necessity for this. What else?

Dr Xxxxx : The next most critical requirement is to have an adequate vitamin and mineral intake. Our guideline is that you should take one multi-vitamin and multi-mineral every day. The key ingredients to maximise our vitamin B12, Folic acid or Folate, and Zinc - a mineral -- intake . This becomes especially important for people who have food intolerances - notably gluten intolerance or insensitivity - being the most common of these.

Dr Xxxxx : Some my doctor friends believe that gluten sensitivity is present in approximately 1/3rd of the population to some extent. However not all doctors accept this. The medical fraternity is quite comfortable with the diagnosis of coeliac disease. Patients who suffer from coeliac disease are highly sensitive or in fact allergic to gluten which is the protein found in wheat grain.

Typically patients who suffer from coeliac disease usually have 2 specific immune response genes present in their genome. Normal people would of course have no immune response genes associated coeliac disease present in their genome.

Erasmus : I can see the problem then becomes of course "what does a person with one of the typical immune response genes found in coeliac disease look like?" "Are they normal?

Dr Axxxx : The answer of course is: Yes they are not coeliac. But Yes, they are not normal. Their gluten sensitivity or reactivity lies in the intermediate range.

Dr Xxxxx : There used to be a test for gliaden antibodies which correlated very well with this range of sensitivity. However, scientists then proceeded to deaminate the antigen used as the base of this test. This gave a much better correlation with the presence of coeliac disease, but has almost completely lost any diagnostic correlation with the intermediate gluten sensitivity state.

Effects of Coeliac on the height of the bowel lining - - the intestinal villi.

 

Erasmus : Coeliac affects your absorption of vitamins  and minerals? So what do you see happen in the intermediate gluten sensitivity state you are talking about?

Dr Xxxxx : Yes. Coeliac disease and non-coeliac gluten sensitivity both cause malabsorption of Vitamins and Minerals in your diet. The critical vitamins and minerals are vitamin B12, Folic acid or Folate and Zinc. (Iron and protein malabsorption also occur but are generally less clinically important). Every person who has some degree of gluten sensitivity has reduced levels of these vitamins and minerals, to some extent.

Dr Xxxxx : Supplementing works. But if you monitor the levels of
vitamins such as B12, Folate or Zinc, you will usually find several years down the track that the deficiency has returned , as people have become more complacent with their dietary vitamin intake.

Goo : So it is absolutely critical for someone with coeliac disease and with
non-coeliac gluten sensitivity to take a multi- vitamin and multi-mineral every day.

Dr Xxxxx : Repairing the nutritional deficiency gets rid of many of the clinical symptoms resulting from the deficiency, but getting rid of the gluten makes a bit of extra difference as well.

Erasmus : My doctor friend relates that when patients develop psychiatric illnesses, all too often the more severe the illness is the more probable that the patient has some degree of gluten (wheat) sensitivity.

Dr Axxxx : There was a TV program which had families swapping wives. (Wife Swap). In one of these programs the swap was between a "kill it and grill it" family and a "sun worshiping vegetarian" family. Both these families on TV exhibited some unusual behaviour. It is likely the "kill it and grill it" family was suffering from Folic acid deficiency while the "sun worshiping vegetarian" family was suffering from Vitamin B12 deficiency. These vitamins cause effects with the same immune and chemical pathways resulting in very similar clinical effects.

Goo : In short , neither diet was particularly healthy. Both families were suffering from deficiencies as a result of their unusual dietary food intakes.

Another wife swap -
or husband swap depending on your point of view.

Dr Axxxx : And this is where it gets interesting. So many people believe in becoming vegetarian because they believe it is a healthy choice. Yet if you become deficient in vitamins and minerals, you end up severely damaging your health. And if you are gluten sensitive, your vegetarian diet is far more likely to contain large serves of wheat based foods (high gluten content) resulting in significant vitamin and mineral malabsorption resulting in damage to your health - not improving your health at all.

Goo : The sad reality is that people who believe they doing the right thing in their health by turning to a vegetarian diet or a Vegan diet are causing themselves immeasurable damage, by not realising that they are gluten sensitive.

Dr Axxxx : In short, their healthy diet is the worst possible diet for them. But the same diet for someone who is not gluten sensitive, can be very healthy indeed.

Dr Xxxxx : Gluten sensitivity typically causes deficiencies in Vitamin B12, Folic acid or Folate, Zinc, Iron and Protein. B12, Folate and Zinc are the  main vitamin /minerals with immune consequences often leading to health and psychiatric clinical problems and diseases.

 Protein is usually the forgotten deficiency as it is so difficult in our society to become protein deficient. However in other societies e.g. Asian - where rice is a staple food with a very low protein content, protein deficiency does occur.

Kinkajou : The height difference between Asian and European humans is largely related to lifelong protein intake, not to any genetic differences between the peoples of the 2 races. Diet does matter. Wheat containing gluten is not a perfect food. But it is a high-protein food.

Dr Axxxx : Gluten sensitivity comes in mild, moderate and severe levels, probably related to the power / effect of the underlying immune response genes associated. It is a genetically determined state. It is affected by gluten intake in a complex manner. (Genetics is a field we know very well).

Dr Xxxxx : My doctor friend believes that patients with psychiatric illnesses who are supplemented with multi-vitamin and multi-mineral medications are much more stable than other patients over the following couple of years. Their clinical state deteriorates much much less than in patients not taking a supplement. They require fewer increases in medication dose than patients not taking a supplement. They are much less likely to require 2 medications to control their clinical psychiatric illness than in patients not taking a supplement.

Goo : Gluten sensitivity is a big deal with huge health consequences to its afflictees.

Dr Xxxxx : Patients with gluten sensitivity have typical symptoms such as:
Bloating, diarrhoea, wind or cramping
Tightness, weakness and low exercise tolerance
Aches, pains and mood -related symptoms.

The first 2 layers of symptoms respond relatively well and quickly to dietary changes. Aches and pains and mood related symptoms usually take a minimum of 6 months to show response to dietary therapy.

However sometimes clinical changes resulting from altered dietary gluten can occur rapidly. My doctor friend relates one patient who was a surly unpleasant uncooperative teenager. Testing revealed some degree of gluten sensitivity.

The doctor suggested to his mother that he should be placed on a gluten-free diet. The mother related the next visit that within a week he had begun to say things like "Please, can I leave the table mum". The family were astounded at the change in his demeanour and behaviour. The mother subsequently dragged the entire family into testing - using the
old antigen kit still available at that time. No one else had a spectacular response to diet. But they will remember the difference it made to their son's behaviour.

 

Dr Axxxx : It is important to note that not all multi-vitamin  and multi-mineral tablets are all that they are supposed to be. Our doctor colleague relates that he often find patients taking a supplement with an RDI (recommended daily intake) of vitamin D, being found to be deficient in vitamin D when blood testing is done.

Dr Xxxxx : It comes down to vitamin D levels and in fact many vitamin levels are calibrated based on the expectations of the scientists working with them. The minimum vitamin D level necessary to stop osteoporosis in adult females is different to the minimum vitamin D level necessary for adequate immune and bone calcium homeostasis in most other people.

Dr Axxxx : As a quick note, vitamin D is complex multi-receptor activator acting through a nuclear receptor on human chromosomes. High vitamin D levels are associated with increased aging, and with negative effects on cell growth. Vitamin D is good for bones and does prevent osteoporosis though.

Erasmus : In short vitamin D is not a "the more the better" vitamin . You need what you need to do the job that you need done, but you don't need any more. And if you are a middle-aged woman maybe you need a bit more than most.

Dr Xxxxx : This brings us to the next issue with vitamins and measuring vitamin levels. Scientists working in pathology routinely adjust the "normal" levels based on population values. This can be difficult if the entire population is deficient. To stop everyone in the population being diagnosed as deficient - all scientists need to do is to drop the "normal" reference range down so that in essence only about 10% of the population then becomes diagnosed by the test as being deficient. If you don't have your own criteria for what specific levels of vitamins mean to your functioning, you can be very misled by the "normality" of a test result.

Erasmus :  The doc also relates a time many years ago when reference ranges for Folic acid were changed from nanograms per mil to nano molar. (Nano moles per litre). The reference range for the same answer effectively doubled.

What happened in Brisbane was that someone/somewhere decided that the reference range level quoted should be the old level not the new one. This had the effect that the test results were always double what they used to be and the reference range was half of what it needed to be to maintain the same level of "normality".

Unless you had your own reference range of "normality" in your own head,it is likely that for a period of a couple of years in Brisbane you would never diagnose a patient with Folate deficiency. The laboratory reference ranges were wrong and were not fixed for a long time.

Dr Xxxxx : Our resident Dr also has a serious recommendation for the use of supplements in children with psychiatric problems and learning disorders. This is relevant also to any adults are the same problems. However the effects in children can be particularly noticeable and useful - relieving many of the symptoms of their disorder. Learning disorders, dyslexia, and behavioural disorders, are all susceptible to dietary therapy.

The diet:
A multi vitamin /multi-mineral every day with good levels of Vitamin B12, Folic acid or Folate and Zinc.

 

Dr Axxxx : And once you understand why?

The Commandant: Vitamin and mineral deficiency states affect immune function. This allows the Paill Spectrum organism to proliferate an increase its degree of damage. So recommendations:

Typical Zinc Rich Foods.

Dr Xxxxx : A zinc tablet every day (with 20 to 30 mg of the element zinc within, which is equivalent to 200 to 300 mg of zinc as amino acid chelate.

Zinc is very poorly absorbed. The long-term result of taking a zinc tablet every day is essentially very little. I would suggest that it is possible to take 3 bottles of Two hundred zinc tablets before a blood level needs to be done to see what the supplementation has done to the zinc level within the body.

Generally for most people, the level improves but more improvement is usually still  desirable. In critical patients, the doctor has recommended taking up to 3 zinc tablets - 3 times a day in an attempt to increase the zinc level quickly to create some immune or health benefits.

Dr Xxxxx :  Essential oils: these need to be taken in a specific ratio.
Generally take 2 to 3 capsules of an Omega 3 or fish oil every day.
Generally take one capsule of Omega 6 or evening primrose oil every day.

You can double this intake to twice a day but maintain the ratio of 2-3 capsules of Omega-3 to one capsule of Omega-6.

Kinkajou : Anything Else?

Dr Xxxxx : A low gluten diet is the final layer of nutritional therapy. Our team  believes that the more injury / medical problems you have, the more likely you are to have gluten sensitivity. So by definition it is much more likely that benefit will be obtained by introducing a gluten reduced diet to patients with symptoms, that in normal people.

Dr Xxxxx : The Low Gluten Diet I Recommend

No wheat bread - rye bread is okay
No wheat cereal - corn cereals/rice cereals/oats cereals are okay. Cornflakes often contain malt which is derived from germinated wheat.  This does not seem to trigger too many gluten sensitivity problems.
No wheat pasta - gluten-free or rice pasta only is allowed
No biscuits or pastries - except gluten-free biscuits and pastries. (Chocolate is allowed. Lollies are allowed. Dairy products are allowed. Fruit is allowed. Syrups are allowed. - Just NO gluten containing biscuits and pastries).

As I have stated, in critical cases, the essential oils can be taken twice a day rather than once a day.

Kinkajou : All these ingredients are foods which change how the body works. This means that food like qualities need to be ingested to change how the body works.

Dr Xxxxx : Health benefits are slow typically appealing around the 6 month mark.

Dr Xxxxx : However improvements can be seen up to years. In short, it is advisable to stay on this supplement mix- long-term - especially if you are experiencing health problems which may have an immune basis.

Treating childhood behavioural problems with this mix is far more effective than education. This nutritional mix actually changes how the immune system works and changes the development of the brain, (or at least minimises the development of brain injury). This results in actual changes in function which are real changes in function.

Dr Xxxxx : Typical improvements include:
a reduction in concrete thinking,
an improvement in sequence memory and
particularly in improvements in symbolic speech processing.

The clinical picture of brain dysfunction is dependent on the age of the person affected. Different aged people typically have different syndromes at different ages. But the underlying treatment treats all of them at any age - in the same way - for the same reason - creating permanent health improvements.

It is the doctor's belief that these same improvements also occur in older patients. It is just that the observable differences are much more difficult to measure in this population than in children.

Dr Xxxxx : In adults the major improvement in behaviour comes down to a reduction in irritability and anger and in a reduction in loss of impulse control. This is the scenario that we saw with our teenage patient on a gluten-free diet. But the scenario is just as relevant to the crazy old angry coot next door - bad mad neighbour disease or mad granny disease.