The Health Blog

Is a Change of Climate Beneficial to Allergies?

Children with hay fever may find relief by going to areas of the country where their allergenic pollen or mold is not present. Some asthmatics, especially those whose asthma is caused by or complicated by infection, may benefit from a warm, dry climate.

Are Allergies Contagious?

Allergies are not contagious. A child cannot acquire an allergy as he catches a cold.

Are Allergies Confined to Humans?

No. Dogs, cats, and horses get hay fever, asthma, and eczema.

Are All Racial and National Groups Similarly Allergic?

Variations in the percentage of children afflicted with allergies are mostly caused by heredity, living habits, and environment. Allergies are common in tropical Africa; uncommon in New Guinea; and rare among the Eskimos. It is almost unheard of among American Indians.

Is It Dangerous To Do Nothing About an Allergy?

If untreated, hay fever may lead to asthma; nasal polyps may keep growing; eczema may spread and be complicated by secondary infection; occasional asthmatic episodes may become chronic.

Can a Child Die from an Allergy?

Allergies are seldom fatal. However, it is estimated that approximately 5,000 persons in the United States die each year from asthma because asthmatics become less resistant to infections of the respiratory system and their risk during surgical procedures increases. There are fewer than 100 deaths each year from insect stings. However, some drugs (penicillin and aspirin) and certain foods (nuts and seafood) have proven fatal on occasion.

How Are Emotions Related to Allergic Asthma?

Anxiety, fear, anger, and strong excitement may precipitate asthma attacks or make existing asthma become suddenly worse. However, the physical basis of the allergy provoking the asthma attack is always primary and real. The importance of emotions in asthma is so great at times that it may hide or blur the original allergic condition.

How Are Puberty and Pregnancy Related to Allergy?

Two corticosteroid-producing glands (the pituitary and the suprarenal) become very active during puberty and pregnancy. They cause a temporary remission in allergies (thus the belief that the child has “outgrown’ his allergy).

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This is a very controversial area. The putative link between food intolerance and alcoholism is based on case-histories of dried-out alcoholics, many of whom were seeking treatment for other symptoms. Regardless of what these other symptoms were, most also complained of extreme tension, great fatigue, continuous headaches, or other such symptoms.

These symptoms had begun when they gave up drinking, but had not cleared up despite many years ‘on the wagon’. Some sought treatment because these symptoms had become so unbearable that they felt they were about to hit the bottle again.

According to the doctors treating these cases, the case-histories show a common pattern. For many of these patients, the elimination diet was apparently very successful – it brought relief from the tension, fatigue and other symptoms. More surprisingly, the craving for a drink, which is the bane of reformed alcoholics, also disappeared for the first time. When they began to reintroduce foods, they experienced unusual reactions to some of them: in some patients, certain food items supposedly produced symptoms akin to drunkenness. It invariably turned out that the food concerned was a major ingredient of the drink the patient had formerly favoured – potatoes for the vodka alcoholic, wheat, barley or maize for the whisky alcoholic, grapes for the confirmed brandy drinker.

These discoveries were first made by Dr Theron G. Randolph, one of the founders of the clinical ecology movement in the United States. Dr Randolph interpreted the findings as follows:

The patients concerned were primarily intolerant of/addicted to a food. (Addictive eating is often a feature of food intolerance. Small amounts of food protein remain in an alcoholic drink, and can pass through the gut wall and into the blood much more readily than food proteins that are eaten in the ordinary way – simply because of the alcohol. The alcoholic is addicted both to the food and to the alcohol. When die potent combination of the two are withdrawn, the reformed alcoholic is still eating the culprit food. So his ‘addiction’ is kept alive, and he continues to crave his favourite drink – the ‘jet-propelled’ version of his addictive food, in Dr Randolph’s words. If he can identify the culprit food, and avoid it for some time, this lingering addiction is broken.

The revolutionary implication of Dr Randolph’s theory is that reformed alcoholics can drink again, as long as they avoid the drinks that contain their culprit foods. Because this goes against the conventional wisdom on alcoholism – which forbids the reformed alcoholic to ever drink again – Dr Randolph’s work has been rejected out of hand by organisations such as Alcoholics Anonymous. There have been no scientific studies of his claims, although his basic findings have been confirmed by several other doctors working in this field.

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