Food as healer, food as slayer.

Nowhere in medicine is there more controversy, superstition, confusion and religious fervor than there is surrounding the subject of food allergies and illness. Conventional allergists and immunologists generally limit interactions between food and the immune system to the Type 1 hypersens i t iv i ty, immunoglobul in E ( IgE) mediated response. Practitioners of integrative and complementary and alternative medicine have long recognized the limitations of this point of view yet have failed to produce a viable alternative clinical model with which to test and assess interventions based on complex dietary manipulations. However, a growing body of literature illuminates the intimate relationship between the gut, food and illness. Despite the limitations of the assessment tools (electrodermal screening) and the lack of a control group, small sample size, and lack of a standard, validated assessment tool for measuring outcomes, Taylor et al (pages 58-64) break ground in their pilot study. While cognizant of the limitations of their methodology, the authors demonstrate that alteration of the diet to reduce its antigenic load is correlated with a reduction in symptom severity in a condition that has no known conventional treatment (multiple chemical sensitivity). Certainly, conventional medicine has recognized that some foods cause harm, and most doctors have recommended avoiding certain foods to treat common conditions. Yet even many of these recommendations—from low-fat diets for prevention of cardiovascular disease and bland diets to treat ulcers, to low-salt diets to treat hypertension—are now relegated to the pile of unnecessary or harmful advice. And while medicine embraced these ideas, it has resisted the concept that changes in diet can not only prevent disease, but can be used as a therapeutic tool, often where no other exists. The need to critically assess the role of diet as a therapeutic tool in disease cannot be overstated. The need for a healthy diet is well recognized in the prevention of chronic illness such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer, FOOD AS HEALER, FOOD AS SLAYER Mark A. Hyman, MD commentary