The New Word on Allergies and Inflammation
This week’s blog brought to you by all of those suffering from unexplained asthma, allergies, digestive and inflammatory illnesses. These clients may have experienced symptoms since youth, or they may find that as life has progressed, symptoms have gotten worse with no answers, or more and more foods are less and less tolerated.
Going beyond nutrition to molecular biochemistry, we see that there is more we can do on a nutritional level with little known compounds called….phenolics.
What are phenolics?
Everything we come into contact with as human bodies, including foods, chemicals, even thoughts and emotions does so through cells of our bodies. The lotion and personal care products you use come into contact with your skin, hair and nail cells, for example. The food you eat and beverages you drink come into contact with cells of the entire parenteral system. The pollens, smells, exhausts, and inhalants in your environment come into contact with mucous membrane cells, nasal and sinus cells. Even the thoughts you think and the emotions you feel create chemicals of stress or pleasure and are processed through cells. You simply do not exist without cells. Everything you are is made up of cells, and everything that creates you into form does so through cells.
Everything you come into contact with has to be processed for use or waste by these cells. Everything you take in is categorized by the cells as “useful” or “harmful”. There is no middle ground. Useful things go on to where they belong and feed cellular process. Harmful things are passed into the eliminative pathways and in some cases, given a “stamp of disapproval”, which the body’s chemistry records and remembers. Any time a substance with a “stamp of disapproval” comes in, the body’s cells recall and remember the harm caused. The cells know to create inflammation, including mucus or fluid, to protect themselves. The body’s chemistry is put on high alert to rid the body of these harmful substances, creating inflammatory responses. It does this EVERY TIME this substance enters the space of the body. Repeated intake creates a continued inflammatory response. If the cells do take in any part of this substance, it BECOMES part of the cell for a period of time and the body fights ALL PARTS of the offender, including the parts that are your body’s own cells. When the body fights its own cells, that is known to be an “autoimmune condition”.
Phenolics are the SUBSTRATES that a substance breaks down into. In this case, we are particularly concerned with food substrates.
When a food comes into the body, the cell acts like a little factory, taking the food particles in, breaking it down further, sending off wastes here , and sending off useful nutrients there. Let’s use an apple as an example. The apple is broken down by the teeth, mixed with enzymes from the salivary glands, chewed and swallowed into the stomach where it mixes with stomach acid to continue breaking it down. In the duodenum, digestive enzymes from the pancreas are pulled in to digest the food thoroughly and it enters the small intestine as small particles. The small particles move through the bloodstream and are carried to all the cells in the body that need them. By this time it’s no longer an “apple”; it is macro and micronutrients, but it is also food substrate chemicals known as Quercetin, Rutin, Apiol, and Gallic acid, to name a few. An apple has twelve common phenolic substrates! Any one of these chemicals can be mis-metabolized, lending it a “stamp of disapproval” when it reaches the cell. If this happens, the chemical is rejected, the inflammatory response is initiated, and the cells remember to do this each and every time. People experience inflammation differently. Some may experience intestinal upset, colitis, constipation, or bowel dysfunction disease. Some experience inflammation through sinus and respiratory congestion or seasonal allergies. Still others may perceive inflammation through the form of skin conditions are any number of inflammatory diseases.
Once a phenolic is skewed, it can be traced in any other food that contains it along with the other phenolic compounds in THAT food. What once started out as a rutin sensitivity has increased to blueberry because the blueberry contained rutin AND acedtaldehyde. Now foods containing this new compound have the potential to cause problems as well. Soon a “net” of mis-metabolized food substrates are problematic, but not found to be “allergens” or “antibody generating”. This is why some people will be able to eat a particular food, but then start to discover sensitivity years down the road after successfully consuming it their whole lives, or why they didn’t show up on an IgG, IgA, or IgE allergy test. For those with advanced sensitivities, this is one possible answer to why one’s list of problematic foods has expanded again and again. The act of eating, itself, becomes confusing and fear-inducing, not knowing what is going to cause problems.
What we want to do is optimize the multiple cellular functions by removing hindering impedances. When we improve digestion and metabolism, all parts of a food and its chemistry is more readily accepted and made bioavailable to the cells to do their job. Helping the body digest and metabolize correctly helps the cells to “see” food substrate chemicals as they were meant to be seen: as useful amino acids, neurotransmitter chemical messengers, and/or hormones.
Why would I have allergies if I eat only “good” foods?
Allergies are caused by an overactive immune system that mistakenly identifies harmless substances, such as certain foods and including food chemistry like phenolics, as dangerous and triggers an immune response to attack them. Eating "good" foods does not necessarily mean that you are not exposed to allergens.
For example, some people may be allergic to certain types of fruits or vegetables, such as bananas or kiwis, which are generally considered "good" foods. Additionally, some "good" foods may contain allergens, such as nuts, seeds, or shellfish, which can cause allergic reactions in some people.
What if allergy tests don’t show anything? Can I still have allergies?
Yes, it is possible to have a food allergy even if allergy tests do not show it. Allergy testing is not 100% accurate, and false-negative results can occur. A false-negative result means that the test indicates that you are not allergic to a specific food, even though you may experience allergic reactions when you eat that food.
There are also several other factors that can contribute to allergic reactions that are not related to specific foods. For example, you may have a sensitivity to food additives or preservatives, such as sulfites or monosodium glutamate (MSG), that are not detected by allergy testing. Additionally, some people may experience symptoms that are similar to food allergies, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), which can be triggered by certain foods but are not caused by an immune response. Sensitivities and intolerances are not identified by allergy testing. Energetic assessments however can be useful in identifying foods that cause “imbalance” which don’t look at food proteins, but the ability to adapt to the food.
What are some symptoms of food allergies?
Allergies can cause a wide range of symptoms that can affect various parts of the body. The specific symptoms you experience will depend on the type and severity of your allergy, as well as the part of the body that is affected. Some common symptoms of allergies include:
Skin reactions: These can include hives, itching, swelling, or redness of the skin.
Respiratory symptoms: These can include sneezing, runny or stuffy nose, wheezing, coughing, or difficulty breathing.
Digestive symptoms: These can include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, or diarrhea.
Eye symptoms: These can include redness, itching, watering, or swelling of the eyes.
Anaphylaxis: This is a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction that can cause symptoms such as difficulty breathing, rapid pulse, drop in blood pressure, and loss of consciousness.
It is important to note that some allergies may cause symptoms that are not specific to the part of the body affected by the allergy. For example, some people with food allergies may experience symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, or mood changes.
What can I do next?
Especially if you’ve had unexplained symptoms, particularly of those listed above or from this article, getting a bioenergetic assessment of how functional and balanced the digestive and metabolic systems are can help. This and an initial consultation with me, a Clinical Nutritionist trained in biochemistry can help identify foods that are supportive or not.
Much of the above is largely my hypothesis based on my experiences and successes. Yet, research is hard to find. Could phenolics be beneficial for you? This link will take you to a list of symptoms that could potentially correlate with phenolic dysruptions from one of my favorie trusted homeopathic companies. While science is just beginning to line up studies and begin reporting on phenolics, here is one pubmed article discussing their use in cancer. This one will lead you to another doctor who believes in phenolics as influential in allergies, asthma and inflammation.
As always, do your research, ask the right questions, and find out what’s right for you. We can help!
Amanda Plevell, PhD, MSCN, NMD, CNS, CNHP is a Board Certified Natural Medicine Practitioner and Clinical Nutritionist. Together with ANMC’s team of support professionals, she’s bringing the pieces of nutrition, the mind, and therapeutic ongoing relationships to the healthcare continuum. ANMC combines curated education programs with personalized plans that make it easy for anyone, anywhere to benefit from. Find out more here: anmcholistichealth.com
“Our unique offer fills in the gaps to complete your picture and provides a powerful therapeutic relationship for a complete whole health solution, because I know that our clients want to have all the pieces, education, and trust so that they can make informed decisions for themselves.”
References:
Introduction to Phenolics - Deseret Biologicals. (n.d.). Retrieved March 8, 2023, from https://desbio.com/introduction-to-phenolics/
Cai, Y. Z., Mei Sun, Jie Xing, Luo, Q., & Corke, H. (2006). Structure-radical scavenging activity relationships of phenolic compounds from traditional Chinese medicinal plants. Life Sciences, 78(25), 2872–2888. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lfs.2005.11.004
Fresco, P., Borges, F., Diniz, C., & Marques, M. P. M. (2006). New insights on the anticancer properties of dietary polyphenols. Medicinal Research Reviews, 26(6), 747–766. https://doi.org/10.1002/med.20060
Huang, W. Y., Cai, Y. Z., & Zhang, Y. (2010). Natural phenolic compounds from medicinal herbs and dietary plants: potential use for cancer prevention. Nutrition and Cancer, 62(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/01635580903191585
Phenolic Compounds as the Source of Allergic Response | BioLight Technologies. (n.d.). Retrieved March 8, 2023, from https://www.biolighttechnologies.com/phenolic-compounds-as-the-source-of-allergic-response/