This period of alcoholism was preceded, during her pregnancy, by a craving for sweets and a weight gain of sixty pounds.

During her three-year period of alcoholism, she drank a fifth of vodka a day. At times she became so nervous that she shook violently. The only way that she could relieve this shaking was to drink more vodka. She could no longer read, since she had “floaters” in the form of dots, threads, beads, and circles drifting across her field of vision. On one occasion, while bathing her child, she was overcome with uncontrollable rage at some meaningless remark and violently beat the youngster.

After living as a virtual recluse, she managed to drag herself to a local church and appeal to the minister for help. He referred her to Alcoholics Anonymous. AA exhorted her to abandon drink.

None of this seemed to help. She still had “cobwebs” in her head, nervousness, fits of anxiety, visual distortions, and “floaters.” And she still had a craving for alcoholic beverages.

Mrs. Witherspoon drank tea compulsively and began to suspect that it was not agreeing with her. She suspected the sugar she added to the tea, and so she eliminated it, with no beneficial effect. She then tried other beverages, such as herb tea and even plain hot water. Everything seemed to make her feel worse. Her psychiatrist predictably accused her of being “neurotic” about food. (It was not until she came to the Ecology Unit that she discovered that she was sensitive to all chlorinated water.)

A perceptive woman, she began to find clues of her food susceptibilities, although she had never heard of clinical ecology. After eating a salami sandwich once, she felt as if she were about to explode from nervousness. She waited a few days and then experimented by trying salami again. Again she experienced a nervous attack. She did this four times.

Having learned about clinical ecology through a lecture, she was admitted to the Ecology Unit. In her initial interview, she cried constantly and was in a state of nervous exhaustion. After a few days of fasting on pure water, however, she was symptom-free and almost euphoric. When she began to test various waters, in sequence, she had a serious reaction to one particular water. It turned out to be from Lake Michigan sources, the same kind she drank at home and out of which she had made her tea.

Upon testing she was found to have some degree of susceptibility to almost every food tested. We call such persons “universal reactors,” and they have a serious problem indeed. On her second morning, she was given pears for breakfast. “My mind closed down,” she later recalled, “and my brain was floating around as if on water. There was no way to lock it into place. I could not talk or converse. I could hear words coming out of peoples’ mouths, but I could not respond.”

Usually, but not always, one reacts most strongly to those foods which one eats regularly, more than once every three days. Pears were not listed among such foods in her history. Upon further inquiry, it turned out that she had had a pear tree in her backyard as a child and had eaten them compulsively and to excess at that time. It is entirely possible that this early, excessive exposure had left her with a fixed allergy to the fruit.

Her most dramatic reaction was to potato. She had finished her first boiled potato and was eating her second when, five minutes or so into the test, she crumpled over in agony. She later said that the pain was the worst she had ever experienced in her life, worse than her difficult childbirth.

When she left the hospital, Mrs. Witherspoon’s prescription was to avoid those foods to which she had the strongest reactions, try to find new, compatible foods, and eventually try to reintroduce some of her “failed” foods back into her diet. In her case, however, all alcoholic beverages were taboo, because she was susceptible to various components of all of them.

To summarize, the treatment of alcoholism by the methods of clinical ecology has been successful in many cases. It even has been possible to permit some alcoholic beverages, in limited amounts, to former alcoholics, provided they only take compatible beverages, in a rotated schedule. Whether this can be done depends on the individual nature of the case.

Alcoholics, like schizophrenics, need a supportive atmosphere in which to recover. If the family unit is still intact, the patient frequently does very well. But an alcoholic who has no family, and who eats in restaurants frequently, has a much smaller chance of making a full recovery through the methods of clinical ecology. The reason is that most American alcoholics are highly corn-sensitive, and there is some form of corn in almost every commercially prepared meal.

In order to go on this program, then, the reformed alcoholic must either make his own meals, according to his individual needs (as determined by food tests), or have someone with the necessary knowledge to prepare them for him. In practice, these needs could best be met inside a functioning family unit. The homeless alcoholic is likely to leave the Ecology Unit in decent shape, go out to eat, and immediately resume his addiction to com, wheat, or whatever was making him sick in the first place. This “up” phase may last an hour or two, as in the case of Mr. Parsons, before he starts to come down and experience a kind of “hangover.” The experienced alcoholic, however, knows very well how to ward off a hangover—and before long he is in a bar, drinking down his dose of corn or wheat in convenient liquid form.

Similarly, an alcoholic who has not worked out his food allergies along the lines indicated in this book has little chance of breaking the addiction for good, since he is constantly being restimulated by contact with the very foods which lie at the basis of his problem. It is as if a heroin addict were given a small amount of his craved substance just as he was trying to get over his addiction. Yet the alcoholic is unaware of the real nature of his craving and takes the wrong substance unintentionally. He is left with a constant craving for alcoholic beverages and must exercise extraordinary willpower to fight off his physiological need.

The safest course for anyone who fears alcoholism is not to drink more often than once every four days and only to drink those beverages (or eat those foods) to which he knows that he is not allergic.

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Rug cleaners can also be a source of danger, and for this reason rug cleaning must proceed only when a susceptible person is away from home. The fumes should be allowed to evaporate and air out before he returns. Home cleaning agents, including rug cleaners, should be stored outside the house, a point to which we shall return.

It should be noted that there is an additional unsuspected hazard in over-zealous cleaning of rugs. If the rug or carpet does not dry thoroughly between washings, it makes an ideal environment for molds to grow in. This is especially a danger in hot and humid climates, such as the American South. Molds, as allergy-causing substances, can produce many of the same symptoms as those which are produced by food or chemicals.2

Cigarette lighter fluid is similarly dangerous for the susceptible person and should be eliminated from the home.

*34\110\2*

The most common cause of an earache is blockage of the Eustachian tube (which connects the nose with the middle ear). This tube may become blocked as a result of a nasal allergy, a head cold, infected adenoids (lymph glands in the passage between the nose and throat), swimming in fresh or chlorinated water, or flying in an airplane. This blockage causes a vacuum in the middle ear, changes in the pressure on the eardrum, and secretion of fluid into the airspace of the middle ear. If obstruction of the Eustachian tube continues, it may rapidly develop into an infection of the middle ear with pus (otitis media). If the eardrum ruptures (breaks), discharge begins to drain out of the ear.

An earache may also result from foreign objects in the ear canal, a buildup of ear-wax, pain in the jaw or molar teeth, or boils in the ear canal. Boils can be caused by scratching or digging in the ear with bobby pins, hairpins, fingernails, or cotton swabs.

Complications of untreated middle ear infections include mastoiditis (infection of the bone behind the ear), meningitis, perforated eardrum, and draining ear. Both middle and outer ear infections can cause swollen, tender lymph nodes.

Signs and symptoms

Earaches may be mild or extremely painful. The pain may be constant, may come and go, or may occur only with chewing, burping, or nose blowing. Earaches may or may not be accompanied by fever or signs of a cold. They may or may not affect hearing. Progression to an infected middle ear (otitis media) usually causes intense, often throbbing pain. If the eardrum ruptures, pain quickly lessens. If there is a boil, a foreign body, a buildup of earwax or an infection in the ear canal, the pain is mild at first and gradually builds. Gentle pressure on the earlobe aggravates the pain.

If your child is too young to tell you where the pain is, prolonged crying should be considered a possible sign of an earache. An earache is especially likely if the crying infant also has a head cold or congested nose, pulls on his or her ear, has recently gone swimming, or has flown in an airplane.

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Where there is a great deal of seepage from the blood vessels, the tissues below the skin may also become filled with watery fluid. This produces a puffi-ness that doctors describe as localized angioedema (or oedema). About 50 per cent of people who are afflicted with urticaria also get angioedema, and some people have angioedema without any urticaria. However, there are a large number of other disorders that can produce angioedema, some of them very serious – they should all be eliminated by a full medical examination, before the possible role of allergy is investigated.

*55\180\8*

Marine lipid concentrate (MaxEPA) contains the two essential fatty acids not found in evening primrose oil. MaxEPA, combined with evening primrose oil, provides the cells with all the essential fatty acids needed to keep the metabolism balanced. Marine lipids have a cholesterol-lowering and an anti-rheumatoid-arthritic effect.

To answer this question scientifically one has to say ‘yes’ as it is possible to have too much of anything. In reality the answer has to be ‘no’ as the dosages of multi-vitamin and mineral formulas are strictly monitored by the Department of Health to eliminate this possibility.

There are 5000 documented cases of vitamin overdoses in the United States. Mostly these were children gulping down sugar-coated, artificially flavoured vitamins in the belief they were lollies but in not one case was death the outcome, even though they felt nauseous and headachy for a while. This compares rather favourably with the thousands of deaths resulting from aspirin overdose (slightly more than 2000). Anyone who wants to be stupid can take massive doses of a single vitamin and this can cause metabolic disturbances of varying degrees.

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Most weight-reducing diets are vitamin and mineral deficient which further aggravates the metabolic imbalance created by these deficiencies. High protein diets lead to deficiencies in vitamins B6 and B3 as large quantities of these vitamins are needed to metabolise protein. As we have already seen, a vitamin B6 deficiency interferes with thyroid gland and T-lymphocyte metabolism. A vitamin B3 and B6 deficiency aggravates carbohydrate metabolism.

Some of the high fibre diets advertised are high in tinned peas, beans and corn. The chemical preservatives used in the preparation of these foods can build up in the liver over time and disrupt its function. As the liver is the great metabolic factory of the body, any disruption in its function can lead to disruption in the metabolism of the body as a whole.

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A. There are two reasons why you would feel better when you fast:

1. The withholding of all foods from the body is an effective way of removing the symptoms of food allergy. This is the reason many chronic fatigue syndrome sufferers experience a significant burst of energy while fasting. Unfortunately this ‘drift net’ approach to treating allergies has its drawbacks as vitamin and mineral deficiencies quickly develop on fasts. Recent reports in the newspapers have described how parents have fasted their babies to rid them of allergic asthma and eczema and that although the symptoms disappeared while off food, the babies became so malnourished they died in their sleep. By following the treatment program in this book you will get rid of your allergies safely, you won’t develop nutrient deficiencies and you will feel as good as you did on your fast. Fasting doesn’t cure allergies it only removes the symptoms for the period that you are on the fast. When you start eating again, the symptoms return.

2. Non-allergic people can also experience a short-term physical and mental boost from a short fast. The total withholding of food from the body is a stress. Stress causes the release of the hormone adrenalin and adrenalin sends extra blood and oxygen to the brain, eyes and muscles. This makes us feel mentally alert and physically stronger. This process has been used for thousands of years to increase mental agility, inspiration and readiness for action. Einstein claimed that some of his flashes of brilliance were the result of ‘frugal fare’ and Shakespeare captured the essence of the fasting principle in describing the demise of Julius Caesar: ‘Have about me men that are fat. Yon Casca has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much.’

However, just because great men have used and advocated fasting, that doesn’t make it a desirable practice. Granted, twelve and twenty-four hour fasts won’t do much harm if they are not practised regularly and you are not pregnant, diabetic, hypoglycaemic or on medication. In my experience though, most people take the view that if a little bit makes you feel good, more will make you feel better, and this doesn’t hold for fasting. These people begin practising longer fasts more frequently. By the time they consult me they are suffering from vitamin and mineral deficiencies and look and feel terrible.

The deep breathing exercises will put more oxygen in your brain and muscles than the adrenal surge of a fast. You’ll feel brighter and stronger permanently, rather than have your mental acuity go up and down with your adrenalin levels.

Remember: the effects of fasting are cumulative and if you’re not taking a complete multi-vitamin and mineral supplement you will, in time, develop deficiencies. I don’t recommend you try fasting, the probability of things going wrong is too great.

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The symptoms of stress are the same as the symptoms of Candida yeast infection. For this reason, you may not feel that much better if you are stressed. You may begin to lose heart and feel the program isn’t working, even though it is successfully killing the yeast. You may begin to feel tired and despondent on it, thus making it difficult to stick to. Take care of all your stresses before commencing this program and reduce them where possible.

Smokers should not try to give up while on this program. Coping with the symptoms of yeast kill-off is difficult enough without adding the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal.

People with nightshade allergies are the exception to this rule. If you are allergic to any of the nightshade group of plants (tomato, chili, cayenne, eggplant, green pepper, paprika, potato, red pepper, tobacco, belladonna) you must give up cigarettes. The nightshades are so closely related, being allergic to even one or two of them means that cigarettes will prevent the program from working.

Drugs, particularly marijuana, must also be given up, as they suppress the yeast-killing effect of the white blood cells.

There can be no standard anti-candida program that works for all of the people all of the time. This is because most Candida sufferers also have allergies and are allergic to different things.

Because most people with a yeast infection are also allergic to yeasts, moulds and fungi, all yeasts, moulds and fungi have been withheld from the Anti-Candida Program.

One thing that all anti-candida programs do have in common is that they exclude sugar, honey, white flour and any food made from them. For the first four to six weeks, all fruits, milk and milk products are to be excluded from the program. Eggs are not dairy products and may be had on this program. The sugar in fruit, honey and milk feeds the Candida albicans yeast colony in the gut, causing it to grow larger. The Anti-Candida Program is an amended version of the Metabolism-Balancing Program. Eat only what’s on the program! If it’s not written here, don’t eat it!

Children under four years of age are not to go on this program without supervision of a health professional.

You absolutely must eat the unleavened bread whether you like it or not. To not eat it means you will become short of the minerals chromium and selenium, and thus you will feel weak. If you are allergic to wheat, make the bread from millet flour, or rice flour, or buckwheat flour.

Don’t go on this program if you are not prepared to eat the bread. One comforting thought is that even if at first you don’t like it, you will develop a taste for it if you persist. Eat only those unleavened breads included in the shopping list.

All oat and rye products have been excluded from this program as experience has taught me that most allergic people have sensitivities to the common oat and to rye grass. These two are related to the cereal oats and cereal rye used in breads. Rice bran has been added to the recipes in lieu of oats as a cholesterol-lowering agent.

If you are a flight attendant on an international airline, you have to stay on fruit for the whole duration of the program. This may mean it will take longer to get well but this can’t be helped. The long flights place too much strain on the body for it to go without the natural sugars found in fruit. If you are pregnant, you must also stay on fruit. Use crushed egg shells (crushed to a fine powder) in salad dressings, scrambled eggs, omelettes and in recipes. Egg shells are rich in calcium and preclude the need for milk.

Although I prefer my patients to go off fruit and milk concurrently for the first four to six weeks, you may go off them at any stage of the program and at separate times if you prefer—even the last four to six weeks if you like. Some people find that being on the fruit and milk at the beginning helps them to adjust to being on the

program. They are used to being on it by the time they have to go off the fruit and milk. If you are allergic to milk or any particular fruits, you will go off them at the outset of the program. Don’t have more than three to four pieces of fruit per day.

Sometimes a change of diet can cause constipation. If this happens to you on the Anti-Candida/Anti-Allergy Program take a mild herbal laxative (Cascara sagrada is a good one) before bed and drink more water. As your bowels begin to return to normal, reduce the amount and frequency of the laxative until it’s no longer required.

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These act in a similar way to tranquillisers, muscle relaxants, narcotics, painkillers and alcohol, suppressing brain and nerve function. For this reason antihistamines are a component of many commonly prescribed sleeping pills.

Suppressed brain and nerve function lower your performance physically and mentally, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the doses of antihistamine taken. A combination of sedatives and antihistamines can cause tremors and mental confusion. If painkillers are also taken, as they often are by arthritis sufferers, depression can ensue. Drugs that suppress brain and nerve function tend to intensify each other’s effect and can lead to nutrient deficiencies by interfering with the body’s ability to metabolise vitamins and minerals.

For instance, aspirin can cause vitamin C deficiency. This is bad news for arthritis sufferers—vitamin C is needed to repair the destroyed collagen of their affected joints. Indomethacin, another drug used to treat arthritis can cause psychiatric disturbances, epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease by interfering with vitamin B, zinc and manganese metabolism. It also predisposes to infections and defects in the body’s ability to coagulate blood. It impairs kidney function and, given time, can actually burn holes in the stomach wall, greatly interfering with digestion and absorption.

Dr Jean Mayer, Professor of Nutrition at Harvard University, believes a vast number of people suffer from iatrogenic (doctor-caused) malnutrition. My experience is that people on long-term Indomethacin most certainly do.

Although not particularly toxic in the short term, antihistamines can, even if no other drugs are taken, be toxic to the body over a period of time. It is because allergy sufferers take antihistamines for years on end that they end up joining the hospital admission list.

The following are the well-recognised side effects of commonly used antihistamines:

Atarax- severe drowsiness may occur with the use of this drug. Patients should be warned against driving a car or operating dangerous machinery while taking it. Potentiates the action of sedatives and alcohol.

Benadryl- this medication may cause drowsiness. If affected do not drive a motor car, avoid alcohol. Potentiates the action of sedatives and alcohol.

Fabahistin- same as above.

Polaramine- same as above.

Phenergan- drowsiness, dry mouth, dizziness, jitteriness, faintness, headache, nausea, allergic skin manifestations of rash and fluid retention, fatigue, disturbed coordination, tremor, irritability, blurred vision, palpitations, nervousness (and more).

Recent research in the United States has shown that long-term use of antihistamine nasal sprays can cause a permanently blocked nose—the very condition they are used to treat in the first place.

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I Have Food Addictions or Obsessions

People sensitive-to a food or drink often have an addictive or obsessive relationship with it. Certain foods are extraordinarily important to them. Sometimes they eat or drink an excessive amount of a food, but more often they need to consume it constantly, craving it and often feeling better when they first eat or drink it again. If you wake up in the morning and do not feel well until you have consumed a particular drink or food, this is a prime indicator of food sensitivity. Feeling awful in the morning, to the point of feeling sick or even vomiting, is often a symptom of withdrawal from a food.

A child who craves constant biscuits/milk/cheese/juice/anything else may well be sensitive to that food. An addictive relationship with alcohol is sometimes caused by the foods (e.g. grapes, grains, hops, yeast) from which the drink is made, or the yeast in the alcohol.

I Have Unsatisfied Hunger or Thirst

Another indicator of food sensitivity is excessive hunger or thirst that is not satisfied by eating or drinking. Still feeling hungry after a big meal is often linked to sensitivity to a food. Excessive and constant thirst, often accompanied by constant need to urinate, is also a sign – particularly noticeable in young children. It sometimes accompanies puffiness and weight swings (see below). In adults, excessive sweating also often accompanies heavy thirst

I Have a Puffy Face

Puffiness, particularly noticeable around the face, is a trait of food sensitivity. Fingers, ankles and other joints also suffer as well. Fluid retention can result from reactions to foods and this puffiness is a sign.

I Have Big ‘Shiners’ Under My Eyes

Big black rings – so-called ‘shiners’ – are another indicator, although they can also be a sign of nasal allergies. A constant sniff, a runny nose, and persistent sinusitis, are often linked to shiners.

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