Most often, inflammation is rooted in the gut and caused by food sensitivities. These days we encounter an epidemic of chronic health issues resulting from inflammation. By understanding the gut in more detail, we have the capacity to decrease inflammation without the use of medications that have long lists of side effects and don’t solve the underlying issue.

 

The important thing to realize about inflammation is that it can appear in any part of the body, including hormone systems, the brain, and the cardiovascular system. The evidence for this is unquestionable. This being said, it is very important to identify foods that may be stimulating our immune system and having detrimental downstream health effects.

 

Testing for food sensitivities has its controversies, but it can be a very useful starting point. IBS and Crohn’s disease respond best to IgG testing but are clinically applicable in many other illnesses. The tests reveal gut complaints, chronic fatigue, depression and anxiety, and autoimmune issues, to name a few.

 

Limitations of food sensitivity testing:

 

1. They test only limited immune reactions and do not show non-immune food reactions

Food sensitivity testing is not perfect, as it is only testing a very select part of the immune system. Parts of the immune system most often tested are IgE (true allergy), IgA (mucosal immune system), and IgG (delayed food sensitivities). A negative test does not exclude a reaction by the innate immune system, or a non-immune reaction (like lactose intolerance, FODMAP intolerance, or histamine intolerance).

 

2. Laboratory standards differ

The accuracy of testing can vary from lab to lab, depending on which controls and which antigens they use. For example, an organic apple may have different reactivity to one that is not organic. Heat and processing or roasting may make an antigen more or less antigenic. Whether the lab uses monoclonal antibodies (from one source) vs polyclonal antibodies (from many sources), can also affect the reactivity of the test.

 

3. Individual and confounding factors

False positives may result from smoking, alcohol consumption, periodontal disease and other factors. False negatives may result from immunoglobulin deficiencies. Lab tests may not pick up individual differences in immunoglobulins which could also skew results.

 

Testing often shows reaction to antigens which should be ‘healthy’ foods. This situation is often caused by increased intestinal permeability. Something like gluten may trigger leaky gut, allowing bystanders to leak through the gut layer and stimulate an immune reaction. Gut repair is essential in resolving this.

 

 

With all these confounding factors, how do you figure out what you are reacting to?

The gold standard of figuring of food sensitivities is with an elimination diet. This means taking out the common allergenic offending foods for a period of 3-4 weeks minimum and then slowly reintroducing them one by one. A positive test results when a reaction to the reintroduced food occurs.

 

In an ideal world, every patient with a chronic health condition should go through an elimination diet. Unfortunately, this does not always happen. In many cases, people do not believe that their health condition is related to food and so are not willing to change their way of eating.

 

The benefits of food sensitivity testing:

Enter the food sensitivity test. Though not all testing is perfect, this can be an extremely useful tool in figuring out major food triggers. Keeping the above limitations in mind, improvements in symptoms should occur with removal of the offending foods. The proof is in the pudding: people very often do get dramatically better when they remove the positive foods on the tests.
 

When they do not get better after a trial of elimination, a skilled health care professional will guide the patient to work through different steps based on their history, physical examination and testing, to figure out what is causing their symptoms.

 

Reasons people don’t get better:

  1. Gut healing not done alongside the removal of the problem foods. Much research around gluten removal with or without gut repair, has been done. A large percentage of patients do not improve symptomatically when the gut repair is not undertaken. This involves replacing pancreatic enzymes, gallbladder support, and stomach acid and healing the lining of the gut.
  2. The person is reacting to food in a different way. They may have histamine, salicylate, or oxalate intolerance or a lectin intolerance and respond to a grain and legume-free diet. They could also have fructose intolerance.
  3. They may have dysbiosis, or overgrowth of bacteria/ yeast or parasites (often interrelated with food sensitivities). Because of this they may have FODMAP intolerance (with SIBO) or may react to foods that trigger candida, like sugar.
  4. They have a misunderstanding about which foods contain the antigens they are reacting to or are being inadvertently exposed to. A common example is gluten, found in many spices, teas, toothpaste, etc.
  5. Their symptoms may not be directly related to the gut and can be related to heavy metal toxicity, biotoxin illness (mold commonly causes gut issues) or autonomic imbalance.
  6. They had a false positive test.

 

The good news

The aim is not to be off the offending food forever – the aim is to figure out why someone is reacting in the first place. If you heal your gut and eliminate correctly, you should be able to eat most things again but some people may need to stay off certain foods lifelong. The most common of these are gluten, dairy, and eggs.

 

The bottom line is that food sensitivity testing is far from perfect, but it is very often a starting point to guide a patient in the right direction and motivate lifestyle changes. The important take home is to ask why the food reactions are happening in the first place. On many occasions, people become frustrated because they follow the elimination of the foods found on their tests and they don’t feel better. It is essential to have an experienced health care provider interpret your food sensitivity test in the context of what your issues are so that you can be guided in the right direction and achieve the best results.

 

References

Bentz, S., Hausmann, M., Piberger, H., et al., (2010). Clinical relevance of IgG antibodies against food antigens in Crohn’s disease: A double-blind cross-over diet intervention study. Karger – Digestion 81(4), 252-264. https://doi.org/10.1159/000264649

 

Drisko, J., Bischoff, B., Hall, M., & McCallum, R. (2005). Treating irritable bowel syndrome with a food elimination diet followed by food challenge and probiotics. Journal of the American College of Nutrition 25(6), 514-522. https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.2006.10719567

 

Guo, H., Jiang, T., Wang, J., et al., (2012). The value of eliminating foods according to food-specific immunoglobulin G antibodies in irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhoea. Journal of International Medical Research 40(1), 204-210. https://doi.org/10.1177/147323001204000121

 

Meletis, C.D., & Barker, J. Delayed-onset food allergies (2004). Alternative and Complementary Therapies 9(2), 61-65. https://doi.org/10.1089/107628003321536968

 

Uzunısmaıl, H., Cengız, M., Uzun, H., et al., (2012). The effects of provocation by foods with raised IgG antibodies and additives on the course of Crohn’s disease: A pilot study. Turkish Journal of Gastroenterology 23(1), 19-27. DOI: 10.4318/tjg.2012.0332

 

Zar, S., Mincher, L., Benson, M.J., & Kumar, D. (2005). Food-specific IgG4 antibody-guided exclusion diet improves symptoms and rectal compliance in irritable bowel syndrome. Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology 40(7), 800-807, https://doi.org/10.1080/00365520510015593

 

Author

Dr. Michelle van der Westhuizen, MD

The breath is a powerful source of transformation for brain health and breathwork is a practice that improves it. The rate and rhythm of the breath are intimately connected to our mental & emotional states (Brown & Gerbarg, 2012). Just as the emotions and the mind cause the breath to vary, by consciously controlling the breath, we gain control over our mind and our emotions (Trinity College Dublin, 2018).

 

Anxiety and Stress Eased by Breathwork

Combining this modality of breathwork with the eye gaze by noticing ten things in the room and mentally or aloud saying their colour and what they are, as well as pressing the feet into the floor, will activate your parasympathetic nervous system and bring you into a feeling of calmness (McKay, Wood, & Brantley, 2007).

 

Depression

On the other hand, when a person is feeling the depths of depression and despair, they may sigh a lot with almost a sense of defeat. The breath here is usually more in the belly. To bring more life force or prana into the body, it is recommended to sit up straight, lengthen the spine, and with an open mouth – breathing deep and forcefully into the upper chest. This activates the sympathetic nervous system and creates a sense of alertness and aliveness (Levine & Frederick, 2005). Taking breathwork one step further, raise both arms above the head as you inhale, allowing the eye gaze to follow the hands while keeping the chin level (Rosenberg, Rand, & Assay, 1987). Five to ten of these breaths and one will feel a tingling in the whole body, with the eye focus becoming clearer and a sense of elation.

 

How and why does this happen?

The respiratory system is one of the only major systems in the body which is usually involuntary but can be voluntarily controlled via attention (Levine & Frederick, 1997). The rhythm of our heart is thought to be another involuntary system, but if we want to, we can change the speed of our heart by modifying our breath. Should we slow down our breath, for example, this brings the body and mind into a state of calmness and relaxation, thereby slowing the heart rate.

 

The Breath: A Life Force

Breath is the life force that keeps us going; if we didn’t breathe, we would die. When we are able to control the breath with breathwork, we are able to moderate the way we feel in the moment and develop a sense of control over stress levels.

Your rate of breathing and state of mind are inseparable. Using a full yogic breath or other pranayama techniques reprograms your whole cellular memory (Khalsa & Lumpkin, 2015).

 

History of The Breath

For thousands of years, ancient wisdom techniques from the east have exalted the virtues of breath-focused practices, such as pranayama and meditation for their numerous cognitive benefits, including an increased ability to focus, decreased mind wandering, improved arousal levels, more positive emotions, decreased emotional reactivity, and many other benefits (Yates & Immergut, 2017).

 

What did they know that we are just now validating scientifically? Well, a new study by researchers at Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and the Global Brain Health Institute at Trinity, Dublin explains for the first time the neurophysiological link between breathing, cognition, and emotion. The research shows that the way we breathe directly affects the chemistry of our brains in a way that can enhance our attention and improve brain health. This study focuses on changes in the levels of noradrenaline in response to the breath. Noradrenaline is a chemical messenger released in the brain when we are challenged, curious, focused, or otherwise emotionally aroused, and when we exercise. If produced at the right levels, it is essential to help the brain grow new connections (Trinity College Dublin, 2018).

 

Breathwork: A Scientific Study

Outlined here by a Ph.D. candidate at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and lead author of the study, Michael Melnychuk: “Practitioners of yoga have claimed for some 2,500 years, that respiration influences the mind. In our study, we looked for a neurophysiological link that could help explain these claims by measuring breathing, reaction time, and brain activity in a small area in the brainstem called the locus coeruleus, where noradrenaline is made. Noradrenaline is an all-purpose action system in the brain. When we are stressed we produce too much noradrenaline and we can’t focus. When we feel sluggish, we produce too little and again, we can’t focus. There is a sweet spot of noradrenaline in which our emotions, thinking, and memory are much clearer. This study has shown that as you breathe in, locus coeruleus activity is increased slightly, and as you breathe out it decreases. Put simply this means that our attention is influenced by our breath and that it rises and falls with the cycle of respiration. It is possible that by focusing on and regulating your breathing you can optimize your attention level and likewise, by focusing on your attention level, your breathing becomes more synchronized.”

 

Breathwork and Brain Aging

Even more exciting in this area of research was the understanding and uncovering of how breathwork and meditation may have an effect on the aging of the brain. Ian Robertson, Co-Director of the Global Brain Health Institute at Trinity College, Dublin, writes: 

 

“Our findings could have particular implications for research into brain ageing. Brains typically lose mass as they age, but less so in the brains of long-term meditators. More ‘youthful’ brains have a reduced risk of dementia and mindfulness meditation techniques actually strengthen brain networks. Our research offers one possible reason for this — using our breath to control one of the brain’s natural chemical messengers, noradrenaline, which in the right ‘dose’ helps the brain grow new connections between cells. This study provides one more reason for everyone to boost the health of their brain using a whole range of activities ranging from aerobic exercise to mindfulness meditation.”

In sum, breathe deep! It’s good for your brain health.

 

References

Brown, R., & Gerbarg, P. (2012). The healing power of the breath: Simple techniques to reduce stress and anxiety, enhance concentration, and balance your emotions. Shambala Publishing.

 

Khalsa Kaur, J., & Lumpkin, N. (2015). Enlightened bodies: Exploring physical and subtle human anatomy. Kundalini Research Institute

 

Levine, P., & Frederick, A. (1997). Waking the tiger: Healing trauma. North Atlantic Books.

 

Levine, P., & Frederick, A. (2005). Healing trauma: A pioneering program for restoring the wisdom of your body. Sounds True Inc.

 

McKay, M., Wood, J.C., & Brantley, J. (2007). The dialectical behavior therapy skills workbook: Practical DBT exercises for learning mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance. New Harbinger Publications Inc.

 

Melnychuk, M.C., Dockree, P.M., O’Connell, R.G., Murphy, P.R., Balsters, J.H., & Robertson, I.H. (2018). Coupling of respiration and attention via the locus coeruleus: Effects of meditation and pranayama. Psychophysiology, 55(9). DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13091

 

Rosenberg, J.L., Rand, M, & Assay, D. (1987). Body, self, and soul: Sustaining integration. Humanics Publishing Group.

 

Trinity College Dublin. (2018). The Yogi masters were right — meditation and breathing exercises can sharpen your mind: New research explains link between breath-focused meditation and attention and brain health. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180510101254.htm

 

Yates, J., & Immergut, M.. (2017). The mind illuminated: A complete meditation guide integrating Buddhist wisdom and brain science for greater mindfulness. Hay House Publishing.

 

Author

Charmaine Husum, DKATI, RTC, CT