Time and again, when her hormonal system gets out of whack, and especially when other measures have failed to rebalance it, food intolerances are the culprit.

Further, once the offending food (or foods) is removed from her diet, the results, hormone-wise, can be nothing short of spectacular.

No matter what phase of her hormone journey she is in, her hormonal symptoms can literally disappear, as if they had evaporated into thin air.

These seemingly miraculous results – the disappearance of hot flashes, the cessation of early menarche, the termination of the debilitating pain of PMS, the discharge of clots during her period, the end of breakthrough bleeding, the normalization of blood sugar and more – can take place simply by removing from her diet those foods she can’t digest.

Sounds magical, yes?

But these results are actually very ordinary and common, part of the routine day of a health practitioner who’s tuned in to this aspect of hormone care.

Here’s more…

Eliminate Her Food Intolerances

Every woman will have some type of food intolerance. In other words, every woman will have some detrimental reactions to a food, beverage, food additive, or compound found in foods that produces symptoms (often delayed) in one or more of her body organs and systems.

Which particular organ or system is affected depends on her own genetic heritage and the food itself. For example, if she is intolerant to wheat, her pituitary will massively overwork. Because it is the master gland that coordinates all the others, this has major downstream implications for her other hormone glands. This may be difficult to connect because wheat is absorbed very low in the digestive tract. This means she may not experience the symptoms until long after she ingested it.

If she is intolerant of corn, you will find that her pancreas is the affected organ. Therefore the symptoms you will see have to do with blood sugar imbalances, digestive disturbances and elimination issues.

If she is intolerant of lactose, you may find that her thyroid is overworking.

Because any of these foods is incompletely digested, it therefore adds to the toxic burden of her liver. If her liver cannot keep up with the load of toxins coming through, it can back up on the jobs it needs to do. One of these jobs, you may remember, is breaking down estrogen.

When her liver doesn’t keep up with the breakdown of estrogen, she can become estrogen dominant, increasing her risk of heart attacks and strokes, for example. This is how her major medical issues can grow out of such a simple thing as eating foods she can’t digest.

It’s amazing to think that such serious-sounding symptoms can disappear with the removal of the offending food. But that’s not the only benefit of eliminating foods to which she is intolerant. For example, in addition to promoting hormone balance, removing food intolerances can put her in an excellent position to drop unwanted pounds.

Food Intolerances vs. Food Allergies

Food intolerances are different from food allergies. Food intolerances involve the ability to digest a food (perhaps because her body doesn’t make the necessary enzymes), where allergies involve her immune system creating an antibody response to that food.

Therefore the typical scratch tests used for allergy testing (the questionable substances are placed into scratches on her skin to see if red marks appear) may or may not reveal intolerances.

She may be intolerant to a food, for example, but not allergic to it, or allergic to it but not intolerant. Or she might be both allergic to it and intolerant of it.

Many women are confused about these differences between food allergies and food intolerances. You may notice this when she says that she’s had a variety of skin scratch tests which demonstrated what she is and is not ‘intolerant’ of. But those tests are checking for food allergies, not intolerances. Food allergies are those that invoke a specific immune system response to a particular food protein, stimulating either immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies or T-cells.

This immune reaction occurs within minutes to an hour or so of smelling, touching, or ingesting a particular food. In a true food allergy, her immune system over-reacts to the presence of the food, interpreting it as harmful.

This sets up release of histamine, causing symptoms that range from mild to severe, including hives, itching, trouble breathing, wheezing, and even anaphylactic shock, a medical emergency.i

How Food Intolerances Affect Her Health and Hormones

Food intolerances result from the connection between certain substances in the food she eats and her own particular tissues.

Lactose Intolerance The first and most common of all food intolerances is a response to the carbohydrate in milk. It results from the inability to digest the milk sugar portion of milk. This is due to lactase enzyme (the enzyme that breaks down lactose) production falling away as age increases.

The human body is thought to be designed to process milk sugar (lactose) approximately as long as it has milk teeth. As the mature adult teeth appear and the milk teeth are lost, the lactase enzyme also gradually diminishes, and ultimately for many people, disappears entirely.

When she was a baby, unless she was born premature, her body naturally produced the lactase enzyme so she could digest milk. Typically, the earliest she may have developed trouble digesting milk sugar is not before age three. One of the signals of lactose intolerance children communicate is, “Mommy, my ear hurts.” In her history, therefore, you can check for whether or not she suffered frequent ‘ear infections’ as a child.

By age 20, some 30 million American adults have some degree of lactose intolerance. The specific age it develops varies by ethnicity. For example, Caucasians develop lactose intolerance as children older than age 5, while African Americans can experience it as early as age 2.

The National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse estimates that some 30 million to 50 million Americans are lactose intolerant. This varies according to ethnicity. For example, estimates are that 75 percent of African Americans and American Indians and 90 percent of Asian

Americans are lactose intolerant.”ii This is why, in adults, it is considered to be normal among those of Asian, African, or Native American heritage. It is less common in people of northern or western European backgrounds.iii

When lactose can no longer be properly digested, it acts like any other food which has not been completely broken down, and becomes like a poison, wreaking havoc on a variety of systems and causing a variety of symptoms.

A typical lactose intolerance picture can include diarrhea, constipation, backache, intestinal cramping, gas, bloating, irritable bowel syndrome, back “going out” of alignment, adjustments not holding, eczema, flu-like symptoms such as sore throat, sore ears, ear infections, achiness, feeling tired and worn out, foul breath, etc.

Undigested milk sugar will irritate her ileocecal valve (right lower quadrant near the appendix) in her G.I. tract, causing it to remain open (or “blown”). It can also “blow” her valve of Huston (in the lower left quadrant). Open valves mean her eliminative system is back flushing toxins it already ‘decided’ to eliminate from her lower intestine back up through her G.I. tract, where they will have to be reprocessed and re- eliminated.

Her lymph system goes into overdrive attempting to cleanse, but quickly backs up, leading to swollen glands, sore throat and ear pain. She reports she feels bloated and full but unable to get things moving out.

Additionally, when her valves remain open, certain muscles and ligaments that normally stabilize her pelvis cannot work correctly. Therefore her spine and sacroiliac easily go out of alignment, especially when she stresses them by lifting, twisting or even sneezing.

Her skin and respiratory systems attempt to take over and eliminate some toxins, which can lead to foul breath, rash, hives and eczema. If this situation is allowed to continue, her body will finally give up attempting to mount any defense. Instead, it attempts to adjust to being constantly overwhelmed. The best her immune system can then do is make tumors in an attempt to isolate the toxins as much as possible.

Food Protein Intolerances The second type of food intolerance results from the reaction of her body cells with particular proteins in foods. These substances are called “lectins”.iv

Biochemically, lectins are protein molecules with a sugar molecule attached at one end. They are very sticky, which contributes to their ability to bind with her tissues. This connection between one cell surface with carbohydrates (on the lectin) and another (in her body) has been described as “resembling the action of Velcro; each interaction is relatively weak but the composite is strong.”v

Lectins are found throughout nature; therefore they exist in all foods she eats, whether from animals or plants or even microorganisms.vi Although the function of lectins is still not completely understood, it is thought that in plants, they function as potent insecticides, protecting the plant against damage from insects. In animals, their primary task is to make contact between one cell and another.

In people, lectins “are thought to play a role in immune function, cell growth, cell death, and body fat regulation.” vii Some lectins are toxic to people while others are beneficial. Some scientists deduce that some lectins may even be cancer-protective.

Her body uses lectins to carry out many basic activities. Their role in cell adherence (one cell to another) is the one that can set up food intolerances, however, because the interaction between lectins in a particular food and contact with her unique bodily tissues can set up problems. In short, certain lectins can cause her red blood cells to clump, an occurrence called agglutination.

This red blood cell agglutination is the basis for testing for blood types.

Most women have at least a beginning acquaintance with agglutination because, even though they may not know the word, they understand there is danger in receiving the wrong blood type from a blood transfusion. What she may be less familiar with is how this agglutination can take place as a result of the interaction between particular foods she eats and the cells of her specific body.

Many practitioners surmise that her blood type may influence how she responds to certain foods. In fact, the “Blood Type Diet” is based on how blood cells react with lectins in foods.viii

While scientists and blog authors argue about whether or not blood type is relevant, or whether or not the research was valid, or good science, many clinicians find that having her avoid the foods that are excluded for her blood type completely eliminates the negative role that food intolerances play in undermining not only her health in general, but also her hormone balance specifically.

This is because the interactions between particular lectins and her cells can mimic the effect of hormones, and cause changes in cells the way hormones do. This is termed molecular mimicry.ix

The process seems to begin when lectins negatively affect the walls of her intestines, causing a ‘leaky gut’. This means that a variety of particles – food and microorganisms – can cross through this now permeable barrier, where her immune system sets up an attack, resulting in food sensitivity. The most common of all these reactions is that from the wheat lectin.

Called wheat germ agglutinin, or WGA, its protein sticks to the brush border in her small intestine, where, rather than being broken down by her digestive process, it moves across the intestinal border and into the inside of her body.

Her immune system ‘decides’ what to attack or leave alone through a mechanism in which it scans the amino acids in proteins in sequences of six. The amino acid sequences in many lectin proteins often resemble the sequences from other tissues of her body. This is why her immune system can get easily confused and attack normal cells in her organs and glands.

Wheat intolerance is not the same as gluten intolerance. If she is wheat intolerant only, she will be able to consume other grains such as rye, barley, etc. However, if she is gluten intolerant, she will only be able to consume rice, amaranth, quinoa and millet, as they contain no gluten.

Assessing Her Food Intolerances

One of the first methods to establish whether or not food intolerances are causing hormonal problems is to check the symptoms she reports. To do this you can give her a list such as the one below to fill out, or simply scan the list for how many indicators you find. Here are some of the common signs (of which there are more, depending on where in her body the suspected food is exerting its effect):

Symptoms

dark circles under her eyes,
unexplained weight gain, difficult to lose
fatigue,
sleepiness, especially after eating offending food
gas,
bloating,
stomach cramps,
nausea,
stomach pain,
vomiting,
heartburn,
diarrhea,
headaches,
delayed or premature menarche,
painful periods,
PMS,
infertility,
hot flashes,
delayed or premature menopause,
post-menopausal depression,
irritability
mood swings,
migraines,
eating disorders,
asthma,
arthritis
increase in the severity of other symptoms (such as rheumatoid arthritis)x, xi.

In case you wonder if she also has food allergies, or to contrast the two, below are some typical symptoms a food allergy may include:

rash or hives
nausea
cramping stomach pain
diarrhea
itchy skin
shortness of breath
chest pain
swelling of the airways to the lungs
sudden drop in blood pressure, fainting leading to anaphylactic shock, a medical emergency.xii

Trial and error. Another way to assess her is to suggest she eliminate for a month any foods you think might be suspect for her and see if her symptoms disappear in their absence and reappear once reintroduced.

This is called ‘provocative testing’.

To decide which foods to eliminate initially, you can ask her to keep a two or three week record of everything she eats and the symptoms she experiences, then review the list to choose which ones to avoid. This will give you general categories of suspected foods.xiii

Food Intolerances by Blood Type To determine what her specific food intolerances might be, you can follow the recommendations for her particular blood type. To do this, she chooses foods from the list of ‘highly beneficials’ and ‘neutrals’ and does not consume those on her ‘avoid’ list. (These are available in Peter D’Adamo’s book Eat Right for Your Type.)xiv For example, if she is an O blood type, the big avoids for her are wheat and corn.

A blood type, her big avoids are red meat, wheat, and nightshades such as eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and tobacco.

B, her main avoids are chicken, corn, and lentils. AB, hers are wheat and corn.xv

Pulse Test Yet another way to unearth food intolerance is to do a pulse test. She can start by taking her resting pulse for one minute, when she’s calm, say in early morning before any coffee or tea. Each time she eats or drinks, she should then take her resting pulse again for one minute. If it varies by more than ten points up or down, what she ate or drank may be the culprit.

If so, she can try removing that food from her diet for at least 2 weeks. If she notices a marked change in her symptoms, you can take it as confirmation that she has an intolerance to that particular food.xvi

You may be able to help her eliminate allergic reactions (but not intolerances) by instructing her to eat only one food – such as a ripe fruit in season – for five days, followed by adding one food back at a time. This is a way to try to reprogram her immune system so it doesn’t react to the substance. If her symptoms disappear during the fast and return afterwards, you’ll know that she has a food intolerance.

Laboratory Testing You can order a test kit from Metametrix lab (770 446 5483). They will send a kit to your office. If your professional licensure does not include drawing blood, you can send your client with the kit to get her blood drawn at a local lab. When you receive the test results, you will find out food intolerances for some 90 different foods.xvii

Remedies

Food Rotation This approach to eating is recommended by many practitioners as a way to prevent developing food intolerances and also to deal with them when they develop. For example, one recommendation is based on the fact that the body takes about four days to completely process any given food and clear it from the system. Therefore it is suggested to rotate foods so that they are consumed only one day out of four. This method has the additional advantage of helping to identify which foods might result in reactions. xviii

Food Preparation to Reduce Lectins Sources differ on whether particular ways of food preparation only greatly reduce lectin content or in fact completely eliminate it. Nonetheless, it’s clear that soaking, fermenting, sprouting and cooking will at the very least greatly decrease lectins.xix

The methods described in Nourishing Traditions are those that have been used for centuries, and are considered by many to be the best way to accomplish lectin reduction.xx

Experimenting with Overcoming Food Intolerances. When she has non- genetic food intolerances, she can attempt to overcome them by avoiding the food or foods to which she’s sensitive for a few months, then gradually reintroducing each, one at a time, starting with small amounts and gradually increasing them.xxi

Lactose: Eliminating all milk sugar from the diet is the solution. Because lactose is used in a wide variety of recipes, processed foods and supplements, this means always checking to see if ANY lactose is present, eliminating custards, most yoghurts, sour cream and all soft cheeses such as mozzarella (pizza cheese), American, Monterey Jack or Gouda.

However, hard cheese such as Swiss, Cheddar, Parmesan and Asiago, contain milk protein, not milk sugar, and so are fine to eat.

Most cheeses made from fat, such as brie, are OK too, but to be certain, read the ingredient label, as some include skim milk. Also be aware that “whey” contains milk sugar and milk liquid and so to be avoided.

Any yoghurt that uses non-bacterial thickeners such as pectin, gelatin or agar-agar are also to be avoided. Yoghurts which relied entirely on healthy bacteria (lactobacillus, acidophilus) to thicken them are fine to eat, for the bacteria have done the job of digesting the lactose.

Most modern buttermilks have the same problem in that they’ve had chemical help to curdle them. When the lactose remains undigested, they too are to be avoided.

Kefir also contains lactose. Recently some companies have put our kefir products which state on the front label in large letters ‘lactose-free’.

However, a closer look reveals that above those huge letters are much smaller ones stating “99% lactose-free’. Sadly, that is not enough to prevent the downstream cascade of negative health effects, so be certain to instruct her to read labels very carefully and that 1% lactose is enough to provoke the lactose reaction.

Luckily milk substitutes abound, as manufacturers have responded with a variety of wonderful products such as soy milk, almond milk, cashew milk, hemp milk, rice milk, soy yoghurts and cheeses. There really is no need for her to feel deprived with such a wide variety of options. And, there’s also no need for her to feel alone. The American Medical Association estimates that fully 40% of Americans are lactose intolerant. Even babies can be lactose intolerant (even when their mothers are not). In fact, if she is not lactose intolerant and consumes lactose, then breastfeeds her lactose- intolerant baby, the lactose will come through in her breast milk and set up a colicky- type reaction in her infant. Pets, too, can be lactose intolerant, so if she remarks that no one wants to be around Fido due to gas problems, lactose may be the culprit.

The dairy industry has recently responded with milk products containing lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose. These work for people with a slight intolerance, provided they are ingested immediately before lactose and in sufficient quantity. They may be less effective for her if she is completely intolerant.

The pharmaceutical industry has also made lactase drops or tablets available. She will need to use these immediately if she discovers she’s ingested lactose by mistake, but avoid relying on them all the time. Most people find them insufficient help. Besides, eliminating milk sugar, and therefore most milk products, reduces mucus production, lowers intake of saturated fats and often results in lowered cholesterol.

More and more prescription drugs are using lactose as fillers. Therefore she should check with the pharmacists before filling a prescription to make sure the drug is free of lactose. If not, she may want to avail herself of the services of a compounding pharmacy, which can fill her prescription without lactose.

As of this writing, homeopathic pellets are made with lactose and are therefore to be avoided. However, there are companies that make liquid homeopathic products or ones that are made from non-lactose pellets, so she won’t need to avoid homeopathic remedies altogether. (To review how to mitigate lactose in remedies, see Lesson Seven.)

Supporting Her Elimination Pathways When she removes foods to which she is intolerant from her diet, the result will be a corresponding cellular dump of toxins her body was previously unable to eliminate.

For this reason alone, it is crucial to make certain that her elimination pathways are not only open, but able to handle the detoxification process. To support this process, it often works best to start with the lowest part of her system and work back. That way any toxins she eliminates from higher up will have a smooth and open pathway to complete their eradication. So, in that order:

Lower Colon:

Choline (SP) colon detoxifier;

Chlorophyll Complex (SP) colon detoxifie;r Gastro-Fiber (SP) healthy source of fiber.

Small Intestine: Healing the lining of the small intestine is aided by Bladderwrack (mucilaginous, coats inflamed lining;

Dermaco (MH) which helps repair all epithelial tissue;

Gut Flora Complex (MH) which cleanses as well as supporting healing and repair;

Lactic Acid Yeast (SP) helps correct intestinal pH;

Prebiotic Inulin (SP) supports a healthy intestinal environment to benefit probiotic intestinal flora, promotes normal development of epithelial tissue, adds fiber, supports gut immune system function, promotes lower GI tract healthy pH, promotes healthy elimination; ProSynbiotic (SP) provides healthy gut bacteria along with

nondigestible inulin and galactooligosaccharide to provide their food.

Pancreas Production of pancreatic enzymes is aided by

Enzycore (SP), a blend of enzymes that break down fats, protein, and carbohydrates, kale and beet powder for trace amounts of lutein and betaine, L-glutamine,

a building block for other amino acids; provides energy to intestinal cells, supports both gastric and intestinal digestion phases;

GTF Chromium provides glucose tolerance factor and chromium, supports healthy carbohydrate digestion, supports healthy blood sugar levels, encourages healthy blood sugar utilization.

Gall Bladder support involves not only maintaining good bile viscosity but also clearing crystallizations that might block its flow. Betafood (SP) a whole food concentrate that aids bile flow, provides methyl donors for detoxification, aids proper digestion of dietary fats;

Phosfood (SP) provides the phosphorus necessary to correct calcium/phosphorus ratio necessary to keep calcium in liquid form, supports cellular metabolism.

Liver detoxification pathways are supported by

Garlic Forte (MH) supports healthy circulation, provides sulfur molecules for Phase I and Phase II liver detoxification;

Garlic (SP) supports healthy circulation, provides sulfur molecules for Phase I and Phase II liver detoxification,

Choline (SP) is excellent especially for clearing the incomplete metabolite toxins of wheat and gluten from the pituitary and other organs and systems.

SP Green Food (SP) supports bile production, toxin-elimination process, provides anti-oxidant activity, supports healthy liver function.

When you pull out the main ‘offender’ foods from her diet and her body has a chance to clean out the metabolic remains, you may find that other substances to which she was truly allergic are no longer an issue.

You may also find that certain autoimmune issues she had going are no longer relevant, or at least no longer making as big a negative impact. It seems that removing food intolerances aids the immune system not only in reducing its work load, but also in deconfusing its ability to accurately assess what’s ‘me’ (therefore not to be attacked) vs. ‘not me’ and to be eliminated.

Food intolerances can create many of the same symptoms as those of hormone imbalance. When you address food intolerances by eliminating them from her diet, you relieve her body of symptoms that were likely to be misdiagnosed, and therefore mistreated by hormone prescriptions or antidepressants, etc.

You also greatly reduce the toxic burden her liver and immune system has to deal with every day. The result is better health all around, and the likelihood that you have greatly reduced and possibly even eliminated the chances that she’ll be diagnosed with other health problems down the road.

Those are already some big benefits from eliminating food intolerances. Add to that the tendency for weight to normalize, and together they spell some strong motivators for her to rise to the inevitable challenges that arise from eating differently from the typical standard American diet.

Talk with you next time!

Pamela Levin, R.N.

Natural Female Hormone Care

Endnotes

ⁱ http://www.webmd.com/allergies/features/food-allergy-myths

ii http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2005/06/lactose-intolerance-linked-ancestral- struggles-climate-diseases

iii http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000276.htm

iv http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectin#Digestion_and_immune_distress

v http://www.marksdailyapple.com/lectins/#ixzz2yLSJDeuS”

vi http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22545/

vii http://www.precisionnutrition.com/wordpress/wp- content/uploads/2009/08/500px-legume_lectin_quat.jpg

Shape viii Peter D”Adamo. Eat Right for Your Type & Live Right for Your Type , G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, New York.