Dr. Biddle and Anne have been extremely busy with their patients, which is the reason for the delay in getting another newsletter out to you - our goal is to have a newsletter for each season. Dr. Biddle has also been doing lectures covering several different topics. Take a look at his lecture schedule on the cover page to see what his next few topics of discussion will be.

We do have a new receptionist in the clinic. Tawnee decided to move and be with her family, so we welcome Kathie to our staff. She has a lot of experience in this field of medicine and looks forward to meeting you.

Many of you already know about the new service we added: Inhalant Allergy Desensitization. Dr. Biddle’s article this month will answer some of your questions.

Also, we continue to be grateful for the services that Jan and Shirley provide on a daily basis.

Lastly, I encourage you to give me your feedback about your experience in our clinic. We strive to better serve you and your comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you.

See you in the Fall.

by James Biddle, M.D.

Why is this topic important? The subtitle of one recent article says it well: “The frequency of allergic disease in the U.S. and Europe is increasing. Environmental factors are suspected.” (1). Asthma deaths and allergy suffering are increasing dramatically.

Inhalant Allergy Symptoms include sneezing, runny nose, itching and tearing of the eyes, fatigue, muscle and joint pains, sinusitis, recurrent infections, mouth breathing, congestion, chronic sore throat, post-nasal drip, and asthma.

Food Allergy Symptoms include headaches, fatigue, lethargy, joint pains, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, and bloating. Food allergies are often subtle and delayed; they can cause worsening of asthma, inhalant allergies, or any chronic disease.

What are allergies? An allergy is an immune over-reaction. Small amounts of a substance (an allergen) can cause an exaggerated immune response, with unpleasant symptoms. When we’re repeatedly exposed to an allergen, we can form antibodies against that substance. In inhalant allergies, IgE antibodies attach to cells along the linings of the airways, then wait for re-exposure.

When re-exposure occurs, the offending allergen binds with the antibody, initiating the release of histamine. Histamine causes swelling and the release of fluids along the linings of the eyes, nose, sinuses, and airways in an attempt to wash away the allergen, as well as increased inflammation throughout the body.

The Immune System:

The first step in understanding allergies is to understand the immune system. Here’s my conceptual framework of the immune system (see diagram):

The immune system defends us; it attacks invaders. But the immune system can go astray in four basic ways. Along the vertical axis, the immune system can be too active (hyperactive), or the immune system can be not active enough (hypoactive).

Along the horizontal axis, the immune system can be reacting against yourself, or it can be reacting against the world, or “other. ”

Starting with the right lower quadrant of the diagram, an immune system that is not active enough against the world, or “other” things, allows infections. One purpose of a healthy immune system is to fight off infections.
In the left lower quadrant, an immune system hypoactive against one’s “self” allows the growth of cancer. Every day we inadvertently produce cancerous cells and every day our immune systems mop them up, a process called “immune surveillance”.

In the left upper quadrant, with an immune system too reactive against one’s self, we can get an autoimmune disease, such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. Any part of the body can be attacked by an autoimmune disease, so there are hundreds of different names for these various diseases, depending upon the target being attacked. For example, in rheumatoid arthritis the target is the lining of the joints. Medicine has a different name for each autoimmune disease, such as lupus, scleroderma, and vitiligo, but they’re all basically the same disease process, just with different target tissues.

Finally, in the right upper quadrant, an immune system can be hyperactive against the world, creating allergies. Two of the most important types of allergies are reactions against food and against inhaled particles, such as pollen, dust mites, and cat dander. These allergy triggers, known as allergens or antigens, are not inherently dangerous to us. When a confused immune system attacks them inappropriately, the result is a state of excessive inflammation, which creates the symptoms of hay fever, asthma, fatigue, and exacerbation of other chronic diseases.

We want your immune system to be functioning right in the middle of the diagram. It needs to attack infections and cancers, but not attack pollen, cat dander, your food, or your own body.

Why does the immune system go astray?

Conventional medicine operates from a model of disease management. In contrast, we work from a Model of Health, which I refer to as Nature’s Template. As an exercise, please imagine a land about 15,000 years ago, before agriculture and before pollution. In that setting, you would have a very intelligent immune system. Can you imagine your immune system attacking pollen? Do you think that was likely?

In fact, hay fever wasn’t described in the medical literature until the 1820’s, and it wasn’t accepted as a legitimate diagnosis until the 1850’s, because only a handful of cases could be found (2,3). “Rose fever” was first described near Liverpool, England at the belt buckle of the Industrial Revolution. By releasing toxins into our environment, we’ve opened Pandora’s Box. As these toxins assault our bodies, they rob our immune systems of native intelligence.

Therefore, one important step in restoring the intelligence and vitality of the immune system is to eliminate toxins, especially toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, aluminum, and arsenic. The immune system is further compromised by the “3 Deadly P’s” of pesticides, plastics, and petrochemicals, as well as by poor nutrition and weak digestion. Interestingly, measures to support immune function overlap widely with strategies practiced in “Anti-Aging Medicine”, because the closer we get to Nature’s Template, the more gracefully we age.

Toxic Metals

Toxic metals cause damage by disrupting enzymes, which are proteins that catalyze the reactions of bodily processes. Enzymes usually have an embedded nutritional metal, like selenium or copper, but toxic metals displace these nutritional metals, deactivating the enzymes. Thru poisoning of metalloenzymes, metabolic dysfunction occurs at the basic tissue level.

The most shocking is mercury. According to the World Health Organization, our biggest source of mercury is from the amalgam fillings in our teeth, which contain 50% mercury. That mercury does indeed get absorbed into the body and cause damage to the brain and other vital organs, including the immune system (see http://www.bioprobe.com). Lead is also both extremely damaging and highly prevalent. Many of us have been exposed to leaded water pipes, leaded gasoline, and leaded paint. More than half of the patients over 50 that I test at my clinic have significant levels of chronic lead toxicity, because lead has a half-life of 25-50 years in the body.

To measure levels of toxic metals, we use hair analysis and a chelation challenge test (which mobilizes metals from the body into the urine), because blood tests are useless for old exposures. It’s curious to me that conventional medicine is blind to even the possibility of chronic metal toxicities.

In future newsletters I’ll devote a lengthy discussion to this topic, but for now I’ll just share my theory that the AMA’s political stance against using chelation therapy to treat heart disease prevents conventional physicians from even considering the possibility of testing for chronic toxic metal poisoning, because the only way to treat the problem effectively is to use chelation therapy.

Testing and treating for heavy metal toxicities, especially lead and mercury, is a fundamental and powerful approach to preventing and reversing chronic diseases, especially allergies.

Digestion and Food Allergies

Digestion is an amazing process, yet the psychology underlying food choices is even more amazing. When we eat, we invite the complex mixture of compounds present in a particular food to become components of our bodies. For most who read this article, food choice is a matter of complete freedom, limited only by our psychology. It can be a remarkable experience to observe ourselves and why we choose our food. How frequently are our choices guided by concern for our health and well being? How frequently are our choices guided by old habits, convenience, and inertia? How frequently are our choices guided by needs for comfort, pleasure, reward, or even a drug-like effect? Understanding the psychology that drives our food choices is far more important than the process of digestion itself.

Once we choose a food, it’s certainly beneficial to chew consciously and adequately. The next important process is acidity in the stomach. During digestion, the stomach is extremely acidic, with a pH of 2 to 3. Why? First, to protect us from invasion by abnormal bacteria and parasites. Second, to break down food, especially proteins. When there is a lack of stomach acid, a condition called “hypochlorhydria”, proteins can reach the small intestine still intact rather than being digested into simple amino acids. If the gut wall is too permeable, known as “leaky gut syndrome”, intact proteins get absorbed and can sensitize the immune system, just like pollen in our nose. In future articles, I’ll discuss further the causes and treatments of hypochlorhydria and leaky gut syndrome. For now it’s important to realize that both can contribute to the formation of food allergies, which can cause irritation of the entire immune system and worsening of inhalant allergy symptoms.

Testing and Treating for Food Allergies

While conventional allergists denounce blood tests and prefer skin testing for food allergy identification, most nutritional physicians believe just the opposite. Scratch testing on the skin identifies IgE-mediated allergies, while blood tests identify allergies mediated by both IgE and IgG. We find that most food allergies are mediated by IgG, resulting in subtle and delayed symptoms, rather than the dramatic and sudden symptoms seen with IgE reactions. Fortunately, most insurance companies will reimburse for these food allergy blood tests.

Another useful form of testing is the electrodermal technique, also known as EAV (electrical acupuncture by Voll) or Computron Analysis.

Using German technology, this measures the subtle energies flowing thru our acupuncture meridians. Although it may be considered “soft” science by mainstream observers, nutritional physicians across the country are seeing good results using this information, while a recent study suggests that it’s about as good at detecting food allergies as blood tests, skin tests, or elimination diets. In addition, the electrodermal testing can show food sensitivities that are not true allergies, so are not detectable by standard testing.

Treatment of food allergies can be quite sophisticated and complex, but simple avoidance of offending foods is usually sufficient, although often challenging. It’s certainly logical that we are often allergic to the foods we eat most frequently, but it’s been curious to me that we often crave the very foods we’re allergic to. I recently learned that these cravings are due to changes in the balance of food antigens and their corresponding antibodies in our bloodstream. We may feel better for a few hours after eating an allergic food because we create a situation of antigen excess, which overwhelms the antibodies. However, later we’ll feel much worse due to the formation of antigen-antibody complexes, which trigger inflammation. This explains not only how food allergies can irritate hay fever, asthma, arthritis, etc, but also why we often become virtually addicted to the very foods we’re allergic to; it’s very reinforcing to feel relief from the immune irritation for a few hours after eating them. However, we can get sustained relief and decreased inflammation after just a few weeks of total elimination of reactive foods. Our advice is to completely avoid the highly allergic foods for 3-6 months, then add them back gradually in a rotation fashion, usually never more frequently than twice a week. Studies show that 90% of kids suffering from asthma and inhalant allergies have a marked improvement in symptoms within one week of eliminating food allergies (4).

Inhalant Allergy Treatment

CCMM has an excellent 2-page treatment summary, our “Allergy Treatment Protocol”, which we highly recommend you review. It contains a wide variety of approaches for improving allergies and is available at the clinic or at http://www.Integrative-Med.com/TOPICS/subtopics/Allergicprotocol.html. Nasal lavage, vitamin C, bioflavonoids, and stinging nettles work particularly well. For those who continue to be plagued by inhalant allergy symptoms, we’re seeing amazing results using a program of sophisticated testing and treatment known as “Oral Drop Desensitization”.

Experience has shown that a vast majority of clients (over 90%) have significant and rapid improvements in allergy symptoms and quality of life with this treatment. In addition, the use of oral drops for allergy desensitization is well documented in scientific medical journals (5).

Conventional Approach to Desensitizing Allergies

The usual allergy program gives the client a weekly injection of “serum”, a mixture of small amounts of their allergens. This induces the body to make “blocking” antibodies against the allergen, which induces tolerance in the patient. Thus, the body no longer sees the allergens as foreign, and the patient becomes “desensitized”. This system works well, but has several drawbacks. Because the “scratch” test used by most allergists gives only a “yes or no” answer, but doesn’t tell “how” allergic the patient is to a specific allergen, the concentration of allergens in the injection serum must be periodically increased.

The next injection after this concentration increase is known as a “boosting dose”, and patients will occasionally have a dangerous anaphylactic allergic response after a boosting dose injection. In addition, it’s expensive and inconvenient to go to the physician’s office for weekly injections.

“End-Point Titration” with Oral Drop Desensitization

Research shows that similar results can be accomplished by desensitizing with oral drops of serum under the tongue rather than using shots. This is more convenient, less costly, and is much safer than shots since there is virtually no risk of an anaphylactic reaction.

After an initial visit with the doctor, skin testing is performed to establish not only what you are allergic to, but also how allergic you are to each particular allergen. By having a measure of the degree of your allergic responses (known as “end-point titration”), we’re able to choose an appropriate concentration of each allergen to mix into the serum, which allows us to use the oral drops effectively. We also check your skin’s delayed reactions, which is important because delayed allergies are the hardest to identify and most often missed by conventional testing. Our testing takes a little more time, but provides a high degree of confidence in treating our patients both safely and effectively. With shots it often takes years to get regulated, but with drops you can often feel better in a few weeks.

Many of our patients have tried shots previously, but they’re excited that CCMM is giving them the opportunity to administer their own serum at home instead of going to the doctor’s office each week. Patients feel better faster and it’s safer. We feel sublingual serum is one of the best-kept secrets for allergy patients. When you have a busy life, it’s much more convenient to do this at your own leisure.

Conclusion

I hope this has been educational , interesting, and ultimately beneficial for your health. The best way to treat allergies, as with all chronic diseases, is to restore the body to Nature’s Template of Health by removing toxins, providing good nutrition, digesting and resting well, and devoting yourself to your life’s purpose. A natural and nutritional treatment program including Oral Drop Desensitization can provide remarkable and rapid relief for allergy sufferers.

1. Allergy, Asthma, and the Environment: An Introduction. Toxicology Letter 1998;102:301-306.

2. Emanuel MB. Hay fever, a post-industrial-revolution epidemic: a history of its growth during the 19th century. Clin Allergy 1988 May; 18(3): 295-304.

3. Mynind N., History of Allergy. In: Essential Allergy – An Illustrated Text for Students and
Specialists. Boston: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1986:1-9.

4. Ann Allergy 1977;39:8. Ann Allergy 1980;44:273.

5. Allergy 1994;49:309-313. Clin Exp Allergy 1994; 24:53-59. Ann Allergy 1990;63:27-31). Clin Allergy 1987;17:91-94. Allergy 1986;41:271-279. Clin Allergy 1986;16:483-491.

by Anne Walch, P.A.

A fundamental approach to reducing respiratory infections and allergies is as simple as washing our hands and faces. Kenneth Seaton, PhD, the developer of the Advanced Hygiene System, has been studying the role of hygiene in health for almost 20 years. He believes allergies develop due to an overloaded immune system. Normally harmless substances such as pollen, house mites, dust, and animal dander become allergens from an incorrect immune response. Once the overload is removed from the immune system, allergies resolve quicker.

Dr. Seaton's focus has been “autoinoculation” of the nasal passageway and eyes by our own fingers. Research shows that we spread respiratory infections by our hands, from our fingertips to the eyes and nose. The aerosol route of transmission via sneezing or coughing has actually received little scientific support. It is the area under and around the fingernails that has the highest concentration of germs, so when fingertips touch the eyes and nose, the viral and bacterial penetration is maximized. Unfortunately, normal handwashing, even with medicated soaps, or scrubbing with a nail brush, does not decrease the microbial population. To lessen the load on the immune system, Dr. Seaton's research has culminated in the Advanced Hygiene System. This method of hygiene addresses our chronic subclinical infections by daily cleansing of the nasal passageway and eyes as well as handwashing techniques which address fingernails. The face is immersed in very warm salty water to which three different iodine and hydrogen peroxide solutions are rotated in. His solution to cleansing germ-laden fingernails is to prod the fingers into semi-solid soap, forcing it up under the nails. The residue left clinging to the fingers is used to wash the rest of the hands. With these methods we can reduce severe allergy and respiratory infections by 65 to 90%. These personal hygiene methods reduce respiratory and inhalant allergies, and also confer a systemic health benefit in raising serum albumin levels. This practice raises serum albumin, which is important when one realizes that the higher the level of serum albumin, the lower the mortality and morbidity from all causes.

Albumin is the most abundant, dominant, versatile and complex protein in the body fluids. It’s an excellent indicator of health status, but declines in aging, ill health and mental problems. The serum proteins of albumin and immunoglobulins maintain a delicate balance—when one rises the other falls. The only way to elevate albumin is to reduce the level of extraneous antibodies. The albumin will rise when the immune system is not on overdrive mode fighting infections and allergens.

In a nutshell, with improved techniques of personal hygiene, we can reduce the immunologic load of our bodies, raise our life-giving albumin, boost the intelligence and capacity of our immune system, and suffer much less allergy, infection, and ill health. Wash up! If cleanliness is not akin to godliness, it sure is akin to good health