In Reply to: Chapter V posted by Robert McFerran on September 25, 1997 at 11:31:47:
This is a very well written and fascinating chapter.
GOOD WORK BOB!!!
In Reply to: Arthritis-Searching for the Truth-Searching for the Cure posted by Robert McFerran on September 21, 1997 at 12:02:37:
Chapter 6
Historically the answer to the problem of food allergies revolved around testing to find hidden sensitivities and then avoiding them. The best way to test foods is by adding them one by one to your base diet and waiting for a ‘hyper-acute’ reaction. The hyper-acute reaction is the ‘bloody’ nose that you’ll get after eating the incriminating food.
Most people are familiar with and understand the idea that someone can consume an occasionally eaten food and feel ill afterwards. Due to this, the public concept of food allergy has been limited to rare or exotic foods. To make matters worse most physicians also take this simplistic view of food allergy.
Case studies reporting food allergy being tied to different types of arthritis appeared as early as 1917. Many physicians noticed a difference between immediate and delayed exacerbation of symptoms after a food was ingested. However, the key discovery came when they observed what would normally be a delayed reaction could be converted into an immediate one if the food were omitted from the diet for at least five days. When a food is reintroduced the reaction usually occurs within 4 to 6 hours (except for slowly absorbed foods such as cereals). Today’s physicians describe this phenomenon as a ‘masked’ food allergy.
The concept of masked food allergy was originally identified by Dr. Herbert Rinkel, a well-known allergist practicing in Oklahoma City. After he graduated in medical school, he developed a severe nasal allergy (allergic rhinitis), which was characterized by severe, persistent nasal discharge. His medical colleagues skin-tested him for all the well-known inhalant allergies and all these tests proved negative. Fortunately he was familiar with the work of Dr. Albert Rowe (author of the 1931 book FOOD ALLERGY). Rowe lived in California and was an emeritus lecturer in medicine at the University of California is San Francisco. Dr. Rowe discovered early on in his career that food allergy was a major cause of many illnesses. Rowe also knew that diagnosing it via ordinary skin prick tests was next to useless.
Dr. Rinkel recalled that as a medical student, like many of his colleagues, he had been fairly poor. Grants were not common in the US at that time and, generally speaking, medical students going through college had to support themselves or be supported by their parents. Rinkel's father, who was an egg farmer, helped support his son during his medical studies by sending him a gross of eggs (144) each week. This was the main source of protein for Rinkel and his family.
This high ingestion of eggs continued after he graduated so he suspected eggs as a cause of his problems. One afternoon, in an attempt to produce an adverse reaction, he consumed a large quantity of eggs, but to his surprise his nasal symptoms actually improved. He abandoned the idea that foods were connected to his sinus problems until some years later when he did just the opposite.
He abstained from eggs for about five days and discovered that his nasal disch arge improved considerably. He then inadvertently ate some angel food cake (which happens to contain eggs) at a birthday party. He suddenly collapsed unconscious and his rhinitis symptoms returned worse than ever.
Through this serendipitous chain of events Dr Rinkel realized that he might have stumbled on something fundamental regarding the basic nature of food allergy. He repeated the experiment by re-establishing his consumption of eggs, omitting them again for five days and then repeating the egg ingestion, which caused a recurrence of the symptoms of unconsciousness and severe nasal discharge. He then extended his observations with a number of his patients. Rinkel found a similar, shared phenomenon occurring with different foods and medical conditions, including joint pain. His observations were first published in 1944.
The first physician to draw widespread attention to the inter-relationship of food allergy and arthritis was Michael Zeller, M.D. Dr. Zeller was a clinical instructor in medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago. He wrote a paper published in 1948 in the Annals of Allergy entitled 'Rheumatoid Arthritis: Food Allergy as a Factor'. In this paper Dr Zeller strongly emphasized his observations that symptoms of arthritis could frequently be relieved by appropriate food exclusion diets. The reproduction of arthritic symptoms on subsequent re-ingestion of certain foods established that food allergies were partially responsible for rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. Repeated re-introductions of identified food allergens after a minimum 5 day interval consistently reproduced pain, joint swelling and general inflammation.
As the concept of food allergy gained acceptance a number of testing techniques popped up in both conventional (allopathic) and alternative medicine practices.
Skin prick testing is a fairly useful test for inhalant allergies but does not really help in the diagnosis of food allergy. This type of testing is very popular and is used extens ively by Allergists and Ear, Nose and Throat specialists. The simple fact that this is an ineffective testing technique is probably the single biggest issue that has held back the interest in food allergy in the conventional allopathic medical community.
The test involves placing a single drop of allergen extract on the inner forearm. A lancet is introduced through the drop of extract on the skin at an acute angle and, having slightly penetrated the skin, is given a deliberate vertical lift before being removed. Responses to these tests are read after 10-20 minutes. Many of the tests can be performed within a few minutes of each other and the whole test is therefore both simple and quick to perform. Unfortunately it is not very effective because most patients with well-established food allergies will fail to react positively to this test.
Patients with genuine food allergies who have been informed categorically that their allergies do not exist, purely on the basis of this test, have been harmed. D r Keith Eaten of Reading has published a trial showing that prick testing is of no value in diagnosing food allergy. As he put it, one is better off spinning a coin to determine food allergies than relying on this test.
Another test used primarily by M.D.’s is the RAST test (Radioallergosorbent Test). This test involves taking a blood sample and measuring the quantity of immunoglobin E antibodies that form when this blood is exposed to different allergens. It is thought that the higher the count of IgE antibodies, the more allergic the patient.
The RAST test is useful in diagnosing allergies to dust, dust mite, molds, animal danders, pollens and some foods. It has, however, many drawbacks: (a) it can only be used for testing a very limited number of food allergies; (b) it costs about five times more per allergy tested than does provocative neutralization testing (described later); (c) it measures only immediate responses, and many food allergies are delayed. (d) interpretation and technique vary som ewhat from laboratory to laboratory, and false negatives and false positives often occur; (e) it is however probable that in the future the RAST test may be refined and become more useful.
Cytotoxic testing is one of the more controversial tests for food allergy. It does have it’s proponents, and it is very attractive to health care providers since it suggests that countless food and chemical allergies can be diagnosed from a single sample of intravenous blood.
The term cytotoxic literally means 'having a toxic effect on cells'. The blood sample is incubated on a microscope slide with a weak solution of suspected food allergen and the effect on certain specific white cells is noted. In a positive test the polymorphonueclear leucocytes (one type of white cell) slow down, become rounded and in strongly positive cases, disintegrate. There is no doubt that this phenomenon occurs, but the interpretation of the results depends completely upon the expertise of the technician.
The biggest criticism o
f the cytotoxic tests is that companies offering the test often go directly to the public. Sometimes they appear to discover huge numbers of food sensitivities and as a result some people may end up on a very harsh and possibly nutritionally difficult as well as inadequate diet.
Applied Kinesiology is particularly favored by chiropractors, many who have realized the impact of food allergy on health. Initially the practitioner establishes the patient's muscle strength and tone by observing how easily he or she can lift, for example, a 50 pound weight. An allergen is introduced, usually under the tongue, and the muscle strength again measured.
The theory is that an allergic reaction will weaken the muscle tone and this can be detected by the practitioner. There is something to this test, but it has been very hard to validate. A wide array of things including light, color, smells and especially thoughts have been shown to change muscle strength. This array of variables makes it more difficult to weed out the impact of food allergy.
Radionics are used by some alternative health practitioners. They claim to be able to diagnose food allergies from hair samples. A pendulum is dangled over the hair sample, and if it rotates in one way allergy is indicated, if it rotates the opposite way it is not. This test is entirely dependent on the intuitive abilities of the health practitioner. John Mansfield, M.D. saw many patients after they had been tested in this way and the allergies detected (via intradermal and elimination diet testing) had little relationship to their hair test results.
Sublingual testing consists of placing one measured drop of the food allergen to be tested under the patient's tongue using a specially designed dropper pipette. The area under the tongue is one of great absorpability since that’s where the large sublingual veins reside. That’s why angina patients place nitroglycerin tablets under their tongue during an attack. The sublingual veins allow for quick absorption of the drug into their system.
During sublingual testing the patient lies quietly on a couch and a baseline of any symptoms are noted. Pulse and the size of the pupils are measured at regular intervals. If symptoms or other changes occur, successively weaker levels of the antigen are administered until they are counteracted. A more elaborate description of this technique can be found in Richard Mackarness' book NOT ALL IN THE MIND.
Sometimes, particularly with very soluble foods such as milk, tea, coffee, orange, etc., one can see dramatic and obvious reactions after these are introduced under the tongue. With less soluble foods, particularly wheat and corn, reactions can easily fail to materialize despite the fact that the individual has a wheat or corn sensitivity. In fact Dr. John Mansfield could not recall seeing a single patient who has had a dramatic reaction to wheat, corn, or any other cereal given sublingually.
While the previously described elimination diet is the gold standard for determining food sens itivities, clinical intradermal testing can also be helpful. Allergists who have worked for years giving patients arbitrary and increasing doses of injected allergens for inhaled allergy problems have known that occasionally patients would report a startling improvement in their condition within an hour or so of receiving an allergy injection. This improvement would often last for nearly a week. Such patients would often return and ask for another injection (exactly the same as the last one). This rapid relief puzzled most allergists. It was considered by most to be a psychological quirk.
In 1957 Dr. Carleton H. Lee of Kansas, Missouri, made the discovery which explained this interesting phenomenon. Dr Lee's wife had severe asthma which she discovered was related to the consumption of certain common foods. Unfortunately she reacted to a huge range of foods and could remain well only on two or three specific foods. Other foods would quickly bring on moderate or severe asthmatic attacks within a few hours.
Although food extract injection therapy had never before been found to have had any use, Dr. Lee persisted in experimenting with injecting food extracts in the hope of helping his wife. He eventually discovered that he could produce asthmatic symptoms with one carefully measured dose of food extract injected intradermally (between the layers of the skin). More importantly he found that another specific concentration would relieve this asthma within 10 minutes.
This specific dose became known as the neutralizing dose. He then went on to observe that this specific dose, (when given by a small subcutaneous injection just under the skin), would protect his wife for the next two or three days should she eat that particular food. A mixture of all the neutralizing doses of the foods to which she was sensitive, administered in a single injection about three times a week, would enable her to eat normally without any asthma.
Intradermal provocation neutralization testing and treatment was born. The word provo cation refers to the provoking the production of symptoms with one dose of the injected allergen. The term neutralization relates to the relief of symptoms with another dose. Neutralization therapy is the treatment of the problem by low, tailor-made doses of the allergen, usually and most effectively administered by subcutaneous injection. Administration can also be effected with sublingual (under the tongue) drops.
Soon Dr. Lee discovered that he could utilize the same principles to neutralize' reactions to inhaled allergens, such as house dust, dust mites, molds, animal furs, and pollens. It had been possible to treat such problems before with conventional incremental desensitization, but the success rate was low (often below 20 percent) and the treatment took months or even years to work. The relief with inhaled allergen neutralizing injections often starts within half an hour of the first neutralizing injection being administered and lasts for several days.
Theron Randolph, M.D. and later William Re
a, M.D. championed the use of the above techniques in the U.S. by opening large clinics in Chicago and Dallas respectively. The major drawback of intradermal testing is that the quality of the results are very much dependent on the experience and expertise of the testing technicians. The major advantage is that neutralizing doses can help ‘protect’ those with a very large number of food allergies by somewhat blocking the reactions. This can assist in helping to manage symptoms until the source of their food allergies can be turned off.
In Reply to: Arthritis-Searching for the Truth-Searching for the Cure posted by Robert McFerran on September 21, 1997 at 12:02:37:
Chapter 7
Drs. Randolph and Rea found that indeed almost everyone with a chronic degenerative illness had a portion of their symptoms linked to environmental sensitivities. Foods weren’t the only culprit. In almost all cases the more common airborne allergens like dust, molds and pollens were also involved. Sensitivities to specific chemicals could also have profound effects. Things as seemingly insignificant as the chlorine used to disinfect tap water or natural gas emanating from a stove would have a sort of multiplier effect in making food sensitivities even worse. The ubiquitous use of solvents in paints and carpet adhesives coupled with formaldehyde in wood products, made poorly ventilated new office buildings a new source of illness.
The obvious question became why did some folks find these surroundings so toxic while others seemed to be relatively unaffected? Walt Stoll, M.D. gave the most eloquent explanation for the mechanism behind observed food, chemical and other airborne sensitivities i n his book SAVING YOURSELF FROM THE DISEASE-CARE CRISIS. In it he describes how our intestinal tract offers the largest single source for antibody activation and the resultant inflammatory responses that we experience as symptoms. More importantly he explains the mechanisms that lead to this situation. Before examining that, we need to back up a bit and get a rudimentary understanding of how our immune system functions.
Our immune system creates antibodies whenever something foreign to it penetrates our protective shell. I use the term ‘shell’ here in a figurative sense to include both the structures that are inside our body (including our mouth, esophagus, stomach, intestines, colon, etc.) as well as the skin covering the periphery of the body. Our body also uses a variety of non-structural secretory systems to limit alien substances from entering the bloodstream. Examples of this type would include excess tearing of the eyes and greater production of mucous to cover the nasal tissues when exposed to a dusty environment.
Once a foreign substance penetrates these structural and secretory barriers for the first time an immune response is launched. Initially it involves fluids that clump the foreign substance together so that they can be more easily recognized and carried out of the body. A subsequent and more sophisticated immune response then takes place involving a certain type of cell (called a lymphocyte) that singles out the foreign substance. These lymphocytes are antibodies that are able to chemically adapt to fit and lock onto the structure of the invader. Once this happens a cascade of events take place. Other lymphocytes rush to attack, enzymes are released and hoards of new lymphocytes are bred (or cloned) to ‘search out and destroy’ that particular invader.
This cloning is the way our immune system develops a ‘memory’. This memory is important since the next time this particular invader breeches our protective barriers our immune system will be prepared to launch an immediate an d much more powerful response.
Immunological memory works on our side when we receive vaccinations. A good example is the flu shot. Fragments of a dead virus are injected and the body responds to this foreign antigenic material by creating specific antibodies. It’s important to note that it’s not necessary to inject the real virus, just some of the pieces, since they contain the protein chains that our antibodies use to identify the virus as an invader.
Our body responds with a mild immune response. The intruder is recognized but there are few antigens that have been created to attack it. We might experience weak symptoms of headache and slight fever as more antibody cells form and attack the virus fragments (which remember are dead). They proceed to clone themselves and multiply to prepare for a prolonged battle or a new infection.
Later when we are exposed to the real virus, we have a massive army of antibodies that are ready and waiting to stop the intruder in it’s tracks. In essence we have ‘tricked’ our immune system into launching a more massive attack on the living virus, by introducing something prior (in this case dead protein chains) that only somewhat resembled the real thing.
This memory can also work against us. When someone is exposed to poison ivy for the first time there will be little if any consequence. However the second contact is a different story. The immune system has had the opportunity to employ it’s ‘memory’ to manufacture specific antibodies to the poison ivy antigen which consequently results in a much stronger response.
The immune response starts a complex avalanche of biochemical reactions which, when given the right situation, can be much more toxic to the body than the poison ivy antigen would have ever been by itself. This example illustrates how the downstream cascade of biochemical reactions can almost be completely responsible for the severity of our symptoms. Remember, everything is initiated by the antigen/antibody reaction alone. If you don’t come in contact with the poison ivy you won’t have any symptoms.
The majority of rheumatologists perceive (and tell their patients) that rheumatoid disease is ‘auto-immune’ in nature. In other words they believe the body produces antibodies that turn on itself by attacking it’s own tissues. This is true in the strictest sense, but what drives the production of these ‘self’ attacking antibodies is where the argument begins.
Some antibodies (in their early development) may actually be capable of reacting with ‘self’ tissues. Almost always these cells are killed or inactivated before they can do any harm. Rheumatology believes that due to some genetic defect that these self reacting cells are not killed. Rather they are allowed to clone an army of other self reacting antibodies that ultimately strike out against our own tissues.
THIS IS NOT WHAT IS HAPPENING. Instead antigenic material that is not routinely able to penetrate the secretory and structural barriers of the body is somehow finding it’s way into tissues and then the bloodstream. This antigenic material comes from a variety of sources. Some that we’ve already described include poorly digested food proteins, chemicals and inhaled allergens. Others (that will be described later) encompass the world of all living micro-organisms.
Once formed, antibodies seek out the protein component of invaders that match their own molecular structure and subsequently lock onto and carry them out of the body. Unfortunately if any of our healthy tissues have a protein component that looks similar to those of the invaders our feisty antibodies will attack.
The protein backbones of these molecules don’t even have to be that closely related. Stanford University researchers have found that the amino acid sequence of a virus only needs to be identical to a ‘self’ protein for 5 amino acids (the building blocks of all proteins) within a stretch of 10 amino acids in order to ‘trick’ the antibody cells into attacking the self tissue. In this case whi le the antibody is attacking the virus, many are circulating throughout the body and doing the same with ‘look-alike’ cells comprising healthy tissues.
Rheumatic fever dramatically displays this mechanism. Rheumatic fever is an inflammatory disease that can affect many connective tissues of the body -- especially those of the heart, joints, brain or skin. It begins with a strep throat from streptococcal infection. The antibodies that our immune system has created to target that streptococcal infection begin launching an attack on healthy tissue. The resulting damage might lead to rheumatic heart disease which may last for life.
This might be more immunology than you ever wanted to know and the differences in point of view might seem subtle. Certainly the destructive results are the same. But it is important to understand that your rheumatologist believes that we are a ‘sealed’ system.
In other words that the driving force for producing these destructive self attacking antibodies is completely inte rnal in nature. Something has gone awry, perhaps due to a genetic defect, but they don’t know what it is. They just know that it, the immune system, shouldn’t be functioning this way. Contrast this with the view that our immune system is indeed producing these antibodies, but the true driving force for their production is from sources outside the body.
Rheumatologists suggest the auto-immune response as being the result of a hyper-active immune system. Initially it is hyper-active. As you will find later, the floodgates have been opened allowing a massive onslaught of outside invaders. However folks with auto-immune disease will eventually become immuno-suppressed from the constant demand to address all these outside invaders. Over time their immune system will be even less capable of dealing with a variety of ever present opportunistic micro-organisms that were previously handled in a routine manner.
If auto-immunity is really due to a foul-up in the internal works of the immune system our only way of turning it off would be to use powerful immune suppressing drugs to numb or slow the process. The fact that you can turn the auto-immune process down, and back up again (without drugs), gives decisive proof that modern rheumatological thought cannot be correct. By controlling the flow of antigenic invaders into the body we can control arthritis.
Associating a rash on the same part of the skin that recently came in contact with an oily leaf (like poison ivy) seems fairly obvious. Connecting an anaphylactic reaction (where the response is so severe that breathing can stop) from a bee-sting on the toe is a little more difficult. Somehow a minute amount of antigen (from the bee stinger) can effect distant, unrelated tissues. We are still very much in the infancy of understanding the mechanisms involved with our immune system. Fortunately, getting stung by a bee and having breathing spontaneously stop are not common events in our everyday life, so we’ve been able to make the connection.
Unlike
this example, the process that leads to our intestinal tract becoming the primary gateway for antigens into the body is usually a slow, cumulative process. It is not available for direct observation. Maybe this is why the relationship between a ‘leaky’ intestinal mucosa and rheumatoid disease has been so elusive to modern rheumatology.
In Reply to: Arthritis-Searching for the Truth-Searching for the Cure posted by Robert McFerran on September 21, 1997 at 12:02:37:
Chapter 8
Walt Stoll, M.D. not only saw the connection between a chronically ‘leaky’ intestinal mucosa and disease but found ways to reverse it. This enabled patients to turn their symptoms off completely or dissipate them to the point where they were much easier to manage. He spent over 20 years treating sufferers that, for all intensive purposes, other physicians had cast aside and deemed ‘resistant to conventional therapies’.
Dr. Stoll found that these patient’s bodies had become very ‘resistant’ to drugs that were solely targeted at suppressing symptoms. However once the mechanisms that led to ‘leaky gut syndrome’ were addressed, the primary obstacles to healing were removed and symptoms would resolve on their own. For the first time since becoming afflicted these patients were giving their bodies a chance to normalize, and in so doing, tap their innate healing powers.
Dr. Stoll was very familiar with the research work done by the eminent physiologist Hans Selye, M.D. Selye found that he cou ld induce symptoms and ultimately chronic illness in his test animals if he exposed them to any of a wide variety of physiological burdens. These included such things as starvation, prolonged exposure to heat or cold, excessive muscular exercise, surgical injury or sub-lethal doses of drugs. It wasn’t any surprise that these animals failed to prosper under such harsh conditions.
What was totally unexpected was that the symptoms induced in the animals were the same. They were completely independent of the type of burden (or stressor) placed on their system. In other words it didn’t matter whether the animal was exposed to cold or a sub-lethal dose of a drug. The animal would predictably have the same physiological response and develop the same symptoms.
Prior to this Dr. Louis Pasteur had become famous for his work in developing what today is termed the germ theory. As you might know, before Pasteur’s discovery doctors did not wash their hands before performing such tasks as surgery or the deliver y of babies. Infections seemed an unpredictably fickle part of doing these procedures, probably brought on by demons and devils. Aided by the invention of the microscope, Pasteur was able to see a world teeming with micro-organisms and make the key connection to infectious disease.
Since Pasteur’s discovery medical science has focused the great majority of it’s energies in defining the vast array of microscopic organisms that interact with humans. Once these ‘bugs’ were isolated attention turned to creating antibiotic pharmaceuticals to help rid us of these invaders. The quest has continued to this day and unfortunately, in the process, dwarfed the badly needed research to understand the flip side of the coin.
The synthesis of these vaccines and antibiotics was undoubtedly of major importance. However the overwhelming focus of treating the micro-organism led to an out of balance view of our world. The adaptive and natural resistance abilities found in the animal (or host) were considered static and unchanging (or at least unchangeable). Laboratory research was much easier if medicine could make the (false) assumption that the immunological status of the animal was constant (a perfect control) while testing the effectiveness of various antibiotic drugs. For all intensive purposes, medical research neglected what was at least half of the picture.
If the importance of the natural resistance of the host (in this case human beings) hasn’t occurred to you yet you’ve probably fallen into the same trap as most of our modern medical practitioners. It’s the erroneous belief that we can defend ourselves from any infectious invader, if we just have the right antibiotic.
You will find your physician can talk at length about any type of microbe and the proper antibiotic to treat it. Odds are excellent that if a patient has a malady their doctor ‘will have a pill for it’. But, if you ask what you can do to help boost your innate immunity, a deathly silence will follow. Physicians have next to no tra ining in this matter and their patients have suffered for it. Pasteur, who devoted his entire life to understanding germs, admitted late in life that he had only ‘worked one side of the street’.
Let me point out that Pasteur was the first to declare that disease was caused by microscopic germs. Being the first he was sharply criticized by many of his enemies for failing to recognize the importance of the terrain (the soil in which disease develops). They accused him of being too one-sidedly preoccupied with the apparent cause of disease: the microbe itself. There were, in fact, many debates about this between Pasteur and his great contemporary, Claude Bernard.
The former insisted on the importance of the disease-producer, the latter on that of the body's own equilibrium. Yet Pasteur's work on immunity and what was induced by applying serums and vaccines showed that he did recognize the importance of the soil (the immunological abilities of the host). Pasteur attached so much importance to this poin t that on his deathbed he said to Professor A. Re’non who caring for him:
"Bernard avait raison. Le germe n'est rien, c'est le terrain qui est tout." ("Bernard was right. The microbe is nothing, the soil is everything.")
As age draws us closer to a natural death, it becomes obvious that our natural immunological resistance is ‘everything’. It is the true warrior and it has been all along. Antibiotics, vaccines and the like certainly have their place, but best used only to fill in the gaps.
Dr. Selye observed three levels of physiological response. Stage 1 (the alarm reaction) starts about 6 to 48 hours after an initial injury. It is characterized by a lowering of blood pressure, loss of muscle tone, and shrinkage of the adrenal glands as they pump out as much cortisone as possible. Selye also noted other symptoms such as swelling due to leakage of fluid from smaller blood vessels into surrounding tissues.
Stage 2 starts about 48 hours after the original injury. By now there was considerable enla rgement of the adrenal glands and the previously seen swelling in the tissues (produced by the leakage of fluid from the blood vessels) started to subside. The pituitary gland, which controls virtually all the other glands in the body, produces increasing amounts of adreno-cortico-stimulating hormone which causes the adrenal glands to produce even more cortisone.
It was during Stage 2 that Selye observed when he applied further small, repeated doses of the harmful stimulus (be it an allergy producing stimulus or any other) the test animals built up a resistance. They had now seemingly become adapted to the stressor and showed no observable external symptoms at all.
If the rats in this adapted stage were removed from the harmful stress (for example a persistent cold stimulus) they lost their newly acquired resistance (or adaptation) to the cold within a few days. When re-introduced to the cold environment they had to once again go through the Stage I alarm reaction (with all of it’s associated symptoms) before re-acquiring their ‘adaptation’. Conversely, if the rats were left in the cold, they continued to adapt for a long time, and appeared (at least externally) to have grown completely accustomed to it.
Selye noticed that if the rats continued to be exposed to the cold for a longer time that they would start showing new external symptoms. This was Stage 3 and it seemed that the animals had exhausted their resistance and had now become ‘maladapted’ to their surroundings. There was no Stage 4. If these animals continued to be exposed the cold they would quickly grow very ill and subsequently die. During Stage 3, warming the cold environment a bit was not helpful. Only the COMPLETE removal of the harmful stimulus would produce a healthy animal again. The transition from the adapted to the maladapted/exhaustion stage was, clinically speaking, what doctors would describe as the start of chronic disease.
Selye (without knowing it) had witnessed and described the mechanism that Dr. Rinkel had found so painfully with his experience of ‘masked’ food allergy to eggs. With the long term ingestion of eggs Rinkel had moved to Stage 2 and a form of adaptation to the ongoing stress of antigenic material in his body from eggs. There was no initial alarm reaction since the build-up of masked food allergy is a relatively long process.
As this adaptation petered out and physiological exhaustion settled in, Rinkel experienced greater chronic nasal problems (rhinitis) characteristic of Stage 3. When the offending stressor (the eggs) were completely removed from Rinkel’s diet for 5 days the rhinitis disappeared. However when the body was re-exposed to eggs he experienced a hyperacute response (falling unconscious) consistent with what Dr. Selye predicted as a Stage 1 alarm reaction.
While Dr. Stoll was teaching at the University of Kentucky School of Medicine he gathered data from the physiology lab showing the effect of exercise stress on various organ systems. While at rest the abdominal organs (stomach,
small intestines and colon) exhibited the highest blood flow, but once even light exercise began, the flow to the heart, muscle and skin tissues grew geometrically. At the same time flow to the abdomen rapidly decreased. In fact the abdomen lost a greater percentage of blood flow than any other system when engaged with the slightest stress.
The reason for this response to stress is an inborn throwback to our ancient ancestors and has been labeled the ‘fight or flight’ response. Herbert Benson, M.D. (Associate Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical Schools gives the best description of the human reaction to stress in his book THE RELAXATION RESPONSE. This innate fight-or-flight reaction is well recognized in animals. A startled cat standing with it’s back arched and hair raised is suddenly prepared to run or fight; a dog on the attack with dilated pupils, snarling at its adversary; a gazelle running from a predator; all are responding by activation of the fight- or-flight response.
We t end to think that we have lost this side of our being and replaced it with rational control. This is simply not the case. Benson’s research showed that when faced with situations that require adjustment of our behavior, an involuntary response increases our blood pressure, heart rate, rate of breathing, blood flow to the muscles, and metabolism, preparing us for battle or escape.
Dr. Stoll recognized that any activation of this ‘fight or flight’ response would lead to tremendous loss of blood flow to the intestinal tract. Our ancestors millions of years ago would use this response to their advantage when needed and then quickly return to a relaxed physiological posture where normal blood flow would be restored. But a more chronic activation of fight-or-flight response is common in modern man where there is an abundance of lights, horns, ringing telephones and demanding work situations to trigger the reaction.
At the same time Stoll knew from Selye’s work that ANY environmental burden would act on u s as a stressor which would demand the physiology to make an adaptive response. The net sum of all this research pointed to the absorptive endothelium of the small intestines as the primary ‘target tissue’ that would have to bear the majority of the brunt of these involuntary physiological responses.
As mentioned before this intestinal lining has a high demand for cellular regeneration as it is replaced on the average of every 14 hours. If chronically starved for blood the intestinal tract will no longer do it’s job perfectly. This in turn makes the ecology of the colon much more susceptible to the growth of disease-causing parasites which can damage the lining even further.
The stage has been set for ‘leaky gut syndrome’ with the subsequent transmission of all sorts of antigenic material into the body which can ultimately precipitate an autoimmune response.