# Reaction to safe foods



## jggavl (Mar 14, 2002)

Have any of you Leapers out there had a reaction to your safe foods?I have been adding back foods and may have had a reaction to wheat or olive oil which are my safe foods.Please let me hear from you all.Annie


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## WashoeLisa (Sep 12, 2000)

Hi Annie,Yes, I had a reaction to pumpkin and beets- both of which were way in my green. I figured it was one of those "missed" things that can happen in any lab test (which is the reason we do the diet, so we can find those!) or is was a different reaction. Either way the solution is the same, don't eat those foods.You can try both again one at a time over a period of days in small amounts to see what happens and then you'll know.Hang in there, you are doing the good detective work now!Lisa


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## jggavl (Mar 14, 2002)

Hi Lisa,Thanks for the info. I wouldn't mind not eating pumpkin or beets since I don't like either one of them. Was you reaction immediate or the next morning? Or could it take a few days? Today was not a good day (Phase 5, day 5) This morning it was 4 trips to the bathroom and the last two BM's consisted of watery diarrhea. I added back olive oil yesterday - about 1 tablespoon, but also had 2 pretzels and some over-ripe watermelon. I suppose that over-ripe fruit could also give someone diarrhea. I had been doing so well until this morning.Any feedback is appreciated.Annie


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## WashoeLisa (Sep 12, 2000)

Hi Annie,Wel, let's see- the beets reaction took me longer to figure out. It was happening, at first, about 3 days after I ate them. Then, over a period of about 2-3 weeks on my rotation, it kinda crept up until it was the very next morning. My hubby was the one who figured that one out. The pumpkin was a touch more immediate and it took me about a week to figure that out. After the beets, I knew more what to look for. At this point, I would back up in your phases and stick to what you know works for a week or two. Then, try each one of those things you might have reacted to with several days in between. I am much more conservative and I personally, would go very slowly to MAKE SURE what the offending food it. I mean, like only try each new one a week of those possible threes. Its a normal part of the whole process, by the way. YOu are finding the foods that the test either missed or that your body reacts to with a different immune component that the MRT doesn't test for. Don't get discouraged. YOU are in control of the whole process. I know its frustrating getting hit with the IBS again, but it sure shows that this stuff works. There is something in your diet that is bugging, and you are in the middle of finding out what that is. (((Annie)))Lisa


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## Mike NoLomotil (Jun 6, 2000)

ALLERGY SENSITIVITY INTOLERANCE PRIMER 101:Okay, now you understand why the LEAP protocol is constructed the way it is.Remember that ALLERGY testing is something any lab in the world can do, and already does, and most people KNOW their food allergies by the time they are an adult, by experience or testing. Only about 2% of the population has actual food ALLERGY, but about 35% or more has NON allergic sensitivities of various kinds to foods or chemicals which cannot be detected by allergy tests (reactions that are not associated with having formed a specific immunoglobulin to the substance).Now, in IBS patients about 8% occurrence of actual allergy seems to be the case as a comorbidity. And sometimes people got sensitized when they were a kid but have not eaten the food as adults (they developed avoidance habits).Also those allergies involve reactions of cells that are "in the tissue", anchored down: mast cells are in tissue throughout the body including the gut tissue (hence some severe sudden onset of gut symptoms in true food allergy...the mast cells go BOOM right away when the allergen is ingested).Now the MRT is a complement to allergy testing or history. It was designed to detect reactions of immune cells which circulate: white blood cells of all types, plus macrophages ("eating cells") and platelets by detetcing the common end point of any circulating immunocyte reaction: release of mediators from inside the cell. So we don't assess the cells we look for "the liquid being spit out" so to speak. No mediators not symptoms. In the gut, for example, lymphocytes circulate out of the vessels, into the gut wall looking for trouble, then back out again...hence recent discoveries of lymphocyte activation in the guts of IBS patients.That which activates lymphocytes in the gut can thus be reproduced in a test tube...as can any reaction to a post-ingestion component of a food that finds its way into the bloodstream and instead of being identified as "SAFE" by the "circulating" immune system gets identified as "BAD" and a reaction takes place.These are the "rest" of the reactions which involve the immune system to foods or chemicals. Put the two together and you have all the forms of reactivity you can assess easily outside the body. That is most, but not always all, of the picture in some people.Sometimes people can develop "false allergy"reactions (see Brostoff and your LEAP books) or "pseudoallergy".Most people can ingest, for example, some foods with histamine in them, or foods with lectins in them with no problems. They tolerate them just fine and never notice any symptoms. These are called "normal people" (note).But some people (abnormally sensitive people, abnormals, sometimes referred to as "Martians", see "MNL:Abnormal Martian") when they ingest the same amount of one of these, say a food with lectin in it, cannot tolerate it as well and they get a much stronger reaction. Lectins are substances which can cause mast cells to degranulate IN THE ABSENCE of a detectable immunoglobulin...they can do it directly themselves like a thief with a master key...plug right and and BOOM degranulation...symptoms. You will find lectns in many foods...but legumes and wheat come immediately to mind.







Anyway there are others too, various peptides and the like, which one may not tolerate and which act DIRECTLY on certain body structures internally...since those body parts are not in the blood MRT live cell tests cannot duplicate those reactions in the test tube and use a machine to detect them. Nor tdo they involve "markers" like immunoglobulins you can check for so allergy tests cannot detetct them.SO YOU have to use ORAL CHALLENGE. Ta daaa... hence the nature of construction of the LEAP phased diet. You get to the safest possible diet in phase 1 using the tools you have (cellular reactions and allergy tests already tried or history) and then start reintroducing limited numbers of foods to a limited base diet so in case something causes a hiden allergy, false allergy, direct chemical intolerance you can isolate it effectively. Oh, then there are enzymes, both in some food which might not be tolerate directly by the gut mucosa, or the detoxifying enzymes in the body may not be able to process certain chemicals as well as other people normally would.Anyway you can SEE thes reactions and ISOLATE them much more quickly when you have gotten the ones you CAN test for out of the way first...sort of like, what is that picture where they hide this little gut in it and you have to find him??? I forget. Oh FIND WALDO!The less people in the picture the easier it is to see Waldo. With the LEAP protocol we use the tools available to get the safest staring diet (ditto with phase one...you get most but not all symptoms gone by 7-10 days..sometimes you have to wait....then you may have pseudoallergen Waldo or chemical Waldo or enzyme sensitivity Waldo show up in there but the choices are narrowed and its easy to spot him and trash him)then you go step by step from there.This is one of the biggest reasons that other dietary programs outcomes are compromised....not enough tools to find as many possible problems, and why most diets given out by the averge GI office are not workable....the list of possibilitieis is vast and the procss is guesswork. This is very systematic.Finally, as Lisa mentioned, all lab tests have the potential for introducing error. The more processes involved in preping the blood, the mor elaborate the elements involved in the test, the greater the introduction of variance possibilities...and operator error as well.In sensitivity and allergy testing the errors are false positive or false negative.Some tests can have variances as high as 40% and still be considered valid, as the probability id better than 50%.In this case, having run millions and millins of MRT assays, the frequency (probability) of genertaing a false negative/positive varies, but is 10% or less. Therefore it is also correct to say that you could get a false negative and thus occassionally have a food which tested negative actually be positive. Another reason for phsed reintroduction. The LEAP developers clinically devised a protocol designed, if followed correclty, to produce the best possible end results with the tools availabel in the marketplace today (technology AND just plain using your wits).Thus the rationale behind the procedures you are given to follow is explained (simplified but enough detail that you should get the picture). This was not "well thought out" it was learned....by trying all kinds of methiods on over 1,300 live patients during the development of the dietary protocol to go with the testing.I hope that, even with the typos, that explains it in detail enough you can understand where we are coming from







, and how we find Waldo in your diet.MNLPSIn Annies case its a tossup when you put 2 in at once, so your dietician would say take them back out, stabilize for 3-5 days and then IF YOU WANT TO EAT ONE OF THEM you have to do an oral challenge of the one you want....if you don't care anyway don't challenge them. If you do, be sure you go one at a time and know the atatck you have will be the last one from that little sucker.


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## jggavl (Mar 14, 2002)

Thanks Mike, Lisa,Today I'm doing fine. I only ate my safest foods yesterday. Today I start the rotation diet so I hope that it becomes easier to tract down the culpret.I really hope that it was the over-ripe watermelon that did me in. I ate a lot of it and it was on it's way out.Mike I did not actually add two foods back in one day. I had already added wheat and thought that I might have had a reaction the next day so I didn't eat it for a while. Several days later I added it back again, had no reaction the next day so I ate it again on the same day that I added olive oil and ate the very, very ripe watermelon.I will wait before I try either one again. I sure hope that it is not either one because I love olive oil and wheat bread. Also, I never seemed to have a reaction from either one before I started the LEAP program.Annie


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## WD40 (Jun 7, 1999)

Annie, I have a strong reaction to onions (with the GERD, not the IBS) even though it barely registered in the green. Ditto oranges.


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## Mike NoLomotil (Jun 6, 2000)

WinnDixie:Bingo. Found (2) of the little buggers hiding away undetected by in vitro assay. Good.Li'lAchin'Annie:---------------------------"I ate a lot of it and it was on it's way out."----------------------------That sure sounds suspicious&#8230;.if you try the other foods that it could have been there are (2) philosophies:One is eat it freely for 2-3 days and see what happens. PRO: You will get a big dose and know for sure if you are reactive, but will never know if there is a sub-provocative dose you can eat. Remember that many times an intolerance is dose dependent.The other is to introduce it gently. Eat a small portion of it. Then next day eat another small portion. Etc. If nothing happens after 5 days then consider including it in your rotation in small portions then try the next one. Takes longer, and requires patience and an assumption (if you eat a little and it is OK you are assuming that somewhere there is a provoking dose&#8230;personally culd care less where it is and just eat some things in moderation &#8230;others I did the first way and knew that they gave me a pseudoallergy reaction, but I went back and found a sub-clinical exposure level so that I could enjoy a little every week or so of some things that I could never eat regularly).Sometimes the beauty of sufferig food intolerance is that at least what to do and how to manage it is LOGICAL.-----------------"I had already added wheat and thought that I might have had a reaction the next day so I didn't eat it for a while. Several days later I added it back again, had no reaction the next day so I ate it again on the same day that I added olive oil and ate the very, very ripe watermelon."-------------------Ok. That makes sense&#8230;hence the melon may be Colonel Mustard In the Closet with an Axe.-----------"Also, I never seemed to have a reaction from either one before I started the LEAP program."-------------Sometimes we do find out that there are things in our diet that we do not tolerate, but never noticed them before following a LEAP Dietary protocol because the reactions was delayed-onset, and our diet was so diverse that we NEVER could have isolated that thing from the maze of foods and chemicals.Case in point I would have never thought I was reactive to oregano or basil. How often do you just sit down to a nice hunk of oregano and basil and do an oral challenge?







But they were reactive, along with many other things commonly found in American Italian cooking&#8230;.and I ate these foods almost constantly for lunch or dinner or snacks, alternated with OTHER things (on the off days) I was reactive to.But the wheat sensitivity and tomato sensitivity are VERY dose dependent. Especially now after a long time of withdrawal, I can eat some pizza once in awhile now with NO effect the next day where once upon a time, when I understood what was happening, a slice of pizza was like a trip to hell 36 hours later.One of the PLUSES of having to travel on business a lot lately is that Florida is a real long state, and the turnpike/I75 is the way OUT from the south if you are headed to Atlanta or gonna turn west at I-10 to head out thattaway. Alla long the turnpike are the Plazas and many of the Plazas have &#8230;.SBARRO! And their pizza is the "brand" I now tolerate best. Sometimes I can eat 2 slices!!!!So the up side of every trip OUT and every flipside back, is to be able to stop at a SBARRO and get a slice of their pizza. I went at one point 4 years without a [piece of pizza or a teaspoon of Italian pasta sauce. Life was like that old AC/DC tune "Heaven and Hell".MNL[Aye, Bon, we hardly knew ye'&#8230;]


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## jggavl (Mar 14, 2002)

Mike,Thanks again. You are such a wealth of information. I am doing fine again today.I started my rotation phase yesterday so I can't eat anything 3 days in a row but I can eat some watermelon today. This phase is really hard since my choices are still so limited. Today I pulled out a can of tuna for lunch and noticed that it contained hydrolyzed soy protein. DO THEY PUT SOY IN EVERYTHING? I assumed that it was just tuna packed in water. There was nothing else in the house that I could eat so I just ran it under cold water, poured some peanut oil on it and ate it. Does anyone know of a brand without the soy? I am really getting frustrated with this soy thing.I also love Italian food and hope that I can eat it again. I have some beautiful basil growing in my garden right now. I'm glad that my husband can eat it. I used to make the most delicious basil pesto.


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## Mike NoLomotil (Jun 6, 2000)

ANNIE: _________________________________DO THEY PUT SOY IN EVERYTHING? I assumed that it was just tuna packed in water. " __________________________________Yes the big print on the labels lie unless you read the fine print...some "White tuna in water" will show "hydrolyzed vegetable protein broth" for example.that is why I keep these (2) cans in my office so I can tell soy-sensitivie tuna eaters what to buy:STAR KIST NATURALLY LOW SODIUM LOW FAT CHUNK WHITE TUNA IN PURE DISTILLED WATERBUMBLE BEE DIET LOW SALT CHUNK WHITE TUNA IN WATERboth have no aditives esp. soy or sulfites.The only thing to remember is that sometimes when tuna is apcked they do not get the right temp and the bacteria which occur naturally release histamine into the tuna.So if you are real real craeful and use these 2 tunas but still get what seems an "allergic reaction" toss that can BUT note the lot number. It may just be histamine in that batch. try another batch.MNL


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## Melissa V (Feb 7, 2001)

Another brand i have found recently is Polar all natural chunk light tuna. Only things are tuna water and salt







thanks for all you info Mike....Friday i visit the allergist (who is also an imunologist?) maybe we will get somewhere with him







Melissa


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## Mike NoLomotil (Jun 6, 2000)

keep us posted!MNL


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