MONOTONOUS LIFESTYLES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON HEALTH

A PROPOSAL FOR RESEARCH ON NUTRITIONAL INDIVIDUALITY

Donald Mitchell* and Stuart B. Hill**

INTRODUCTION

A small but dedicated group of American and Canadian physicians are currently having remarkable success managing patients suffering from the whole spectrum of diseases and emotional states including particularly those, allergic patients that have passed from specialist to specialist without relief .

The techniques employed do not involve drugs, surgery or psychotherapy. They are based on a quite different concept of disease that involves the understanding of individual responses to environmental stresses or allergies with their adaptive addictive relationships.

Clinical data on thousands of cases have been acquired over more than 50 years . What is needed now, in order to improve techniques for diagnosis and treatment and to clarify concepts, is to correlate clinical, haematological and biochemical findings. The necessity for this work is recognized; the opportunity to do it has not occurred.

Early studies by this group emphasized the role of food in health and disease . Patients were usually asked to keep a diary noting their eating' habits, any symptoms and often also their pulse rate before and after meals.

Foods eaten daily are most commonly suspected of being the causes of health problems. These foods comprise such staples as egg, wheat, potatoes, cow's milk, oranges, beef, peas, beans, sugar, tea and coffee. One approach to testing for sensitivity has bean to eliminate the suspected foods from the diet for a week or so and then to reintroduce them as single food meals recording any symptoms and signs that arise, e. g. changes in pulse, temperature, blood pressure, respiration, flushing, pallour, sweating, alertness, fatigue, nasal discharge, sneezing, coughing, clearing the throat, restlessness, etc. This procedure has bean found to be more satisfactory after a fast of a few days. Alternative approaches involve testing food extracts in the skin and under the tongue ' . Some laboratory techniques, such as those that involve the taking of bleed samples, are also available but they require further refinement.

Testing includes also food additives and the non-food aspects of an individual's life-style such as smoking, exposure to petrochemical fumes plastics, perfumes, paints, ether chemicals including drugs and medications dust, animal dander's, pollens, and molds.

When problem substances are identified they are eliminated or the patient's exposures are controlled. Usually for foods, a diversified, rotational diet comprising a minimum number of items at each meal is recommended. This was first used by Rinkel in 1934 in a case of migraine(26) and is now used widely in prevention.

The attached program of the 1975 meeting of the Society for Clinical Ecology, to which a particular group of the practitioners working in this field belong, illustrates the breadth and scope of the concepts and techniques that are applied today.

Roger Williams(33) has pointed out that "the cells of our bodies can become unwell and malfunctioning for two general reasons; first, they may be poisoned; second, they may lack a good supply of nourishing feed". Poisoning is commoner than is generally recognized since the effects are usually disguised and therefore often be unnoticed. This comes about through the process of adaptation, first described by Selye in 1946 and in more detail in 1956. By this process longterm harmful effects are made to appear beneficial in the short-tern.

When the body is exposed repeatedly to a substance that it is sensitive to, the endocrine control system responds by increasing its capacity to produce the necessary stimulant hormones, e.g. the adrenals enlarge and increase their output of cortisone type material, (a mechanism involving the hypothalamus and the plasma peptide hormone bradykinin has been suggested by Bell. This prepares the body for a quick response to a further exposure to the particular substance or to others to which the body reacts in a similar way. Instead of discomfort, a sense of increased well-being new fellows exposure. There is the tendency then to consider oneself to be ne longer reactive rather than being mere deeply involved, which is the true situation.

The confusion is not surprising. What we are seeing here is a mechanism for quick relief from repeated exposure to a toxin, which say have a chemical, physical or possibly an emotional origin. This may have evolved to deal with repeated exposure over short periods. The problem is that our "*monotonous" life-styles, leading to repeated exposures over long periods, induce all manner of delayed effects. Changes in behaviour, in susceptibility to disease and particularly to the development of degenerative changes follow.

A cigarette, toxic for the nonadapted person, becomes a stimulant when adaptation occurs. There is a tendency to think: "It must be good; it makes me feel better". The same applies to many substances, including drugs. The tendency to wait a few days for a drug to take effect corresponds similarly to the time necessary to set up an adaptation to it(23).

So long as the adaptation effect continues to dominate the picture, the associated counter reaction goes unrecognized. The abnormal endocrine discharge that is initiated by an adapted substance is inevitably followed by a fall in endocrine secretion. With the associated drop in energy levels, all systems operate subnormally. Fatigue is general and resistance is lowered as that pathogens and parasites can move in and develop wherever the potential exists.

Here is the basis of disease, whether inflammatory or degenerative, physical or mental. The extent of adaptation and hence of counter reaction and its depressive effects is widespread. All tissues may be affected and all individuals likewise.

Present concepts of diagnosis and treatment are based on the conception that pathogens are the causes of disease. With depressed levels of activity and lowered resistance, disease organisms are able to proliferate Thus their increased activity occurs with a fall in energy levels. This is the true cause of disease

Persons who have become aware of their particular "poisons" have fount that they can enjoy nearly total health, so long as they vary their exposures and eliminate indicated substances In fact, people who control their exposures to nonadapted substances often find that the neglect of pressured necessities has been over-emphasized by nutritionists. A new way of living based on restriction must be learned for the enjoyment of total health although an increasing number of people are using this knowledge, were extensive studies are needed With greater understanding, practitioners would be able to apply the knowledge more widely, accurately and quickly. Why haven't these studies been undertaken before? Why hasn't the world become aware of this knowledge?

The answer is not difficult Firstly, the information is relatively new and like all new knowledge is prone to rejection; secondly, it demands control of our life-style, which most of us are not ready to grant Although we are not always entirely free to choose what we may do, most of us tend to resist change and are content to endure what we know This is the result of addictive-adaptive pressures

Acceptance of the preposition that one's health depends on avoiding stimulant substances is secondary in importance to the urgent need to be stimulated again That desire is stronger than the wish to prevent the disease that is likely to follow eventually

We are all subjects to the processes of addiction We are not prevention minded This major problem in "health keeping" could be considerably lessened by the coordinated studies being proposed here Untold discoveries must follow greater knowledge

Beginnings have bean made with studies in haematelogy and biochemistry) but new thoughts and new techniques are needed that would enable us to identify and to follow changes while they are actually in progress in the circulating fluids and tissues Clinical observations combined with laboratory procedures would help us to develop greater understanding of the processes involved This is necessary if we are to develop rational approaches to health and disease

It is already clear that wider use of present routines would decrease the incidence of disease With the help of new methods of investigation and treatment, we would expect a further drop in the number of cases requiring examination Some would put the decreased incidence of disease at 50%, others more or less

Reports of reduced incidence of degenerative diseases associated with dietary elimination by Seventh Day Adventists, raised the possibility of obtaining a group of volunteer participants for study The Montreal secretary of a congregation when contacted indicated a willingness to cooperate

As our ability to identify individual tolerances and needs become more refined, it could be expected that universal computerization for health control would gain a new significance

REFERENCES

1. Adolph, E. F. 1968. ORIGINS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL REGULATIONS. 147 pp. Academic Press, N.Y.

2. Bell, I. R. 1975. A kinin model of medication for food and chemical sensitivities: bio-behavioural implications. Ann. Allergy 35, 206-215.

3. Bell, I. R. 1975. Hypothalmic model of addiction and ecologic mental illness. 9th Adv. Seminar Clin. Ecel. (Toronto). 23 pp.

4. Cairns, J. 1975. The cancer problem. Sci. Amer. 233(5): 64-78.

5. Coca, A. F. 1945. FAMILIAL NONREAGINIC FOOD-ALLERGY. 2nd edn. 191 pp. Charles C. Themas, Springfield, Ill. (First edn. 1943).

6. Coca, A. F. 1956. THE PULSE TEST; EASY ALLERGY DETECTION. 189 pp. Arc Books, N.Y.

7. Crook, W. G. 1973. YOUR ALLERGIC CHILD. 171 pp. Medcom Press, N.Y.

8. Creek, W. G. 1975. CAN YOUR CHILD READ? IS HE HYPERACTIVE? pp. Pedicenter Press, Jackson, Tenn.

9. Dickey, L. D. 1971. Ecologic illness, investigation by provocative tests and chemicals 1963-1970. Rocky Mountain Med. J. 68: 23-28.

10. Dickey,, L. D. (Ed.). 1975. CLINICAL ECOLOGY. pp. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Ill. (80 chapters by 46 contributors).

11. Enstrom, J. E. 1974. Strikingly low cancer mortality among mormons. U.C.L.. Cancer Bull. 1(4): 4-6.

12. Feingold, B. F. 1974. WHY YOUR CHILD IS HYPERACTIVE. 211 pp. Random House,

N.Y.

13. Golos, N. 1975. MANAGEMENT OF COMPLEX ALLERGIES, THE PATIENT'S GUIDE. 189 pp. (plus looseleaf book of recipes, 88 pp.). N. Engl. Foundn, Allergic & Envir. Dis., Norwalk, Conn.

14. Hansel, F. K. 1953. CLINICAL ALLERGY. 1005 pp. C. V. Mosby, St. Louis.

15. Hare, F. 1905. THE FOOD FACTOR IN DISEASE. 2 Vols. Lend. pp. Longman, Green,

16. Katz, S. 1974. Consumer viewpoint. How we might live healthily and enjoy it more. Can. Med. Assoc. J. 111: 1370.

17. Lemon. P. R. and R. T. Walden. 1966. Death from respiratory system diseases among Seventh-Day Adventists. J. Amer. Med. Assoc. 198(2): 137-146.

18. Miller, J. B. 1972. FOOD ALLERGY, PROVOCATIVE TESTING AND INJECTION THERAPY. 142 pp. Charles C. Th-.as, Springfield, Ill.

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