Food-Caused Symptoms 

Foods interact in a complex manner with your body...

Abnormal food-body interactions cause sensations which should alert us to problems. Some of the sensations are mild discomforts, broadcast from the digestive tract surface to signal displeasure with your food choices.  Indigestion, heartburn, and nausea are discomforts which originate from the stomach, for example, often soon after food is eaten. Other events occur hours after eating as food digestion and absorption is taking place. Some of the abnormal events have to do with the self-regulating activity of the digestive tract itself, or to the nature of the food, its chemistry, its toxicity, and its effect on your metabolism.

1. Foods first interact with the surface of the digestive tract to cause many responses designed to regulate the digestive effort.

2. Other responses are defensive and involve immune mechanisms.

3. Other responses send signals to the rest of the body to alter your behavior, emotions, and metabolic activity.

4. Later, as food materials are digested and move from the digestive tract into the blood stream, a complex series of metabolic and regulatory events occur throughout your body.

There are many food-related illnesses. Some illness patterns are caused by the metabolic effects of foods. Symptoms are generated by the malfunction of organs which do not receive the proper flow of nutrients. These symptoms may be acute, occurring within hours after the food is eaten. Other symptoms are chronic and slowly emerge as the damage from food problems accumulate. After years of eating the wrong foods, for example, you may have symptoms of reduced blood flow to any part of your body.

Symptoms may be caused by the accumulation of excess metabolites as in gout - uric acid accumulates in the blood after the ingestion of high purine foods; uric acid crystals form within a joint and you have an attack of painful, inflammatory arthritis. In diabetes, sugar and fat accumulate in the blood and you have symptoms of energy deficiency, circulation problems, and organ malfunction.

Immune responses to food materials create many symptoms in any and all tissues of the body in complex patterns. We refer to all types of immune responses to food as food allergy, not "food sensitivity" nor "food intolerance". This symptomatic process begins with the action of food materials in the digestive tract and continues into the blood stream, and then affects the function of any target organ which receives the food problem. For example:

• Symptoms may be limited to the digestive tract-indigestion, abdominal pain, bloating, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

• Symptoms may be general or systemic - fever, fatigue, sweating, and chills.

• The lungs are the target organ in food-induced bronchitis and asthma.

• The joints are target organs in food allergic arthritis.

• Muscles and connective tissue react with pain, stiffness, and swelling.

• Weakness and reduced exertional tolerance are associated with pain.

• The skin reacts with itching, rashes, hives, thickening, redness, swelling, and scaling as in eczema and psoriasis.

• The brain is the target organ when disorganized, disturbed thinking, feeling, remembering, and behaving occur.

The Alpha Nutrition Program is designed to discover a new diet that reduces immediate symptoms and reduces the long-term risk of  progressive disease. The first Phase of the Alpha Nutrition Program is an attempt to clear symptoms. This is home science. You want to accomplish four important goals at the same time:

• Remove all the problems in your existing food supply

• Add all the nutrients your body needs

• Reintroduce the best, nourishing foods available

• Establish a new healthier diet that will work for the rest of your life