Why Are Allergies Becoming An Epidemic (Especially In Our Children)
Episode 180
Diving into the hot topic of allergies, this week on the Integrative Wellness Radio we’ll be talking about sensitivities that are caused by diet and environmental factors. These sensitivities can turn into full-blown allergies if untreated or diagnosed improperly. Leading the episode, Dr. Nicole will pinpoint the difference between allergies and sensitivities. Why there’s an epidemic on the rise and how does it relate to children getting allergic to some foods? Dr. Nicole will unravel how allergies and sensitivities can manifest as early as infancy and what are some of the best tools to identify and resolve them. Listen to the full episode to learn more about the early symptoms caused by allergy and mild sensitivity. Interested in learning more about Dr. Nick & Dr. Nicole’s courses, memberships, or private work? Learn more at Integrative You . Have a quick question, Would you like to schedule a call, or just want to say hi? Text us at 732.913.0009. Our mission to innovate humans & Healthcare does NOT start and stop with us! This is why we are also dedicated to helping other practitioners in evolving healthcare too! If you are a healthcare leader and are looking to up-level your clinical + business excellence Learn more about our course membership: Limitless Healthprenuer and start boldly disrupting this industry! Noteworthy Time Stamps: 03:15 What have we realized as physicians? 07:48 Difference between food allergy and sensitivity 21:11 False positives about skin prick test 28:25 Busting myths about allergies 37:19 Testing is NOT always accurate 44:37 Food allergies can look different across the board
Topics: allergies, sensitivities, allergy, food, sensitivity, epidemic, children, integrative
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## Why Are Allergies Becoming An Epidemic (Especially In Our Children)?
- Understanding the difference between a food allergy and a food sensitivity is critical for proper diagnosis and management.
- Environmental factors and dietary choices play significant roles in the increasing prevalence of allergies.
- Allergies and sensitivities can present early in life, even in infancy, with subtle or overt symptoms.
- Relying solely on certain diagnostic tests, like skin prick tests, can lead to misinterpretations and false positives.
Pull quotes
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole, opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems.
Nick and Dr. **Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey.
Uh, literally, it could be happening in infancy, and it can also be developing later on in life.
Transcript
**Unknown:** I've been up all night, no sleep. Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole, opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems. Dive into Integrative Wellness Radio with Dr. Nick and Dr.
**Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey. Sometimes I tend to lose myself when I'm out here on- Hello. Hello, everyone. So we are back, and we are talking about the very hot topic of allergies.
**Unknown:** So unfortunately, many of us are dealing with some type of food or environmental sensitivity, and some of us are also dealing with full-blown allergies. Um, to clarify, they are different because when it comes to a sensitivity, this is something that a lot of us are dealing with on a low-grade basis that are giving us very confusing symptoms like bloating, indigestion, heartburn, um, or even brain fog and fatigue. And then there are other people that are dealing with a full-blown allergy, which could potentially cause their throat to close or cause them to have trouble breathing, which then leads to needing, um, the use of something like an EpiPen. So there definitely is a difference when it comes to allergies to sensitivities.
**Unknown:** But today, it's really trying to understand, uh, some of the reasons why we potentially are dealing with allergies or sensitivities and how this could be happening very, very early on. Uh, literally, it could be happening in infancy, and it can also be developing later on in life. There's so many people that are like, "I used to be able to eat whatever I wanted, and now I feel like everything is bothering me," or, "I'm getting really irritated from a lot of the things that I consume." And then there's a lot of us that do blatantly notice that we eat something and we feel very foggy or we feel very fatigued after we're consuming that as well. So overall, it's really understanding some of the things that can be happening literally in the womb, infancy, toddler, all the way up into your adulthood that could be contributing to you develop- developing different types of allergies or sensitivities.
**Unknown:** So as we uncover a lot of this today, it'll help to give you clarity, number one, but number two, it also is really about giving you some solutions, but also understanding that the testing that you may have had already might not necessarily be a hundred percent accurate. And I will run through some of the things that you need to know about the limitations with the tests that exist and why they could potentially be giving you false positives or even false negatives. And really since day one when it comes to how we've really looked at health and wellness in general is we've always been really pressing the envelope and thinking differently and really just trying to take a lot of the feedback that we were getting from real-life patients and dig deeper into the research and really understand how everything is an integration. So we've really opted to spend more time, ask better questions, and really go against the grain when it comes to how we help people to heal and get better.
**Unknown:** Because what we quickly realized is, as physicians, that you're not necessarily going to have many of your patients match the textbook. And I'm sure some of you relate to that because you potentially are struggling with knowing that certain things in your environment or certain foods are really bothering you, but you're going and getting testing, and your testing looks normal, and they're saying, "Well, maybe it's psychological," or maybe, you know, it's in your head, but really, at the end of the day, it's just there's limitations with the testing, and it's not potentially revealing that you have maybe these latent sensitivities, and it's not necessarily a full-blown throat-closing allergy. I do work with a lot of patients that have allergies. Unfortunately, the amount of people dealing with, uh, sensitivities and allergies is growing by the day.
**Unknown:** And I know that a lot of you that have families or are parents or grandparents even, you are seeing this change. You are seeing that these kids are struggling with different types of allergies and sensitivities earlier and earlier. There are how many different types of baby formulas out there nowadays because they have to adhere to different sensitivities or babies dealing with reflux and indigestion, spitting up, colic. So really the list goes on, but unfortunately, we're seeing this younger and younger.
**Unknown:** So really when it comes down to allergies, it's not about necessarily just the allergy. It's about understanding what is contributing to the immune system causing these types of reactions. Because really, at the end of the day, if the immune system is reactive or overactive, you're going to be more susceptible to different types of allergies and sensitivities. And the immune system being stressed can happen for a variety of different reasons.
**Unknown:** It can happen because of toxicity. It can happen because of infections. It can happen because of the neurological system not communicating with the gut. Really, the list goes on.
**Unknown:** So it's really about understanding the big picture and working with physicians that are looking at all of the layers. Because if you're working with someone who's just an allergist and they're labeling you as a patient who has allergies, but they're not necessarily looking at what is connected to those allergies or what is causing those allergies, then you potentially are just going to be doing allergy shots for three, five years or longer. And sometimes people still don't necessarily get the results that they're looking for by doing that long of a treatment. But if you can fix the root cause, you will see quicker change or changes, but you'll also see more long-lasting changes.
**Unknown:** So first and foremost, as we really start to talk about this topic, I want you to know that it is not your fault that you have no idea if you have food allergies or if you have environmental allergies. It's not your fault that you don't know what to do about it. It's not your fault that you don't know what to eat. It's not your fault that water makes you bloated.
**Unknown:** None of it's your fault because it's impossible to know what is going on if you are trying to navigate the sea of information. Like, we live in an age that we have access to what I call Google University, which is fantastic. It's tons of information, but it's a lot of conflicting information. It's a lot of biased information.
**Unknown:** It's a lot of confusing information.And some of you have maybe leveraged that information, and maybe you've tried a supplement protocol. Maybe you tried an elimination diet, and you got frustrated, and you got overwhelmed, and you didn't see the results that you were looking for. I get it. It's not your fault because every single one of you that are listening to me right now are extremely different, and your needs are different.
**Unknown:** And you might be thinking that you have an allergy to something, but you don't because you're being confused because maybe you're having an issue with a component of the food. Maybe you're having an issue of something that's on the food, which is definitely gonna be a big part of what we talk about tonight, is there's a lot of things on your food that you are reacting to. And if-- for those of you that are here that potentially have celiac disease, definitely head to our site to look at our webinar archive because in the webinar archive, I talk specifically about toxicity's association with celiac. It's not my opinion.
**Unknown:** They've proven it at this point. And there is huge, huge connections to a lot of different types of autoimmune conditions and food allergy issues that are tied to different things that are being put on our food that we are eating every day. So just some foundational information for you guys to understand about what we're talking about tonight. So some of the really significant things when it comes to food allergies.
**Unknown:** So number one, you all need to understand that there is a difference between food allergies and food sensitivities. Allergies are the throat closing, can't breathe situation. Sensitivities can be you got brain fog from eating. You feel really full.
**Unknown:** You feel like you wanna sleep after a meal. You got bloated. You got gassy, all of those things. You got heartburn.
**Unknown:** I know everybody's like, "Doesn't everybody have that?" I hear it all the time. No, that is not normal. It might be common, but it is not normal. So in addition to that, food allergies and sensitivities are not black and white.
**Unknown:** It is not cut and dry. Some people have an issue with a cooked food, but that same food in the raw form, they don't have an issue or vice versa. So you could easily have an issue with a food depending on how the chemistry of that food has been manipulated, AKA if it was cooked, pickled, raw, et cetera. In addition to that, there's those of you listening because you're like, "I can't eat anything.
**Unknown:** Everything bothers me. I literally am in agony. I drink water, and I feel terrible." You might not be having an issue with a food protein. You might be having an issue with a peptide.
**Unknown:** So let's keep this, like, as simple as possible. Some of you might be like, "She's speaking Spanish." So you have the food protein. Let's use gluten. Then that breaks down into me-- amino acids, and then that breaks down into peptides.
**Unknown:** So there's like this breakdown, the more you pull it apart. So when it comes to the protein, that's what's being tested when you guys go get your testing done. When you go get your blood work done, they're testing for the food protein. You might not be having an issue with a protein.
**Unknown:** You might be having an issue with the breakdown, which is the peptide. So if you have an issue with a peptide, that easily can make you have an issue with the gluten, the wheat, the rye, the oats. Like, it can make you have issues across the board. So I don't want that to sound, like, super overwhelming because it's not that you're just screwed.
**Unknown:** It just means that we have to decipher what is the root of you having an issue with that peptide. But more importantly is that you have to understand that your testing is probably not accurate if you're getting tested for the food protein. So there are specific labs. My personal favorite lab is Vibrant, uh, Vibrant Wellness, Vibrant America.
**Unknown:** So Vibrant Wellness, they are actually breaking things down to the peptide level, so they are not missing anything. There are so many of you, so many of my patients that say, "I was tested for gluten. I'm fine." And really, at the end of the day, they know that gluten doesn't make them feel good, but it's, it's hard to give up. And who wants to give it up?
**Unknown:** You know, pizza is, like, delicious. I get it. But really, at the end of the day, if you were to break that down to the peptide level, you probably will find that you have an issue with gluten. So overall, it varies on the testing that you're doing, but it also varies on how the food was prepared.
**Unknown:** Is it raw? Is it cooked? Is it, you know, is it prepared in a different way? Allergies can start in the womb.
**Unknown:** So this is really interesting because if mom has something going on, if she knows it or she doesn't, and she has something that is triggering her immune system, and maybe through her pregnancy, she is consuming a lot of dairy because, you know, they say, "Eat whatever you want. Eat for two." So women tend to eat things that they don't even normally eat when they're pregnant because they kind of think that, "Oh, I'm just giving my baby as much nutrients as possible." But you can easily actually create antibodies against certain types of food proteins or peptides that then those antibodies are passed to your baby, which then actually causes an allergy right out of the womb. So women can relate to this because you have a baby that maybe you didn't breastfeed for whatever reason, and you're doing bottle, and your baby is crying. Your baby is spitting up.
**Unknown:** Your baby is vomiting. Your baby is not-- is stopping breathing and ending up in the NICU. I literally just had this situation with one of my best friends, and we used one of our, um, diagnostics on the baby, and it turned out the baby had an allergy to condensed milk nutrition. Literally, that's what formula is, condensed milk nutrition.
**Unknown:** And we switched him over to goat, and he was completely fine. No burping, no hiccuping, no throwing up, none of it. So sometimes this can be happening very, very, very early on. Then also you have to understand too, if your baby already has some type of intolerance or allergy or sensitivity, you have to be very, very nurturing to that baby's immune system, and you really have to make sure you're supporting that baby in the right way, especially if your baby was C-section because your baby, um, as a C-section, didn't go through the birth canal, which means your baby is not exposed to a lot of different bacteria that builds the immune system.
**Unknown:** So you kind of have two different components there working against the child in the development of their immune system. So it's very, very important to consider that. The other thing too, environmental allergies. I am, like, always baffled when I see how many of us just deem seasonal allergies as being completely normal.
**Unknown:** Like, it's just like, "Oh, yeah, seasonal allergies, no big deal. I just take my Claritin, and I take my Flonase, and I'm, I'm all good in the hood." But the thing is about environmental allergies is your environmental allergies are triggered by a toxicity that is in your body. So I will use an example for you guys. A lot of you probably own homes, and you've probably had mold testing, um, on your home.
**Unknown:** So when they do the mold test, they do an air quality test. So they take the air quality inside of your home, and they actually test the air quality inside of your home against the outside. So what they're doing is they're looking at the abundance of mold spores, but what's actually happening is that mold spores and pollen and dander and all the things that are on trees and bushes and plants are very cross-reactive. So what happens is if you have had exposure to mold, and maybe that mold came from a boatload of antibiotics because mold from the antibiotics penicillin, amoxicillin, ampicillinThose antibiotics are made from penicillium mold.
**Unknown:** So you could easily have mold toxicity from taking a bunch of antibiotics. So your baby who had a bunch of ear infections or had some other type of, uh, or maybe you had group B strep when your baby was born, then you were put on antibiotics that was transferred to the baby, and then in addition, maybe your baby had a bunch of antibiotics afterwards because of the group B strep. Your baby already has now been exposed to mold, which then could possibly lead down the road of having gut issues, number one, and number two, having seasonal allergies or sinus issues and ear infections. So you have to understand that environmental allergies are due to a toxicity that you already have, and maybe you're reacting to the pollens and the trees and the danders from animals, but it's because under a microscope, those compounds or molecules look very, very similar to toxic mold that can come from water-damaged buildings, but it can also come from antibiotics.
**Unknown:** It also comes from food. Brown rice syrup is one of the most common things found in baby formulas. Brown rice syrup is known to grow with fungus or I should say rice, and that's how they make brown rice syrup. So these are things that y- that you don't know about.
**Unknown:** These are things that are not on your radar, and then you're struggling with your child with all of these allergies, and you don't know what to do when there is simply something inside of the body that needs to be pushed out through a obviously safe and gentle mechanism. But these are things that are stemming from the inside out. It's just... it's not that the immune system just chooses to react to the external environment, it's reacting because there is a toxicity happening internally.
**Unknown:** The other thing too is that we also don't realize that if you have a boatload of allergies, food allergies or environmental, you're just like, "Oh, I just have food allergies. Oh, I just have environmental allergies. I just have seasonal allergies." What that means is that your immune system is on fire. Your immune system is in complete overdrive.
**Unknown:** It is impossible for you to be healthy as a whole if you have an overactive immune system. This is what leads us down the road of having autoimmune conditions. It what leads us down the road of having brain fog, memory loss, ADD. All of those types of neurological conditions have so much to do with inflammation in the brain, and if you have an overactive immune system, you have tons of inflammation in your body.
**Unknown:** So we need to stop thinking that it's just an allergy, no big deal. Let's take my Claritin or my Flonase or, you know, my Zyrtec, and we need to start thinking beyond that because this is an indicator that your body is in a complete inflammatory state. The other thing that people don't realize is that these allergies or sensitivities are not forever. We kind of just like...
**Unknown:** are like, "I have to learn how to live with this. I need my EpiPen on me," and that's the end of the story. If you have obviously immediate onset allergies, carry your EpiPen. That's not-- I'm not saying don't, but what I'm saying is that your allergies are being triggered by something.
**Unknown:** So if we can figure out what is the root cause, then your allergies don't have to be a permanent situation. So I actually pulled some of these stats from Vibrant Wellness, which is the lab that I use most heavily when it comes to food allergy testing, and they literally test for anything under the sun. It's, it's... they're amazing.
**Unknown:** But what I found to be probably the most staggering, but there has been a fifty percent increase in food allergies in children from nineteen ninety-seven to two thousand and one. Fifty percent increase, guys. Like, that is insane. So we have to start asking why.
**Unknown:** Why is there such an epidemic of these food allergies, which we're gonna talk about. In addition to that, when it just comes to these anaphylactic reactions, this is like the throat closing, can't breathe situation. Thirty thousand emergency visits per ru-- just in the US. Two thousand hospitalizations, a hundred and f- a hundred and fifty kids dying from these types of reactions.
**Unknown:** Like, this is... these are staggering numbers for this type of issue, and it's really growing in the types of foods that are triggering these kids the most and people in general. Peanuts, eggs, shellfish, cow's milk, tree nuts, wheat, fish, soy. So let's just kind of take a moment here for this because there is so many things that people are not thinking about when it comes to these foods.
**Unknown:** So number one, when it comes to wheat, soy, these two foods are so drenched in a chemical called glyphosate. Glyphosate is the chemical that's in Roundup, what kills the weeds in your yard, number one. Number two, it is the most commonly used pesticide in the country. So they are using it heavily on all of our grains, wheat and soy being the highest abundant of glyphosate.
**Unknown:** So when it comes to these allergies, it's in question, is it the food, is it the proteins of the food, or is it the chemicals on the food? Then in addition, we have fish here. So shellfish, fish. First of all, shellfish are filter feeders, and everybody's talking about the oceans, global warming, this, there's plastics, all this stuff.
**Unknown:** You know, now everybody has paper straws as they hand you stuff in a plastic cup. It kills me, but anyway. Uh, we're dealing with all of these issues with what's happening in the oceans, and shellfish are filtering our oceans. So are we reacting to the shellfish?
**Unknown:** Are we reacting to the chemicals and the toxins in the shellfish? And then when it comes to the big fish, the big fish, don't eat too much tuna, don't eat too much shark, swordfish because of the mercury. Are we reacting to the fish? Are react-reacting to the mercury?
**Unknown:** And then when it comes to peanuts and eggs, one of the things we're gonna touch more upon is that most of our vaccines are cultured on substrates that contain peanut oil and unfertilized chicken eggs. I know that sounds really weird and gross, but what they do is they take the virus, and they put it in an unfertilized chicken egg, and it... that's actually where the virus will replicate, and then they actually take that, and they grind it to make the vaccine. So there areThere are contaminants of egg and peanut in most of the vaccines that we are utilizing in the US, and this is definitely one of the reasons why kids are developing these different allergies right at that two-year-old mark, because two years old is when you get the MMR, which is going to, um, be one of the, the primary viruses that is cultured on a egg substrate.
**Unknown:** So there's a lot of different components here that we have to consider. You know, is it the food? Is it the chemicals? Is it the substrate of the vaccines?
**Unknown:** There are many, many, many things to consider. So a lot of you have had skin prick tests to try to decipher, do you have allergies, and then you've also taken those results and potentially have done allergy shots. But I wanted to make a couple of points about this because there is a lot of false positives when it comes to the skin prick test. So one of the primary reasons for that is because food extracts are not standardized.
**Unknown:** So what I mean by that is, like, if you go to five different places, five different physicians, and five different types of skin prick tests, the gluten that is in each one of their kits for testing is different. It's not a standard of it's always this. It's always the same with the same composition. So the food extracts not being standardized can definitely change the results.
**Unknown:** And then number two is there's a lot of issues for human error. So if you are having-- if they're not spreading apart the skin prick at least two centimeters or farther, then you could easily have a cross-contamination, and you could look like you're reacting to something that you're really not reacting to. So really the biggest point is that there is a lot of room for error when it comes to the skin prick test. The biggest thing has to do with the fact that the food extracts that they are putting into the skin are not standardized, and they vary depending on the office that you are going to.
**Unknown:** So this definitely leaves room for a lot of error. Not many of you have actually done a oral food challenge test, but this is something else. You have to be hospitalized to do this because in case something really bad happens, they obviously have to have an emergency care team there to, to deal with it. But overall, this definitely can have a lot of issues because if you have not eaten something for a period of time, and then it's introduced, it can cause a more severe reaction.
**Unknown:** It could cause no re-reaction at all. There are many drugs that can suppress the reaction, like antihistamines. There's also incubation periods of how many hours in between administering certain foods. So really the point is, is that there's a lot of room for error when it comes to the oral food challenge test, as well as the skin prick test as well.
**Unknown:** So a side note, too, because this is really, really important for kids, is that considering kids are the ones dealing with the allergies the most, and it's a fifty percent increase since nineteen ninety-seven in allergies in children specifically, is that, you know, we need to consider the bigger picture here. Again, like, is this really just about the gut? Is it just about toxins? Is there other parts of the puzzle?
**Unknown:** And really one of my personal mentors, and I've learned so much from him of how the body... how the immune system works, but also how the body detoxes. And one of the biggest things that is playing such a significant role in our gut distress and our immune system distress has a lot to do with the tonsils. You know, there are so many kids getting their tonsils removed, which is not always gonna solve the bigger problem, but there are tons of kids struggling with throat issues, sinus issues, and ear issues, and all of those things are draining directly into the tonsils.
**Unknown:** And if the tonsils become overloaded with bacteria and they're also becoming cryptic, that kids are getting these tonsil stones. Yes, those gross white things that pop out of your tonsils that smel-smell terrible. Trust me, I know 'cause I used to have them. All of this is compromising the lymphatic system, which keep it simple, the lymphatic system is one of the major systems that filters out bad stuff.
**Unknown:** So we start to get this overload of toxicity in the body, and then this triggers the immune system, which then makes us more susceptible to these different types of food and environmental allergies. So if your child is struggling with major tonsil issues and also dealing with tons of allergies, we need to start considering, you know, is it the chicken or the eggIs it, is it the allergies? Is it the tonsils? Is it both?
**Unknown:** And don't go and just get your to-- kid's tonsils removed. That's not the point of me saying this. The point is, is that why? Why, why is there such a buildup of bacteria in the tonsils?
**Unknown:** And there are many, many ways you can go about getting the tonsils back to health, but sometimes it has to do with just the inability for things to drain properly. So there was a really interesting patient that I had that was presenting with an allergy to penicillin and then also terrible seasonal allergies. So I kind of gave this away a little bit earlier for those of you that, that have been listening the whole time, but specifically when it comes to penicillin. So penicillin, a lot of you might be thinking, "Do they even use penicillin anymore?" So penicillin, the antibiotic, is in the same exact family as amoxicillin and ampicillin.
**Unknown:** Amoxicillin is used very, very heavily for a variety of different issues, but even, um, sore throats, common colds, sinus infections, tho-those are some of the most common uses of amoxicillin. So amoxicillin, penicillin, and ampicillin are all actually derived from mold. They are derived from a mold called penicillium. That's where penicillin comes from, the name.
**Unknown:** So if there is a person who has an allergy to one of these antibiotics, if it's amoxicillin or penicillin or ampicillin, then this is actually indicating that there is toxic levels of mold in the body. And maybe this mold came from the antibiotics, maybe the mold came from a water-damaged building, maybe the mold came from food. There is tons of mold and mycotoxins in baby formulas, let alone rice, wheat, corn, soy, wine, cheese. Sorry, I know I'm devastating you guys, but it's the reality.
**Unknown:** So there are many, many ways we are all being exposed to mold. So this person was-- had the allergy to penicillin since he was five. Turned out tons of ear infections, sore throats, took tons of antibiotics. So that was the, the source that triggered the mold toxicity which then triggered the allergy to the penicillin, and then from there, uh, got into his, you know, elementary days, uh, eight, nine, ten years old, and just kept getting worse, his seasonal allergies.
**Unknown:** Started with sinus issues, then turned into the postnasal drip, then turned into the year-long Claritin and Flonase use. So overall, the biggest thing to understand is that the cross-reactivity of the different types of molds that are on trees, plants, bushes, the pollens, they're all extremely cross-reactive. So what I mean by that is if I take mold and put it under a microscope next to pollen, they look really, really similar. So the immune system can be triggered by the penicillin allergy and then start to react to different types of environmental pollens and danders.
**Unknown:** So this is definitely a huge, huge connection when it comes to seasonal allergies, um, especially if these allergies are going to-- are persisting. And go figure, a lot of times when people get seasonal allergies, then they'll get a reoccurring sinus infection, and then what happens? They go on antibiotics again, and it just perpetuates, and they never get out of the cycle. So it's just very important to understand that mold toxicity can play a very, very significant role in seasonal allergies.
**Unknown:** All right, it's time to bust the myths. So number one, food allergies are an epidemic globally. So many of my patients are like, "Oh my gosh, you know, I know that you found out that I really shouldn't eat gluten, but I'm going to Italy," and I'm like, "I really wanna eat the pasta." And I say, "Eat the pasta." And they look at me like, "What?" And like the-- It's different. It's completely different.
**Unknown:** So number one that you have to understand is that gluten, uh, and wheat in the US is hybridized, so they've actually taken various strains of wheat, and they have genetically hybridized them in order to grow the wheat faster and bigger. So that is definitely part of the issue as to why we react to wheat. In addition to that, there is also, uh, a process that we do called deamidation. So what they do-- So I'm sure that some of you guys like eat sushi, and you probably maybe at some point found out that there's wheat in, in soy sauce.
**Unknown:** And like I know the first time I heard that there was wheat in soy sauce, and I was like, "What the heck?" Like, "Why the-- why is there wheat in soy sauce?" So there's wheat and gluten in a lot of different things, and the reason being is it just acts as like a thickener and a stabilizer. But what happens is that in the US specifically, we take-- So gluten is usually only, um, water-soluble. So what we do-- I'm lying. It's alcohol-soluble.
**Unknown:** So it's alcohol-soluble. So what we do is we deamidate it, so we change the structure of it so that it can become water-soluble. So if it becomes water-soluble, we can mix it into a bunch of weird things that n-none of us are aware of. So we mix it into salad dressings, we mix it into soy sauce, we mix it into different types of thickening agents, we mix it into a variety of different things.
**Unknown:** So gluten is in a lot of things that you are eating, hence why you're like, "I don't understand what I ate tonight that made me bloated." Chances are it is gluten hidden in your sauces. So when we talk about what's happening in Europe is, number one, they're not deamidating the gluten, so th-they're not changing the structure, number one. Number two, they have-- they actually take really, really great precautions to make sure that the wheat is not necessarily being infected with fungus. So for those of you that have listened to my webinars in the past, I've told this story before.
**Unknown:** So when I was in France, um, I was actually watching France 24 News, and it was actually great 'cause they-- you actually learned things. But they were doing this segment on agritech. It was how technology was being used in agriculture. And what they actually showed you is that they took drones, literally artificial intelligence, that hovered over the vineyards, uh, and what they w-We're doing is they were hovering over the vineyards using a radar to look if there was fungal invasion, mold on the vines because the French are very, very serious about their wine.
**Unknown:** So if there was any traces of fungus or mold, they would go in and rip out that vine, so it didn't spread and infect the whole vineyard. So this is something that they don't just do with wine, but they also do with all of their crops in, in France and other European countries. So in addition to really not manipulating the type of gluten and genetically engineering it, they're also monitoring it so that it doesn't have high levels of mold. So this is something that is preventing the epidemic of the, the environmental allergies.
**Unknown:** The other big difference about the gluten here versus in Europe is the use of the chemical glyphosate. So glyphosate is one of the most readily used pesticides on most crops, let alone wheat, but they have actually now linked glyphosate toxicity to celiac disease. Like, again, guys, this is peer-reviewed research that you can find on NCBI, like, this is not my opinion. And I just did a previous webinar about this so that you can understand it a little bit more in-depth.
**Unknown:** But the glyphosate is definitely one of the primary reasons why we are dealing with so many more food allergies in the US in general. So a lot of us are reacting to the chemicals on the food and not necessarily reacting to the chemical or to the food. How-- I can't tell you how many of my patients say, "Oh, I can't eat the skins of apples. I can't eat the skins of whatever.
**Unknown:** Oh, I can only eat fruit that I take the skin off, like an orange, grapefruit." I'm like, "You're reacting to the chemicals, the pesticides. You're not reacting to the fruit." So it's just really, really fascinating. We have to understand that there's so much crap on and in our food, I can't even begin to tell you. And trust me, I went through my, like, days of raging about it, and now I just, like, navigate around it as much as I can.
**Unknown:** But you really have to be careful with what you're buying. If you're just trying to go cheap, you know, and get the, the cheap stuff in the, in, in the grocery store, you're not just getting exposed to glyphosate, you're literally being exposed to two hundred and sixty-two other pesticides, herbicides, acaricides and fungicides. Like, it's no joke. Like, this is a serious, serious issue and is one of the reasons why we are in an epidemic of food allergies and also why we are dealing with so much autoimmunity and so much gut distress.
**Unknown:** There are so many autoimmune gut conditions nowadays. It's just like, it's terrifying. So myth number two is going to be allergies, um, happened after the introduction of table food. So there are many things to consider that we've briefly talked about here is baby formula, breastfeeding.
**Unknown:** So number one, baby formula. I'm sorry, guys, I don't wanna say this to make like moms feel guilty because of like formula, but you don't know what you don't know. Like it's all that it comes down to. But if you have another baby in the future, oh my gosh, please read the label.
**Unknown:** And, and Goo-- and this is the one time I'm gonna advocate for Google. Literally Google the ingredients. You will be horrified. One of my best friends just had a baby, and we had to troubleshoot him literally vomiting and turning blue.
**Unknown:** And we troubleshooted it, and part of it was he was having an allergy to the condensed milk nutrition in the baby formula, but he was recommended a formula that the first ingredient was hydrolyzed maltodextrin, which is a known carcinogen. Literally a known carcinogen. Like, what is that doing to the gut? It is completely tearing down the immune system of the gut.
**Unknown:** It's causing inflammation. It is compromising one of the primary systems of the body. So we really need to understand that not all baby formula is created equal. If you have the opportunity to breastfeed, definitely do that.
**Unknown:** And if you are going to use formula because maybe you're on a medication or, or maybe there's other reasons, you really need to... You need to buy the expensive stuff. You need to source it from Europe. There's, um, the Goat Holle, it's H-O-L-L-E, which is a fantastic option.
**Unknown:** And even the Kabrita goat milk or goat formula is a good option as well. But we really need to understand that the baby formula can actually be a huge trigger for your, for your child developing allergies at such a young age. And I've mentioned this already, and vaccines, I am not pro or anti to any capacity, but I think one of the more fascinating things that I've found over time is how they're made. So when it comes to, again, like when it comes to the virus, they need to replicate the virus.
**Unknown:** So the way that they replicate the virus is on a ver- on a petri dish. They do it on a very specific substrate. So a lot of times they're using unfertilized chicken eggs or hen eggs, and they're injecting the virus into that unfertilized egg, and then that's how the virus is replicating, and then they're taking that, breaking it down, and putting it into the vaccine. And then as a preservative or an adjuvant, they're adding in other compounds like peanut oil.
**Unknown:** So because they find that peanut oil and aluminum work really well together. So a lot of times when I ask my young or ask the moms of my young children that I work with, and I say, "When did the food allergy start?" They say close to two years old, which is right when they get the MMR vaccine, which ha-- is cultivate or, uh, cultured on that egg substrate. And in addition, it is also contaminated with the peanut oil. So there is definitely some connections to that.
**Unknown:** Obviously, every kid is not having an issue. So if you're dealing with the kid who maybe was premature, then they were C-section, so they didn't get all that good bacteria in the birth canal. Then on top of that, they were-- they mom couldn't produce, so they were bottle-fed, and you didn't know any better, so they were bottle-fed with a bunch of things that had toxicity in it. And then from there, the, the vaccine became more of a problem because there are some kids that their immune system is strong, and there's no problem.
**Unknown:** But then there's other kids that maybe they had that timeline, and that timeline made their immune system more fragile, which caused more of a reaction. So again, it's not across the board, every kid is gonna be different. The other thing is testing is always accurate. So one of the most fascinating things that I've realized over time, this has been my personal experience, this has been my colleagues' experience, and this has been conversations that I have had with people that have worked in labs.
**Unknown:** So people that have worked in labs specifically have told me there is so much room for human errorSo if you're-- so if you go get your blood drawn, and then your blood has to be drawn in the right tube, it has to be spun the right way, and then it has to be either frozen or at a certain temperature, it has to be flash frozen, then it has to be transported in a certain way. And then once it reaches the lab, they have to add specific chemicals and solvents and reagents and all these things, and there's all these steps. So when humans are involved, chances are they can miss a step. They can forget a reagent.
**Unknown:** They could put the wrong reagent, wrong solvent. So then all of a sudden your test comes back, and it's like everything's all good in the hood, but it's not. And this applies for food allergies, but it applies to a lot of other things. So I have patients that want to fight me on blood work, or they want to say, "I don't understand how you think I have that." And I'm just like, "Listen, I use five different modalities of testing, and I piece it all together because I can't rely on blood work." Blood work is a snapshot in time, and I also now know how many limitations there are with humans being in-involved in the processing of it.
**Unknown:** So that's definitely one of the reasons when I do food allergy testing, I'm gonna use Vibrant America because when I use Vibrant America, they, they actually take-- they took humans out of it. Everything is automated through artificial intelligence, and they are also using microchip technology to go all the way down to the peptide level. So they're not trying to look at the protein, they're breaking that food down all the way down to the pieces, to the peptides. So it's very, very important to understand that not all testing is created equal.
**Unknown:** And if you're the person that like wants to eat gluten, you know it makes you feel like crap, and you did the test and it came up normal, so you're still eating the gluten, chances are you have a gluten issue, you just haven't had the right testing. But it's cool, you can live in ignorance until, until you want. I think everybody goes at their own pace. But again, it's just important to understand that there is a lot of room for error when it comes to your testing.
**Unknown:** And I know this is a completely like off-topic side note, but if you've been diagnosed with cancer, get a second opinion, get a third opinion, get a million opinions because, again, your testing is also being handled by humans, and there is a lot of room for error. There are amazing labs in Greece that you can outsource, and these are some of the top in the world that are doing cancer testing. And even if you're just-- if you do wanna go the route of chemotherapy and all that, they actually take your results and test it against which types of chemotherapies work. So side tangent, but again, it's just kind of reiterating that you have to always look at a variety of different tests to bring the information together.
**Unknown:** So again, I said this earlier, your testing is black and white. It is not black and white. Like it i- there is so much gray, and part of it is the limitations with the testing. But when it comes to the breakdown, you may have had allergy testing done, you're like, "I don't even know what this means.
**Unknown:** Like what is IgA? What is IgG? What is IgE?" IgE, a lot of times you guys are going or you're bringing your kids, and they're getting tested for IgE, and that is the immediate onset. So that's like your kid ate the peanut, and their throat is closing.
**Unknown:** A lot of your kids don't have that. A lot of your kids have the IgG. IgG is a delayed onset. A lot of you as adults have delayed onset.
**Unknown:** What that means is that if it's a delayed onset that you are having issues a day, even three days after you ate the food, and this can look like fatigue, it could look like a migraine, it could look like a skin breakout, it could look like brain fog. This is not always a stomach ache. And I think that you guys need to really understand that because I know that I fought it tooth and nail. I was like, "I'm fine with gluten.
**Unknown:** I'm fine with gluten." And when I was really honest with myself, I was foggy for two days after eating gluten. It wasn't a stomach ache. My stomach was never bothered by it, but it was a neurological response. So again, when it comes to the IgG is don't make the mistake of going to your primary care and asking them to run a bunch of IgG markers through LabCorp or Quest.
**Unknown:** Learn from my mistake because I did this to a poor patient when I didn't know better, and they were charged out of pocket, and I think it was like ninety dollars per test. So don't do that. Vibrant wellness will actually test this. I think depending on what you need ran, it can be anywhere between a hundred to three hundred dollars to literally test hundreds of foods.
**Unknown:** So, um, so definitely try to know that because it's all, it's all different. So IgA, in addition to that, when it comes to IgA, this is a really great marker because you can run IgA for food allergies. You can also run IgA for like viruses and things like that. So IgA, when it comes up elevated, that actually is an indicator that there is issues happening in, uh, like mucus membranes.
**Unknown:** So that could be in your sinuses, it could be in the lining of your gut, it could be in your mouth. It's really where there is like mucosal lining. So when it comes to the IgA antibodies, that's definitely going to be a sign that there potentially is issues happening in like the lungs and the intestines, even in like the eye ducts. So overall, depending on what is out of range, it gives you insight.
**Unknown:** Are you having a delayed onset reaction? Are you having an immediate onset reaction? And are you also having reactions in your mucus membranes that are causing you to have itchy eyes? Is it causing you to have respiratory issues?
**Unknown:** Is it causing you to have sinus issues? Is it causing you to have an upset stomach or loose bowel movements? These are all really, really important. So myth number four is you are allergic to everything.
**Unknown:** So if you haven't taken this away yet is I know. I-- trust me, I get it. I have so many patients that are like, "Oh my gosh, I can't eat anything. Water is even giving me a reaction." So you have to consider, is there cross-reactivity?
**Unknown:** Like, are you dealing with the mold toxicity that's making you reactive to the pollens and the danders? Are you having a peptide issue? Again, the smaller parts of what makes up your food. Are you having a peptide issue that is causing you to react to corn, wheat, grains, oats, et cetera?
**Unknown:** In, uh, another component to this is most of you have probably seen that there's gluten-free oats. And I remember back in the day thinking, "Oats are gluten-free. Like, why are they advertising it as, as gluten-free oats?" And I thought maybe it was just like a marketing thing too because so many people were moving towards gluten-free. But really what it is is that when they are farming and they are growing oats, they actually will rotate crops, and very often where they grow wheat is where they then harvest it and then grow oats.
**Unknown:** So that's one of the main reasons why you see things advertised as gluten-free oats, and it's not because oats normally, umHave gluten. And it's not that they're contaminated in the lab or the manufacturing facility, it actually has to do with the farming process. So there's a lot of very interesting things when it comes to, to farming and how they rotate crops and, um, and how they care for the soil, which creates some of these cross-reactivities as well. So I wanted to put this in here because I think that food allergies can look different across the board, and I think everybody assumes that it's always gonna be a stomach ache, but it really can look so different.
**Unknown:** But one of the things a lot of people see in their blood work that they don't always necessarily know what it means is elevated eosinophils. Eosinophils are usually ran on your basic blood work, but eosinophils are something that indicate that you are having some type of, uh, allergic reaction, and a lot of times it's connected back to food. But overall, like one of the patients that I worked with specifically was having a lot of issues with irritable bowel. Um, they tested for celiac.
**Unknown:** They said, "No, you don't have celiac, so it must just be irritable bowel." And then this person was also having a lot of bloating with carbohydrates and having a lot of issues with blood sugar. Blood sugar would crash a lot. They would get hangry, sometimes even get a little light-headed and dizzy. And then it got to the point that this person was literally getting bloated with water.
**Unknown:** So the thing that you have to understand is that this was not just, "Oh, this person has food allergies," and that's the end of the story. The allergies were being caused by an overabundance of bacteria, fungus, and parasites in the gut. Some of you might be like, "What the heck are parasites?" Yes, parasites are worms. Yes, you can get them very easily from eating fish, sushi, meat, going to fast food, swimming in lakes, walking in lakes, having pets in your house.
**Unknown:** The list goes on. So trust me, it's not hard to get parasites. So one of the other signs of having parasites is elevated eosinophils in your blood. So the eosinophils, uh, I remember being in school and they teach you that elevated eosinophils can-- is associated with food allergies and sometimes can be associated with parasites.
**Unknown:** Really at the end of the day, what it is, is that if you have parasite infections, it elevates your eosinophils which induces your food allergies. So I just want you to understand that if you are the person that is struggling with food allergies or sensitivities, and it's getting to the point that you are reacting even to drinking water, chances are you have things in your gut that should not be there, and that can definitely be bacteria. The most common sign that you have bacteria is that if you eat beans, they make you gassy. Yes, that is not a natural thing that happens with beans.
**Unknown:** It means the beans are feeding the bad bacteria. 'Cause beans are supposed to feed good bacteria, but they are not biased. They will feed bad bacteria as well. So if they're feeding bad bacteria, then, uh, that is a sign.
**Unknown:** You will get gassy with beans. If you are getting bloated with carbs, chances are you have some type of yeast or fungus. This could be from mold, molds that are coming in through your food. It could also be from living in a water-damaged environment.
**Unknown:** And then in addition to that, parasites are very, very hard to find. They are very hard to detect even through stool sample. We use some very specialized approaches in our office to figure out if parasites are part of the puzzle. But definitely eosinophils being elevated in the blood is one sign that parasites are in the picture.
**Unknown:** So you don't have to have celiac to have a gluten issue. You don't have to have celiac to have food allergies in general. You can easily have things in your gut that shouldn't be there, that are triggering these different types of food sensitivities that are then causing discomfort even with drinking water. So I think a lot of people don't realize that allergies, you know, are just...
**Unknown:** They think they're just kind of independent and, "Oh, I just have allergies and I just have to work around them." But allergies do really give you an overall reflection of your health. And, you know, if your, if your child or yourself are dealing with allergies, you are in an inflammatory state. I don-- And I'm not saying you're in an inflammatory state when your throat closes. Obviously, that's an extreme.
**Unknown:** But if you are eating things or living in things or, or working in environments that are consistently activating those allergic responses, then you are in a chronic inflammatory state. If you're in a chronic inflammatory state, your immune system is gonna burn out, you're going to start to have neurological issues, and then you're gonna even be more susceptible to more significant neurological issues down the line, like PANDAS, multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease, and, and the list goes on. So we need to understand that a, a lifetime of allergies and a lifetime of inflammation is a lifetime of brain degeneration. And we need to know that we need to preserve our neurological systems because what did we say earlier?
**Unknown:** There is a fifty percent increase in allergies. What is also increasing? Alzheimer's, dementia, neurological issues in our kids, autism, Asperger's. Like every single one of these conditions are on the rise.
**Unknown:** And listen, I'm not gonna sit here and say that allergies are the cause or the only correlation. There are many layers to the, to the pie, but we have to consider why are we all so immune driven? Why are our immune systems so overloaded, so overwhelmed? And this has a lot to do with infections.
**Unknown:** It has a lot to do with toxicity. It has a lot to do with everything down to the pregnancy, to the birth, to the formula, to the C-section, et cetera. So, and the chemicals in our food. There are a lot of things that are contributing to this, but these are things that once you have the clarity, you can fix them.
**Unknown:** So that really brings me to most people think that they can't get rid of their allergies, that they're doomed, their kids are doomed, et cetera. But when it comes to allergies, once you know the root cause, you do have the ability to work with them. And when it comes to the-- some of the different approaches that we use is definitely first and foremost, we need to figure out-Do you have things in your gut that shouldn't be there? Do you have toxins in your system?
**Unknown:** Are you eating things that are chock-full of chemicals? And also at this point, do we also need to calm down your immune system? And one of the technologies that we use for that is called the BioScan SRT. So the BioScan SRT has very specific protocols that help to neutralize different, uh, food allergies.
**Unknown:** So it allows us to really work on some of the specific allergies that someone is dealing with utilizing that technology. But don't get me wrong, it's not that we just use that technology on its own, because if you have toxicity in your gut or if you have infections in your gut, and we're trying to use the BioScan to neutralize, neutralize, neutralize, but we're not actually getting rid of the bad stuff, we're not gonna get very far. So we have to always make sure that we're hitting it from a few different angles so that we're truly fixing the foundation to get the body to a place that it can recover, but it can also sustain the recovery. So if you haven't figured it out yet, you don't know what you don't know.
**Unknown:** Uh, it's really, you know, I, I think that just based off of some of the comments that I'm seeing, it's just, you know, it's impossible to understand how to piece all this together. It's taken me ten years to piece it together. So I, I hope the information is something that you feel empowered by and not overwhelmed, even though it is unfortunate that our world is so toxic. But, you know, I think it's just important for us to know that this is not just about bad luck and bad genes.
**Unknown:** You know, I can't tell you how many people are just like, "Oh, well, I'm getting old. Oh, well, it runs in my family. Oh, well, you know, I guess it's just, you know, I'm unlucky." And really, at the end of the day, there's always going to be a reason for why you feel the way you do. Um, also in addition to that, very rarely do things look like the textbook.
**Unknown:** It's really, really important to understand that is it's not always super black and white. There's a lot of gray, like I said it earlier. So when it comes to working on allergies, yes, you can obviously do the allergy shots, and, and you could do them for three, four, five years. That's like the average going rate now.
**Unknown:** And I really hope with that level of a time commitment that you come out allergy free. But unfortunately, there are some people that are, that aren't. Um, and it's really important to know that there are other things out there that can really fix the root cause. The other thing too is, like, when it comes to this process of getting better, I think a lot of patients have this misconception that you're gonna go from, like, level...
**Unknown:** You're gonna go from, like, chronically ill to cured. I make this disclaimer because I really think it's important for you to understand that, like, in a video game, you're literally not going from level one, and then you're like, "You know what? I'm bored. I'm just gonna go to level twenty-seven." They make you literally do every level and master it.
**Unknown:** So it's so important to understand that you don't just go from chronically ill to radically cured. It takes time. You know, most of our plans are laid out over three months, and we do see amazing results, but sometimes it takes longer. And I think that that's just a good disclaimer to understand so that, you know, we don't have a magic wand.
**Unknown:** One day maybe I will. I, I will work hard to get you one, but at this time, we're really good at what we do, but no magic wand. So w- if you're the person that's getting bloated literally from drinking water, I think that if you're able to figure out, first of all, what you can and cannot eat, and then figure out what the root cause of it is, and be able to customize your diet until we fix the root cause, like, I really think that that is just invaluable because there are so many people that are suffering, and there are so many people that have been a million places and have tried a million things, and they still don't know what to do. And, you know, we really want to save people from getting to that point, getting to the point that they've spent time and money, and they don't...
**Unknown:** they're still not better. So another thing too is when people embark on this world, everything's different. You know, there's a lot of different approaches, a lot of things that are new, very exciting, but new. And I think that it's an important thing to know is just because it's the way it's always been done doesn't mean it's right.
**Unknown:** Just because allergy shots are the primary modality that everybody, you know, understands and accepts as being the treatment for allergies, that's not necessarily the only thing that can be done, and it's not necessarily the most effective thing that can be done. So it's really starting to dabble outside of that so that you can achieve what you're really trying to achieve, which is to just, like, feel good and move on with your life. But I really appreciate you guys being here with me. I hope this was super, super informative, and I really hope that you share this with other people because literally there is a massive portion of our population suffering with allergies, and they need to know what their options are because unfortunately, it doesn't get better.
**Unknown:** It gets worse. So this is all about education. My other passion is watching my patients go through their breakthrough and radically changing their lives and really being able to just be the best version of themselves. And that's really why I do this.
**Unknown:** So I really hope that you can share this with others, and I really hope that you can check out our website and learn a little bit more about what we do and potentially hop on a strategy call with our team. All right, guys, I thank you for being here, and I will see you next week. We thank you for being a listener and subscriber to Integrative Wellness Radio. If you're looking to learn more about Integrative Wellness Group as well as Dr.
**Unknown:** Nick or Dr. Nicole, you can check out integrativewellnessgroup.com. All night, no sleep. 'Cause I feel like I'm always dreaming.
**Unknown:** Wide awake, that's okay.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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