Introduction to the Book of Allergy and Immunology

Alpha Health Education Series

The Book of Allergy and Immunology provides an overview of immune-mediated disease. The subject allergy is obscured by the politics of medicine and a remarkable explosion of crazy ideas and phony tests and treatments for "food sensitivity" in the community. The Book of allergy steers an intelligent course through basic immunology to practical solutions for common food-related health problems.

For example: "The first distinction that recurs in the allergy literature is between immediate and delayed patterns of allergic reactivity that loosely correspond to IgE-mediated allergy and non-IgE mediated responses. Many authors refer to the original four categories of immune-mediated injury defined by Gell and Coombs. The concept of four mechanisms is just a starting point for understanding immune-mediated disease. These very complicated defense-injury sequences cause a variety of disease states."

Table of Contents

Printed Text is $26.95 plus shipping; 158 pages.
Rev 2004

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Author S. J.Gislason MD

Books by S. Gislason MD

For further references and abstracts from the medical literature, see Food Allergy Abstracts.

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Nutrition Notes

Food Choices

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Here is the introduction:

Immunity involves a distributed networks of cells and their molecular products. The goal of immune networks is defense against infection, and invasion of the body space by foreign substances of all kinds. Immune defenses protect all body surfaces, exposed to the environment; skin, respiratory tract, gastrointestinal tract, and genitourinary tract. Immune cells are found circulating in the blood stream or patrolling in the intercellular spaces of all body tissues. Immune cells are also distributed in discrete organs of the lymphatic system which includes lymph nodes, tonsils, liver and spleen. The bone marrow is the major manufacturing area for immune cells. The thymus is the organ which originates one of two populations of immune cells, T-lymphocytes, at least in early life. Some immune cells produce antibodies which identify specific foreign molecules or cell-surface markers. Other immune cells directly attack foreign cells or materials, removing them from the body space.

Allergy and autoimmune disease are the negative results of immune defense. Immune networks can be activated inappropriately and excessively activity causes disease. Common allergy, such as hay fever, is inconvenient, but not life threatening. Asthma and a host of other immune-mediated disease can cause disability and can be life-threatening.

General Theory of Hypersensitivity Disease

Many of the major unsolved disease of our civilization are either degenerative and/or inflammatory and many are recognized to be immune-mediated or hypersensitivity diseases. The stakes are high both for individual patients and for the society as a whole. None of the hypersensitivity diseases have been solved, and most appear to rage on, afflicting increasing numbers of patients with chronic and disabling diseases.

Asthma, allergy, rheumatic diseases, autoimmune diseases, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, thyroiditis and psoriasis are examples of hypersensitivity diseases that involve humoral and cell-mediated immunity. The common specific problems that are obviously related to food allergy include asthma, rhinitis, otitis media, eczema (atopic dermatitis), hives (urticaria), anaphylaxis, angioedema, celiac disease, dermatitis herpetiformis, allergic gastroenteropathy, and allergic arthritis.

Many of the illnesses considered in this book are expressions of hypersensitivity disease in a continuum over time. Many patients will express a number of different hypersensitivity phenomena over a lifetime and demonstrate an underlying tendency to be hypersensitive. An important concern is the possibility that the chemical soup created by our civilization drives increasing numbers of individuals into hypersensitivity illness. The theory is that substances in the air, water and food supply can drive immune networks into hypersensitive states and produce a variety of diseases.

A number of airborne chemicals, native food chemicals, food additives and contaminants are suspects in the generation of common and often non-specific forms of hypersensitivity. A group of patients present with shrinking tolerance to their environment and food supply. They report symptomatic responses to airborne chemicals and to foods and many have limited their intake to a few foods, often with malnutrition as a consequence. The typical symptom complex involves gastrointestinal responses to foods associated with systemic responses such as fatigue, myalgias, arthralgias, and cognitive dysfunction. Slow careful food re-introduction over several months may be tolerated and nutritional support is often required with nutrient supplements and an elemental nutrient formula. These common but ill-defined patterns of illness do not fit into the standard definition of allergy and most of these patients report disappointing encounters with allergists who just do skin tests and then dismiss them when the tests are negative.

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