Loretta wrote:

> I've been told by allergists that I should NEVER have another bite
> of dairy foods. And by another one, that if it didnt' bother me much,
> it really wouldn't hurt! (bad advice) I was also told that if I didn't have
> anaphylaxis reaction, it wasn't a TRUE ALLERGY.
>
Loretta - I also had to learn the distinction between allergy and
intolerance the hard way. I told my sister who is a trained nurse
that I was allergic to milk, wheat and a bunch of other things. The
consequence was that she didn't take anything I said about my
diet seriously from then on!
   A "true" allergy is an IgE response to a substance that happens
immediately it comes into contact with our immune system - in other
words, our immune system starts a reaction immediately we eat
or inhale it. Food intolerance is less well defined, so it's
difficult to get clear advice about it. An IgG or IgA test may pick
out some intolerances, but they are not usually very conclusive.
  It may be true that a little will "not really hurt". What hurts is
when we eat something every day that the body can't properly deal
with. For instance, many, many people are lactose intolerant. That
means that their digestive system doesn't produce enough lactase
which is the enzyme in the gut wall that breaks down lactose.
Consuming lactose then produces acute symptoms - usually
diarhhoea, a bloated gut, vomitting etc. But if we have consumed milk
all our lives, and then become lactose intolerant later, which is a
very common development (adults aren't meant to consume milk, so the
lactase production is programmed to decrease as we get older), we
develop chronic symptoms which don't appear on the surface to be
related to milk consumption. Typically these might be: alternating
constipation and diarrhoea, fatigue and mental confusion, multiple
allergy syndromes, disturbed eating patterns, disturbed sleep. Some
of the symptoms may be related to malabsorption - the gut doesn't
take up enough nutrients out of the food we are eating - or they
may be caused by the undigested milk bi-products such as
casomorphines circulating through the body. If we eat primarily for
gratification, then there is a big chance that we have become
addicted to the many psychoactive chemicals that are the by-product
of badly digested comfort foods like chocalate, sugar, milk and
bakery goodies.

  I'd better add that I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV.
I've just listened to many stories from people who were sick for a
long time, who seem to be getting well now by changing their diets.
What I've learnt is, that for people with food intolerances it is
often not enough to simply take out one food and think that that will
solve the problem. You may have to look at your whole eating pattern
and see what needs to be changed. If you are a compulsive eater, (and
many of us have been there, I'm sure) that may be a sign that you
need to look at your whole diet and think about how you are feeding
your body.

Max