Does what you eat affect your symptoms?

Barely a day goes by where I don’t hear that someone has been told by their doctor that diet plays no part in their symptoms.

Even when our clients show them the transformation in their health they still pass it off as they “got lucky”.

This sort of narrow mindedness I must admit I do find frustrating, but hopefully, as they continue to see impressive results from people who didn’t believe such gobbledegoop, the minds of some doctors can be changed.

Fortunately, not all doctors have this same mentality anymore but unfortunately, even when they do appreciate the importance of food, most are horrendously unqualified to be able to provide much decent diet advice.

In fact, I’ve been told that in all the many, many years that a doctor trains for, there is less than 2 days focused on nutrition.  

Here’s what we KNOW these days about chronic health problems…

It is not down to just genetics.

If it was why are chronic health problems such as IBD increasing at such crazy rates?! (a 25% increase in Crohn’s / Colitis in 5 years!)

Therefore, to turn things around we need to take an approach that aims to get to the underlying causes of a person’s problems while working to build their health in every way possible.

It’s now accepted, that in general the 3 preconditions for an autoimmune condition (like Crohn’s / Colitis) are: 

1) genetic predisposition 

2) a trigger, and 

3) intestinal permeability / “leaky gut”. 

Diet and supplements can and does have a HUGE impact on those last 2 in particular. 

If you eat foods that you are sensitive or intolerant to then that can be a 'trigger' for you.

Certain foods are also shown to be a contributor towards Leaky Gut (number 3 on the list of preconditions). 

Many of the chemicals and additives in processed foods are also a BIG problem that will add to inflammation in the body.

Finally, the one major complaint of many people with chronic health issues is constant fatigue. 

Therefore, ensuring an anti-inflammatory, nutrient dense diet can have amazing benefits, as one major cause of fatigue is nutrient deficiencies caused by inflammation.   

I don’t think even the most close-minded person would claim that diet can’t have an effect on your fatigue when it is basically the primary source of our energy (food = calories = energy)!

You might be thinking this all makes sense but you have never noticed that foods you eat change your symptoms all that much (and certainly not consistently).

In fact, I was giving a consultation to a lovely lady a while ago who said exactly this.

However, she was EXTREMELY fatigued, suffered with joint pain and depression, and was reliant on very strong medication to keep her bowel movements under control.

But because she’d never noticed that eating a certain food made her symptoms any worse, despite keeping a food diary for a while, she quite understandably didn’t appreciate that food could still be a major cause of her troubles.

However, working out food sensitivities alone is very difficult as foods can cause a reaction often up to 3 days AFTER you have eaten it (its rarely immediate).

So while diet is FAR from being the only thing that needs to be considered when trying to build your health, it is certainly critical, and ignoring that can mean never feeling as good as you possible could.

For more help on the diet side, and more, then visit www.IamGregWilliams.com/programmes and for our range of high quality, effective supplements then visit www.AutoimmuneInstitute.com