On 27 May 2004 17:26:52 GMT, (Lacustral)
snickered:

Has anybody been able to make their inhalant allergies better by changing
their diet?

I don't mean, finding hidden food allergies and intolerances. And, I don't
mean by being on a weight-loss diet. Fasting makes allergies less severe,
so being on a weight-loss diet might also, somewhat.

But rather, and anti-inflammatory diet. Like the diet that helps people
with rheumatoid arthritis, which inflames joints - low in arachidonic acid,
low fat, with fish oil supplements. I'm not sure why low-fat would be
anti-inflammatory, but 2 possible reasons: long term, a low fat diet
decreases insulin levels (see
http://www.lightlink.com/lark/comparison.html ),
and lower insulin would mean that arachidonic acid
is less converted into inflammatory compounds. Also, a low fat diet makes
the blood less "sticky" so there is better circulation in small tiny blood
vessels, so inflammatory compounds are cleared away from the area better.

Arachidonic acid is found only in non-plant foods, so a strict vegetarian
diet has none of it. Or, one can limit arachidonic acid by keeping track of
the animals foods one eats. So, has anybody found that going vegan helped
their allergies?

I don't have typical allergy symptoms - no runny nose or sneezing - i get
sinus congestion, inflammation which doesn't involve infection so far as I
know.

http://www.lightlink.com/lark/nutr.html

Wanted to post the importance of what you eat. There are many foods to
treat parsons condition and help with the symptoms.
OMEGA-Everymedicine is usually just something they foud in the wild
and packaged and produced for $. Here something from the mirkin vaults
that you might find interesting.

WEEDS FOR FUTURE MEDICINES

Gabe Mirkin, M.D.

A study from the University of Geogia and the University of Michigan
showed that most of the medications that you will take in the future
are highly likely to come from weeds, because weeds have such weak
structures that they need chemicals that kill viruses, bacteria,
fungi, animals and even man to protect them. These chemicals protect
you when they get into your cells after you eat them.

Drs. John Stepp of the University of Georgia and Daniel Moerman of the
University of Michigan report that, in the future, most new drugs will
come from weeds that overgrow in your vacant lot or along the highway.
Digitalis, used for almost 350 years to treat heart failure comes from
the foxglove plant. Many modern medications are laboratory copies of
chemicals made by plants.

Drs. Stepp and Moerman went to Chiapas , Mexico, where 80 percent of
the people speak only the Mayan language, showing that they are in a
culture that is isolated from the modern world and holds on to old
traditions and customs for hundreds of years. So they are treating
diseases in the same way that they have been doing for more than a
thousand years. The villagers gave them 105 different plants that they
used to treat diseases. The doctors report that 35 of the 105 plants
were weeds, fast growing plants that have a difficult time competing
with other plants, so they don't have their own place to grow and can
grow only in places where man or nature has cleared the land or built
trails, knocking off slower growing and more hardy plants that would
normally live there. For weeds to comprise 35 perent of the plants
used for medicinal purposes is amazing, because weeds normally occupy
only a small part of the landscape.

Drs. Stepp and Moerman feel that weeds offer the greatest chance to
discover new drugs from plants. The more hardy plants grow slowly and
have thick bark, woody stems and thick leaves that offer a barrier
protection against insects, molds, bacteria, viruses, animals and man.
Since weeds have to grow very fast to just stay alive, they have thin
structures, no bark, fragile stems and droopy leaves. Therefore they
do not have natural protective covers like more slowly growing plants
and have to produce lots of antioxidants to help them heal when they
are broken, lots of insecticides, fungicides, bactericides, virucides
and even poisons to protect them from the many other beings on earth
that want to replace them. In the future, chances are that most of
your medicines will be extracted from weeds.

All of the vegetables, grains and beans, and some of the fruits we eat
today are just weeds that our ancestors found to be edible and tasty.
When humans began to farm and settle, they gradually improved their
weeds to make them larger, easier to grow, harvest and store. But
everything in your produce department has weed relatives, and the
phytochemicals in plants are often found in other members of the same
plant family.

You can gather dandelion greens and many other weeds as your ancestors
did, but if wild foraging doesn't appeal to you, you can get the
beneficial phytochemicals in weeds right in your produce department.

Common weeds / Related foods:
Thistles / Artichokes
Dandelions, ragweed, chicory / Lettuce
Kudzu, crown vetch / Beans, peas
Jimsonweed, Nightshade/ Tomatoes, eggplant, peppers
Crabgrass/ Wheat, barley, rye
Knotweed / Buckwheat
BitterCress, Wild mustard / Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower
Brambles / Raspberries
Pigweed / Amaranth
Poison hemlock, Queen Anne's lace / Carrots

Growing, gathering and learning about herbs and edible wild plants can
be fascinating, but but study carefully and don't eat anything unless
you are sure of it's identity and use.




"If you are going through hell, keep going."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)