Do you ever have food cravings...urges for a particular food that makes you feel better even when you are full?  Have you experienced eating a favorite food only to end up hungrier than before you ate it?  Do you have any foods that you really can't imagine going days or weeks without?

     If you answer yes to any of these questions, you have food allergies that are affecting your brain and controlling your choices.  "So what?" you say.  The allergy makes you crave foods that make you feel good - so what is so bad about that?  Yes it makes you eat more than you need, so you gain weight, but that is not such a bad price to pay to feel good.  You might know that these allergies cause inflammation just like a skin rash only in your brain that kills your brain cells. But how do you know?  You know that health wise these foods could lead to heart disease or diabetes, but that possibility is so far down the road it is hard to care about.  Besides, these foods make you feel happy.  What is the point of being alive if you don't feel happy?

     If you can relate to any of these thoughts it is for good reason.  Most food allergies or sensitivities are also addiction reactions.  These thoughts are not really your true thoughts, but the simply the control of an addiction talking.  The pathways involved are the same pathways the heroin addict, crack addict, alcoholic, and nicotine addict have running their lives.  Your free will has been replaced but the needs of the addiction.  Your body's innate wisdom to seek health through balance is replaced by the overwhelming drive to feel better.  Normally balance makes us feel better, but the addiction creates an imbalance that can only be satisfied by more of the addictive substance... a drive so strong that it is willing to sacrifice the health and natural happiness a balanced life would bring you.  You have no idea that that your daily food cravings or eating habits are based on a physiological need to stop withdrawal symptoms caused by food allergy addiction. 

      Simultaneous allergy and addiction to both foods and chemicals is now well accepted by doctors specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of allergies. These specialists, known as clinical ecologists, believe that many chronic health problems, such as migraine, fatigue, depression, and arthritis are caused by allergies to foods and chemicals and affect approximately one-third of the population living in industrialized countries.

     The same food will cause different reactions in different people.  Each person's genes will cause the allergies to target different body tissues.  Any area of the body can be a target.  Cerebral allergies include hyperactivity, depression, irritability, headaches and some forms of schizophrenia. Hypoglycemia can be a manifestation of pancreatic malfunction, frequently caused by allergy; while in other cases, the blood vessels may be the target organ with the resulting signs of vasculitis and edema.  Flare-ups causing joint swelling, colitis, heart palpitations, even muscle spasm can all be due to a food sensitivity.
 
     Water retention, or edema, is particularly common among allergic individuals and is an important contributing factor to obesity. The removal of an offending food will often result in a rapid water loss of five to ten pounds within a week's time, all without the use of a diuretic.

     One of the most compelling reasons to deal now with food allergies is that they can make you stupid ... seriously.  A former patient of mine, Dr. Joan Smith - an expert on learning disorders, once told me that the number one reason for dyslexic reading disorders she found in children was milk sensitivity.  She would test the actual brain processing speed in children while they read and found the allergy to milk slowed the brain down so much that it caused learning disabilities in sensitive kids.  (Check out her book here.)

     Food allergies and sensitivities are a chief cause of brain inflammation.  Unlike inflammation in the rest of the body, when the brain gets inflamed it causes permanent brain damage and nerve death.  Fortunately we have a lot of brain cells so it takes many years to really see the effects in most of us, but they are building up every day.  Brain inflammation not only decreases mental capacity, but it also decreases your capacity to feel joy, happiness, or even simple pleasure.  It decreases your ability to taste and smell.  Eventually it starts affecting your balance and muscle function.  Some of those back pains you come in to see me for may be caused by brain inflammation from food allergies.

     Everything you value in your life depends upon you having a well functioning brain.  You can lose you legs, your eyes, even your ability to speak, and you can still participate with life in a meaningful and fulfilling way.  But lose your brain function and you are gone...no one home...no reason to be here any more.  So protecting your brain from inflammation has to be a number one priority.  You lose an average of 10,000 brain cells every day even when you are healthy.  With brain allergies you can lose 10 times that many.

     So think twice before you grab that comfort food that makes you feel so good.  That feeling is no different than the high the heroin addict gets, with the same quality of life destroying consequences...it just takes a few years longer...but not that many more years.  Make different choices.  Find comfort in other ways.  Food poisons are just not worth the price you have to pay.  Find a healthier replacement food or even better find an activity that makes you feel more connected and alive.

 

Take care,

 

David     
   

 

 

     Balance    

     The third component to movement for our health challenge series is balance.  We have already discussed aerobic conditioning with interval training and we have discussed strength training through slow maximum exertion to fatigue in just a few reps. The third leg of the muscle health triad is balance and coordination.  Having strength and endurance is not much help if you fall flat on your face whenever you try to do anything.  Falls are one of the primary causes of death in the elderly population because of the complications that arise from being bed-ridden after a fall.
     Even if you are not elderly, poor muscle coordination is one of the most common causes for most of the back injuries I see in my practice.  Any joint that does not move in a well-coordinated fashion develops inflammation and degenerative changes.  So, balance in your muscles is essential for a healthy body.  
     The problem is that the nerves that control coordination are constantly being broken down and lost.  We have to continually build new ones, and that only happens in response to need.  Just 2 weeks of immobility of a joint can cause the loss of so many of these nerves that the joint will freeze up and not function.  Joint mobility and coordination requires regular daily use of the joints in a manner that requires balance.  Anything we do to avoid having to balance (such as using a cane or walker) will make us dependent upon these aids in very little time.
     We need to do things that require balance every day to be able to keep in shape so we will be able to move throughout our life.  Yoga, Tai Chi, balance boards and balance balls, bicycling, skating, sports of all sorts, all these force us to balance.  Incorporate a variety of these activities into your daily life.  Make it fun and enjoy it!      

Good Journey,

Dr. Dave

 

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Mammograms -

The Real Story

     There has been a lot of hubbub over the last couple weeks about the recent change suggested to the mammography guidelines - that women wait until age 50 for mammograms instead of starting at age 40.  As I have written in previous articles, the choice to get any mammograms must be weighed very carefully.  Mammograms expose delicate breast tissue to large amounts of radiation, and radiation is a proven cause of cancers.  But the current debate is not about the harm from mammograms, but whether or not they do any good.  

     While there are women that have had their cancer discovered by mammogram and were subsequently treated successfully, that is not the issue.  The question is what are the chances that it would do you any good to have a mammogram?  Answer: if you are under 55 - none.  There are many reasons why this is true, many of which are covered in this article in the Atlantic.  Mammograms are a multi-billion dollar a year industry as is the spin off benefits to doctors in the form of extra office visits, special follow-up tests, and so on.  So you won't hear the medical establishment jumping up to support these proposed changes.  Read this article to understand what was actually been found by the researchers over 6 years ago that started up this whole excitement.

 

Mammograms

 

 As I have written about before there is a better alternative - Thermography.  It is able to detect changes in the breast tissue up to a year earlier than mammograms.  Any breast tumor has to grow to over a million cells before a mammogram will detect it.  Even then, a mammogram is not a diagnostic test fro cancer, just an indicator of something unusual.  Only a biopsy of the tissue is diagnostic.  Other tests even better than mammograms are MRI's or Ultrasound studies as they do not use massive x-ray doses...but nothing beats the Thermogram for early detection, especially if you have a baseline test done for future comparisons.   ________________________________________________    

~ Albert Gray

 

"Of course we all have our limits, but how can you possibly find your boundaries unless you explore as far and as wide as you possibly can? I would rather fail in an attempt at something new and uncharted than safely succeed in a repeat of something I have done."

~ A.E. Hotchner _________________________________________________    

"Success is not forever and failure isn't fatal."

~ Don Shula
 

About Dr. DeLapp

Dr. DeLapp has been a philosopher, non-force Chiropractor, medical intuitive, and health innovator for over 30 years.  He began experimenting with  medical intuition in 1972 while studying physics at UC Davis.  In addition to physics he designed and completed an individual major in the philosophy and psychology of education.  Shortly after he choose to pursue a career in the only truly health oriented profession available at that time, Chiropractic.  He graduated with honors in 1981 with his doctorate and opened a private practice. 
Since that time he has continued his research into the effects of consciousness and learning on health. 
He developed the Biomagnetic Retraining system for correcting movement abnormalities. 
Since 1991 he has focused on developing a powerful system for uncovering and assisting the mind-body connection in health and personal growth.  The in-depth coaching, guided by the subconscious direction from the body, is called Heartflow and the simpler mind-body retraining for health and unfoldment he has named Gracework.  Both are available at Fair Oaks Health.

 


 


Vita-Mix
    If you are interested in making an excellent investment in your health I would recommend the purchase of a Vita-Mix juicer/blender.  I have been using mine for 25 years now.  It is positively the best way to retain the full nutritional value of the food you prepare and make it available for your system to actually absorb...plus it makes great ice cream!  I contacted the company last week and arranged for free shipping for my patients (a $25 savings)  If you are interested then
 
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