Tag: MRT food sensitivity testing

The Value of Food Sensitivity Testing

February 4, 2013

When I came across your website I was so relieved to find that there may be hope for me, but then saw what you charge and I realised that you are just out to make a huge profit off of others pain and illness. Who do you think can actually afford almost $1000 for a blood test?
~ Kate, New York

Hi Kate,

I’m glad to hear you are looking for non-medicinal ways to help alleviate your chronic physical distress. I’m happy that you found me and I hear your concerns about fees and why they might seem high. Let me assure you that even though it might seem like a lot of money up front, you get a lot for your money, including about four months of follow-up visits and an education in food sensitivities and your body.

Here are why it costs a little bit of money to get this kind of health care and support:

1. The Mediator Release Test. The MRT is cutting-edge science that uses state-of-the-art machinery to perform exact calibrations and procedures. Developed by Oxford Biomedical Labs (formerly Signet Diagnostic), the MRT is at the forefront of the food sensitivities field with the highest rates of reproducibility and reliability and offering the most accurate identification of inflammatory markers in the blood. Only a few laboratories around the globe are equipped to perform this test as it is highly specialized. I receive a discount off the list price of $995 which I pass along to my clients.

2. Implementation. You don’t just receive your MRT results and be left wondering how to implement them effectively. Modern test results are technical and require some interpretation; simply receiving test results is a poor predictor for success. Certified LEAP (Lifestyle Eating and Performance) Therapists (CLTs) receive more than forty hours of training on understanding the physiology, interpreting the results, and designing modern, customized, anti-inflammatory dietary protocols based on science to facilitate positive outcomes. In other words, you’ll experience better results if you work with a CLT to interpret the results.

3. A Sustainable Diet. Not only will you receive your personalized “safe” diet designed to remove inflammation from your body quickly and to speed relief from symptoms, but you’ll also receive a week-by-week food re-introduction schedule to help get you to a comfortable place where you can have an easy lifestyle with a sustainable and enjoyable diet that doesn’t make you sick. You will get help with menu plans and food products as well as recipes that work with your allowed foods to help implement a new, balanced and nutritious eating style over the long haul.

4. Healing. The focus is on healing so that, as time goes on, some foods may be successfully re-integrated without inducing symptoms. Additional herbal, probiotic, or homeopathic remedies may be recommended, depending on your symptoms. Years of schooling and clinical practice have given me the knowledge to work holistically with your particular body.

5. Coaching. You receive coaching for how to recover quickly from mis-steps and keep control of your health for the long-haul. My goal is to send my clients out into the world symptom-free with the knowledge of how to stay there.

6. Expertise. Lastly, these are professional services. Not only do I have a doctorate in naturopathic medicine, and am a Certified Nutritional Consultant and a Certified LEAP Therapist, I’m also an award-winning, best-selling cookbook author and the director of the Fight MS with Food project. I get paid to speak around the country on health, nutrition, and autoimmune issues related to diet.

Please feel free to contact me for more information or to schedule a free consultation.

Mercury in the Flu Shot

October 10, 2012

While concerned parents have lobbied successfully to remove mercury (thimerosal) from routine childhood vaccinations, no one is mentioning that the widely-advised flu shot still contains thimerosal.

Mercury poisoning has been linked to harm in the nervous system, heart, lungs, kidneys, and immune system. It can cause mental dysfunction in growing children and dementia and malaise in adults. Some believe thimerosal in vaccines is linked to autism. No amount of mercury is considered safe.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), thimerosal is not the only non-medicinal additive in our vaccines. Vaccines may contain any or all of the following:

Type of Ingredient	Examples	Purpose
Preservatives	Thimerosal (only in multi-dose vials of flu vaccine)	To prevent contamination
Adjuvants	Aluminum salts	To help stimulate the body’s response to the antigens
Stabilizers	Sugars, gelatin	To keep the vaccine potent during transportation and storage
Residual cell culture materials	Egg protein	To grow enough of the virus or bacteria to make the vaccine
Residual inactivating ingredients	Formaldehyde	To kill viruses or inactivate toxins during the manufacturing process
Residual antibiotics	Penicillin, sulfa drugs	To prevent contamination by bacteria during the vaccine manufacturing process

You can request a thimerosal-free version of the flu vaccine; it will come in a single-use rather than a multi-use vial.

Here is the CDC’s table of what exactly is in each version of the influenza vaccine, so that you can check to see if there are any ingredients you might already know you’re sensitive to, like polysorbate 80, a chemical surfectant an emulsifier that we test for with the MRT because it can trigger reactions in many people, before agreeing to be injected.

No Sodium Metabisulfites in 365 Dried Fruits at Whole Foods

July 11, 2012

Sodium metabisulfite is a chemical preservative added to prevent foods from browning and molding. It is often used in preserving fresh and dried fruits, and in home brewing wines and ales. Unfortunately, for those people who are sensitive to sulfites, it can cause uncomfortable hypersensitivity reactions that may include anything from wheezing to eczema to IBS to migraines and more.

While the additive may or may not be identified, based on the amount used to preserve the food, sulfites do occur naturally in wines and meads. Here is a list of sulfite-containing foods that sulfite-sensitive people may want to avoid.

Recently, I have been working with the mother of an 18-month old boy to help bring the child some relief inside his own body. Chronic runny nose that would turn into sinus and ear infections, eczema, rash, constipation, difficulty sleeping through the night, and more were the kinds of symptoms he had been exhibiting. Upon receiving the results of his MRT food sensitivity test, we learned that one of his many sensitivities was to sodium metabisulfite.

In this mom’s quest to find sodium metabisulfite-free dried fruits, she used the online form at Whole Foods Market to ask the question:

Hello, I am looking for dried cranberries, dried pineapple, or dried bananas that are free of sodium metabisulfite. Do your 365 dried fruits contain sodium metabisulfite for color preservation? My local store could not answer the question. From what I understand, it is not something that is required to be listed on the package in small amounts. However, it causes my son to wheeze so I need to avoid it with certainty. Can you help? Thanks, Camille W.

Whole Foods came back quickly with this response:

Hi Camille,

Thanks for reaching out to us. Sodium metabisulphite is on our list of unacceptable ingredients for food, so none of our dried fruits contain it. I doubt that this an issue for your son, but just as an FYI we do allow it in some wines and meads.

Thanks for reaching out to us. I hope that information is helpful, please let me know if there is anything else I can do!
If you have any further questions please use our on-line response form.

Best regards,
Julie Brown
Global Customer Information Specialist | Whole Foods Market | 550 Bowie Street | Austin, Texas 78703

It’s good to know that Whole Foods feels the same way about sodium metabisulfite as I do, and that I can trust the 365 store brand of dried fruits to be sulfite-free.

A Fight MS with Food Case Study: Cyndi C.

October 13, 2011

An update from the Fight MS with Food project:

Case study of Cyndi C.

Cyndi is a 42-year old married mother diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. When she joined the Fight MS with Food project, her main symptom was extreme pain and itchiness on her upper right arm and shoulder. The skin there was constantly red and angry, inflamed and bumpy, giving her a lot of discomfort. She also complained of acid reflux/heartburn along with bloating, though she was more concerned about the pain in the arm that the doctors had definitively linked to her MS.

7/7/2011 We started Cyndi off with a gentle herbal parasite cleanse because a hidden parasitic infection may be at the root of many chronic inflammatory disorders. Short and simple: if you have parasites, you’ll never be fully well until you kill off the parasites.

8/19/2011 With the parasites gone, Cyndi took the state-of-the-art Mediator Release Test (MRT) that looked at how her blood responds to 150 common foods and chemicals. Although Cyndi had been a “healthy” eater before, she was still experiencing irrational inflammation manifesting in symptoms of MS, indicating some hidden sensitivities. After extensive interpretation and analysis of the blood test results together with professional dietary counseling, Cyndi altered her diet to include only the foods shown to cause the least amount of inflammatory response in her blood. She was off and ready to take charge of her health!

9/1/2011 The first weeks were the hardest. Limited to about 25 foods, it was a struggle to be creative and maintain interest in her allowed foods, even though she had come up with some delicious creations like a hard corn tostada shell topped with avocado together with scallops sauteed in sesame oil. After two weeks, the pain was receding and the itching was starting to feel better. She was identifying her personal care products that contained ingredients she now knew were irritating her body and was replacing them with safe alternatives. We added more foods to her allowed list, asking her to try them one at a time so that she could see if they made her react.

10/12/11 Today Cyndi said, “I found it so hard to believe that healthy things could do this to you, but everything has changed now.” The pain and itching in her arm are gone so long as she sticks to her safe foods. She is actively adding new foods and now knows that if she is going to react to a new food, her arm will start hurting within 1-2 days. What is really amazing is that the pain will clear up within just a few hours if she has been back on safe foods since the the new food trial.

She has noticed a marked change in her energy level. Where she used to poop out in the afternoons at work, to the point of having her head down on her desk many days, now she doesn’t even feel tired later in the day. She no longer has heartburn or bloating. She has noticed that 15 extra pounds disappeared from her body as she released inflammation. Her hands look visibly less puffy than they used to.

Conclusions: After only three months, indications of a reduction of chronic MS symptoms are visible. Since the client began the treatment protocols outlined in the Fight MS with Food project, she no longer lives with pain, has more energy, and a renewed vitality for life. There is every indication that the disease is moving into remission.

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment is in bringing Cyndi to a safe, stable state where she is able to track symptoms to their triggers, and giving her a road map to return to that safe place whenever she needs to stabilize her body. Even though she has flare-ups when she discovers a new food sensitivity, the duration and intensity have reduced to where they are gone by the following day. As time goes on, and she identifies more and more foods she can tolerate, she will be able to avoid the triggers and avoid the flare-ups completely. Since the damage done by MS is marked by inflammatory activity, her progress could indicate a pause in the progress of the disease. Regardless, she can now enjoy a happier, pain-free life.

*Additional note: As an unexpected bonus, her teenage daughter is feeling healthier, too, now that she is eating the foods that her mom does!

Tag: MRT food sensitivity testing

The Value of Food Sensitivity Testing

Mercury in the Flu Shot

No Sodium Metabisulfites in 365 Dried Fruits at Whole Foods

A Fight MS with Food Case Study: Cyndi C.

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