38 Diet Wise
unreasonable. Finally, even his friends were alienated. At this stage he was
diagnosed as a case of schizophrenia.
Sadly, he failed his next level examinations and his promising
academic career came to an end. He had been offered a university place
on the strength of his known abilities, but was unable to go. Even a most
understanding faculty could not permit a student to matriculate without
justifiable exam results; it simply would not be fair to other students
competing for a place.
So Tony ended up working in a library. It was work that held no
interest for him and failed to challenge his intellect. There were no prospects
that stimulated him, and it was, in every sense, a dead-end job: in other
words, in all normal social terms he was a failure, and knew it, which only
served to enhance his general mood of depression. Life was a drudge that
could only be borne by taking frequent large doses of drugs, and by this
time he was having one of these by injection – all this, remember, before
he was twenty. What could possibly have gone wrong to snuff out such a
promising bright spark?
Actually, there were many clues for the person who knew what
to look for: while he was in the hospital a skin rash was noticed which
passed without comment; he suffered from headaches, palpitations and
sudden tiredness after eating; his mood was particularly bad first thing in
the morning and breakfast helped him feel better; also, he was occasionally
gripped by eating binges. These and other signs made it very obvious to me
that Tony had food allergies.
He was put on the diet given in Chapter 11 and followed the
plan outlined in this book. Within days he began to improve, and within a
fortnight an astonishing change had taken place. He described it as being
like waking up after years of sleep. His mind cleared as if a fog had lifted,
and for the first time in years he was able to look towards the future and feel
it was something friendly instead of hostile; for him it was a time of new
horizons. He began to reduce the amount of drugs he took. He was a new
human being, cheerful and sociable. The nightmare which had begun as a
bereavement was finally at an end.
Subsequent tests showed him to be allergic to a wide variety of the
foods he had been eating regularly. The worst offenders were cane sugar,
milk, cheese, apple, chocolate and tomato, while others included chicken,
potato, wheat, egg, yeast and rice – hardly surprising, therefore, that he was
ill! Since then he has made plans to restart his studies: there is no question
that both his ability to concentrate and the right motivation have returned.