Diet Wise Academy

Brain Allergies 79

Intoxication!

The results of brain allergy can be bizarre and hilarious, as well as
harrowing.
In 1986 I appeared on a television lunchtime special with Alan
Titchmarsh (later of Ground Force fame). I was introducing a young girl,
Josie, who got drunk eating potatoes.
Really!
Of course the story was so bizarre and entertaining, it was a
natural media hit. As I said to Alan, alcohol impairs brain function, at first
stimulating it (feeling good), then killing off inhibitions (drunkenness) and
finally leading to depression of motor and cognitive function (stupor). It
did this simply by selectively poisoning pathways, so that impairment takes
place. It’s a process familiar to us all (well, most of us!).
Food allergy inflammatory responses can do exactly the same thing,
I explained to the viewers. In Josie’s case potato was the offender. Alan
offered her a plate of fries, which was whipped up from somewhere by the
studio backup team, as a joke.
She politely refused.
Josie’s mother and father suffered pretty badly with allergies too.
We had an interesting discussion and a memorable program, well ahead of
its time.
But Josie was far from unique. I had several young women in this
predicament. Lynne was sensitive to oranges and got drunk whenever she
ate them. The thing was, she didn’t know this! All she knew was that when
she went drinking with her friends (usually vodka and orange) she became
drunk too easily. Thinking alcohol was the problem, she stayed with the
orange juice. That had resulted in her dancing on the pub tables. Lynne
had always just seemed very excitable and no one had really made the right
connections, till she came to me.
The irony in her story was that she was fine on the vodka – it was
the orange that made her drunk!
Girls getting silly and out of control on simple foodstuffs could
potentially cause them serious problems. Which brings us neatly onto the
topic of the next section.

Inappropriate sexual stimulation

There is no question that food reactions can cause an altered sexual response
and I want to share this with you.