Why do so many people seem to suffer from allergies nowadays? Twenty years ago you weren't considered to have an allergy unless you dropped dead at the sight of a cat or keeled over after eating shellfish. Now, every self-respecting household seems to have somebody who's allergic to something; dust mites, cows' milk, dog hair, gluten, yeast, cashew nuts . . . the list is apparently endless. Is allergy somehow connected to economic prosperity? Is it a product of our diet, with its emphasis on processed foods? Or is it simply something dreamed up by middle-class folk who have nothing better to think about? Yes; definitely; and in a way: these are the conclusions of Martin Healy, clinical director of the Fitzwilliam Acupuncture and Allergy Clinic, a specialist in allergy studies who has, for the past 12 months, been using a new food allergy test developed by a small laboratory in the north of England.
"In traditional societies allergy and allergy-related illness is virtually unknown, because people work at a less rushed pace," he says. "Allergy people are busy, busy people who work at 100 miles an hour, under constant pressures, subject to constant deadlines. They often complain they can't eat this or that any more, whereas up to a few years ago they hadn't an ache or a pain and could eat stones." Obviously, however, the patients who turn up at Martin Healy's door are not imagining their illnesses. Many have suffered for years from asthma, eczema, irritable-bowel conditions, migraine, or just a general feeling of "unwellness". So what is making them unwell? Time, perhaps, to make the acquaintance of the autonomic nervous system.
"This is the system which controls digestion," Healy explains. "The food we eat is electronically recognised - say we have a fatty meal, the gall bladder kicks in, or if we eat something sugary, the insulin glands are called into play. The whole thing has a chemical base, but the autonomic nervous system can also be regarded as an intelligence which orchestrates the digestive process." It is also intimately bound up with the emotions - so when the system is subject to persistent heavy doses of stress, it is weakened to the point where it can no longer process certain foods. "That's what a food allergy is; it's a food which stays in the gut undigested. The majority of allergy people talk about tummy upsets, bloated feelings, indigestion - these are all triggered by undigested food poisoning the system. And the more we stress and hassle ourselves, the more we weaken the autonomic nervous system, to the point where it doesn't recognise and can't process the culprit foods, which is why allergies are becoming more prevalent.
"The patients I see are running and racing; they'll say, `Martin, I only have five minutes'. If somebody comes in and says that, I know they're a potential allergy patient. The autonomic nervous system is designed to handle stress and bother, but not relentlessly, not all the time."
As for the physical results of all this stress and bother, Healy paints a grim picture. "When food is not digested it begins to curdle and become toxic. If an egg goes off, or milk goes sour, think of how it smells - now think of that inside your body." Not a pleasant thought. But where does the acupuncture come in? Well, says Martin Healy, for him that was where it all began. Having trained as an acupuncturist in the classical tradition, which was brought to the West by J. R. Worsley in the 1950s and which has a holistic emphasis, focusing on the whole body and on the patient's state of mind rather than on specific symptoms, he was working in a clinic in central London when he noticed that a particular batch of patients weren't responding to acupuncture treatment - or would respond initially, and then slip back. The patients were given food-allergy tests, and when the culprit foods were removed from their diets, their response improved dramatically. The problem, of course, is to find a food allergy test which will come up with reliable results without, on the one hand, declaring that food is not a factor or, on the other, producing an interminable list of foods to be avoided. "Many people who suffer from allergies feel instinctively that food has a role to play in their disease, but all the hospitals are saying `no, it doesn't'," says Healy.
"The standard hospital test dates from research done in the 1960s, when it was discovered the body produces antibody `E' to deal with attack from external irritants such as dust, pollen, animal hair, etc. But what has transpired more recently is that antibody `E' doesn't work as a marker for checking on food allergies.
"The `E' antibodies are fast reactors - you sneeze straight away to expel the irritant - but the trouble with foods is that they're slow reactors. Only a few foods produce an instant reaction - shellfish and peanuts, for instance - and people who are allergic to those don't need to be told, since they'll vomit immediately after eating them. Now the Americans have begun to use a different marker called antibody `G', which is proving much more effective for tracking foods; and York Laboratory has developed the test I'm currently using, which needs only a pinprick of blood and which, I think, produces fantastic results." Fantastic is the word: this reporter's trial test showed up a fairly serious allergy to dairy products and eggs, something of a shock result for someone who, having been down the irritable bowel/stomach ulcer/early-morning-queasiness road for years, had taken to drinking vast quantities of milk and eating mountains of scrambled egg in a misguided attempt to improve the digestive situation.
One dairy-free month later the early-morning queasiness has completely vanished and there have been no unpleasant stomach "episodes" at all. No more icecream, either; but when you feel 100 per cent better, you don't argue with that.
Healy, who is scathingly critical of certain high-profile food allergy tests designed primarily to promote weight loss which have been subject to a good deal of recent media scrutiny, is aware he, too, will be criticised for his belief in the antibody `G' test route, which is still being developed in the US, and the York Laboratory test, which has only been in existence for 12 months. But he is adamant in his support of this research and of his own methodology, which has proved particularly helpful, he says, for irritable bowel complaints. "Sure, antibody-G testing is very new, and if it were a drug it would be subject to all sorts of rigorous tests. But it's not a drug, and even as it is presently, it's proving much more specific than the old tests in tracking food allergies. Some of the older tests come back with a long list of foods to be avoided - some of my guys were just living on apples, which can't be right either."
Healy takes a two-pronged approach to his patients' problems: first, find the culprit foods and remove them from the diet; second, use a series of acupuncture treatments to try to reduce the emotional overload and help restore the natural balance of the autonomic nervous system - or, as he likes to put it, "get a little bounce back into the person's spirit".
"Of course, " he says, "many people aren't open to the acupuncture side of things, and that's OK - but as far as I'm concerned, it's the combination of diet adjustment and acupuncture that gets the best results. There is, presently, a huge interest in the whole subject of allergies and a lot of talk about allergy causing weight problems and so on, but nobody says where it comes from - in most allergy books, it's very rarely touched upon. But I'm very clear where it comes from - emotional overload on the autonomic nervous system - and I have a tool to go about fixing it, so why not?
"I'm not interested in weight loss, and I'm not interested in fashion fads. I'm concerned about all those sick people out there."