Unraveling Allergies: The Impact of Nutrition and Gut Health with Dr. Damaris Maria Grossman

Ever wondered how the food you eat can impact your allergies? Dr. Damaris Maria Grossman, a seasoned functional medicine practitioner, joins us to unravel the complex relationship between nutrition and allergic reactions. Prepare to discover how high-quality foods and a diverse diet rich in phytonutrients can help manage chronic diseases and prevent those pesky allergic responses. From the nuances of histamine reactions to the significance of identifying food sensitivities, Dr. Grossman offers practical advice and profound insights that could transform your approach to health.

In this episode, we dissect the symptoms and causes of allergic reactions, spanning from mild discomforts like runny noses to severe, life-threatening conditions. Dr. Grossman explains the crucial role of gut health and how nutritional changes can help manage and even alleviate these responses. With examples including common triggers like dairy, seafood, and processed meats, Dr. Grossman underscores the importance of food sensitivity testing. Whether you're grappling with seasonal allergies or chronic inflammatory issues, this episode is packed with valuable information to help you make informed dietary choices for better well-being. Tune in and empower yourself with the knowledge to tackle allergies head-on!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:25

Hi, how are you? This is Dr Damaris Maria Grossman and I just wanted to kind of add in to the allergy conversation the nutrition. So, as I've discussed with individuals, that I'm a functional medicine practitioner and I am in my certification training and I talk about functional nutrition and functional nutrition is the importance of high quality foods, phytonutrient diversity and, um, using and identifying imbalances with it, with individuals and clients, and wanting them to get to their highest potential. And in that I know I previously have talked about allergens, right, and the thing is, with allergens and within the body we are, can be triggered by certain foods. So the histamine response from allergens is very important to understand with what you put into your body. So I did talk about nutrition very briefly, but I'm just going to kind of go over what those histamine responses happen. Because, as a healthcare provider trying to really get you the most and most beneficial resources and information, we need to understand where these prevalence of chronic disease comes up of. Chronic disease comes up where, um, our lifestyle, uh, management and prevention can help and how can we change with what we put into our body. So, um, that's just part of the approach in this integrative and the whole health approach and here discussing you know triggers and that response.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Sometimes we're sensitive, so there's allergens, food sensitivities and um within the body and it gets a little like complicated. Some people will be like I have an allergy, I have a sensitivity, I can't tolerate something, right. So there's the severe allergies where someone has, someone has an anaphylactic or like throat closing response or a inflammatory response within the lungs where they can't breathe and it's a life-threatening allergen and that is severely something you don't want to take light with. Okay, I'm generally talking about these chronic histamine responses and allergen responses or sensitivities that may cause seasonal allergies like a runny nose, itchy hives, or may have like an actual eczema or inflammatory response. And things that happen are and symptoms of the histamineamine response, like it could be anything from food, it could be from the environment, it could be from leftover things, it could be from um, your uh, what you've eaten, what you have been exposed to, but certain things that can cause it, like, for example so these are symptoms of um, knowing that you have a response is, I have previously said, has runny nose. Also, it's kind of like itchiness, redness, flushing, um, maybe you're even going to have a sensitivity. So sometimes you notice like. For me it's lactose, dairy and also the casein. So any type of gas pain, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting could cause sometimes it's just an upset or brain fog and then sometimes it's just absorption it can mess up your entire overall regulation within the body. So then, overall regulation within the body, so then you then need to do almost like a full gut protocol and have a re change. So sometimes those inflammatory response can be significant.

Speaker 1: 4:12

Respiratory wise, as I had spoken, severe respiratory issues could be. Some have asthma, some could just breathing, some could have severe, life threatening and that's you know. You don't want to get to that point and if it is that, obviously you're going to avoid those. Cardiac some people have increased or lower blood pressure, abnormal heart rates due to the inflammatory response. Nervous system Sometimes there's headaches, dizziness, fainting and even hormonal changes. That could be anything, um, from cramping, um, body aches and uh, discomfort and joint pain, things that cause this.

Speaker 1: 4:55

On a nutritional aspect, in um, your proteins would be like so anything that's processed. So cheeses such as like Gouda cheeses, the dark cheeses, goat cheese, could even do it, even though I love goat cheese, the softer cheeses can. Seafood, anything in the realm of like shellfish, usually as shrimp, things of that nature, meats usually the processed meats of, like pork, sausage, smoked meats. Eggs actually egg whites, eggs Sometimes people are allergic to that and tempeh or miso, just the sense of sensitivity. And unless you do some food sensitivity testing or allergen testing, you don't know. And I know that there is people that will tell you that allergen food sensitivity testing may not be effective. But there is research and known that when your body is exposed to certain things they will have a response and some people may think it doesn't mean anything, but it does. There is long-term effects. Some people may be allergic to certain type of nuts, which that's pretty big uh, wheat, that's a huge one or a non. So they may not necessarily be celiac, which is completely uh, cannot um, break down wheat, but others it's be their non um sensitive, their non-gluten sensitivity, and that's because of the way the wheat has been processed in America and most of the foods, unless you go and go on a gluten-free or modified Certain fruits can actually have.

Speaker 1: 6:35

I think majority of the dirty fruits there's on the EWG site it has like the dirty dozen um and then the healthy ones that that comes down to about how it's, where it's being grown, how it's being processed. Is it organic, non-organic and um? Is there pesticides? So if you can wash your fruits or place them in like a clean, you can clean them. You, um could rid some of that and then um beverages wise as anything access. So what are you? You know there's a lot of ingredients in a lot of our foods now. So just because it says gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free what have you? Fat-free, really read the labels and understand what you're putting into your body, because a lot of those excess ingredients have a histamine response and inflammatory response and then that also can trigger your seasonal or your allergies in general.

Speaker 1: 7:31

So it's just a quick overview. There's a lot more involved in this, but we'll talk further about that in another educational module. But if you have any questions, reach out and I look forward to talking with you and um. It's great speaking and discussing more stuff. So any uh questions you have or anything you want to talk about, uh or anything, reach out and I'd love to discuss it with you. Talk to you soon. Bye.