More of Your Letters

More of Your Letters

Unfortunately, I have suffered two computer crashes over this time period which resulted in the loss of quite a bit of data. But hopefully the stories this thread contains will be adequate to convince the reader that this is an essential step to take toward optimal health. Miracles have happened by simply avoiding the things that I have so passionately written about.

This should all make sense. If not, as I have written many times, then I have not done my job...yet.

Here are a few more letters:

Letter #1

HOWDY,

I really do listen inspite of what it appears that I do. Mark and I moved Liz to college on Aug. 21st. I told Mark that when I got home I wanted to go on your food plan. As you have told me, try it for fourteen days and see how you feel.   Medically, I really have two complaints, joint pain and extra weight. Since I am a "fattie boomba lattie", the weight will take a bit more time, but the JOINT PAIN is gone. It disappeared after about eight days of the first fourteen and has not returned. I am thrilled. I have also shared this with several friends. They are very interested. I hope they will visit your website as well as Dr. Mercolas.

Thank you for your advice. Now if I just don't bark or meow all is well.

Sincerely, Dottie

Letter #2

Hi.
    I just wanted you to hear a success story. Three weeks ago I found your
home page and all you said made sense. I immediately changed my entire diet
to conform to what you reccommend. It isn't easy at the start but gets
better with time. I can tell you honestly that since that day my blood
sugar ( I am type 2 diabetic) has been dead normal. I have never been able
to achieve this before no matter how much med they gave me. I hope to start
reducing the meds soon. Thank you for jumpstarting my life!

G.C. (1-19-03)

Letter #3

Dear (Dogtor J.),



Your article was just recently referred to me. It is superb and certainly in line with what I have discovered with my "pack" of Irish Setters. I am attaching a brief (3 pages) article I wrote for our state Irish Setter Club. I believe that your theories, and actual results, are well supported in what has occurred in specifically two of my dogs. The one was near death after fighting IBD, Colonities and PeriAnal Fistulas for over 3 years. He is now a picture of health at 9 1/2. The epileptic dog has been seizure free since switching to raw diet last March, immediately after his first seizure cluster. Thank you for your efforts.

Sincerely,

Terry

Letter #4

Hello (Dogtor J.),

Things are going pretty well with us - my wife is about four and a half weeks pregnant and still hasn't experienced another MS flare-up, besides the occasional burning sensation when she eats something to which she's intolerant. We're going in for her ultra-sound tomorrow morning so with any luck we'll know whether we're having a boy or girl. She stopped taking her Avonex shots in May after her last neurologist appointment and before we started trying for a baby. Her MRI showed no new activity at all over the preceding year, which is very unusual for MS patients and we're taking as confirmation of the elimination diet. (Of course the neurologist attributed it to the Avonex, but the interferon and beta-blocker drugs simply attenuate the flare-ups and don't prevent them entirely.)

Last winter we finally managed to find a doctor who would authorize an ELISA blood test for her, and lo and behold the results showed IgG immune responses to twenty-two different foods including the usual suspects wheat, dairy, soy and yeast. Most of the foods she had already identified with the elimination diet, but there were a couple of surprises such as canola oil - she had been cooking with it and was getting some burning that we couldn't assign to a particular food. It was nice having medical documentation that corresponded to what we'd empirically determined!

I've still been doing my own nutrition research, and this summer I started coming across a number of references to the work of a Dr. Weston A. Price, and I finally managed to find his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. Price was a research dentist who started noticing a dramatic increase in dental caries and orthodontic problems around the turn of the century, and embarked on a number of trips in the 20's and 30's to find control groups of people living on their traditional foods. He visited groups of people in the Faroe islands, isolated Swiss mountain valleys, African, Australian, South American and Eskimo tribes. What he invariably found was that people living on their traditional foods (which varied widely from one another!) had almost no cavities and perfect teeth, but succumbed to our modern problems within a generation of being exposed to the "displacing foods of modern commerce" - white flour, sugar, pastries, etc. He also found that these people were generally consuming ten times as many vitamins, minerals and other activators as those of us on a "modern" diet.

There are a couple of non-profit societies and other researchers who are continuing Price's work - Sally Fallon's site http://www.westonaprice.org is an incredible resource. Her book Nourishing Traditions is both a cookbook of traditional recipes and the best overview of nutrition that I've ever seen. One of the very interesting things that she points out is that it was traditionally known that wheat and other grains contain anti-nutrients such as phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors and that it is very unhealthy to eat grains in a raw state. Up until the modern era of industrial and prepared foods people soaked their grains overnight in a slightly acid solution and ate it in the morning as a gruel or oatmeal. Soaking the grains would pre-digest the proteins and starch and deactivate the anti-nutrients, making them safe to eat.

I've been a runner for the past ten years, and about a year ago I started to have a chronic inflammation on the bottom of my left foot that I self-diagnosed as plantar fascitis. I started some recommended stretches before running and going to sleep at night that helped somewhat, but the problem never completely went away. I've also been a life-long breakfast cereal eater, and for the past couple of years had been buying Raison Bran cereal in bulk and eating it almost exclusively. After reading Price and Fallon's work I'd been removing all the refined sugar from my diet and switched to a breakfast of oatmeal soaked overnight in water, yoghurt and salt from a recipe in her book. I started this breakfast on a Saturday, and was absolutely shocked to discover that my plantar fascitis had completely abated by the beginning of the week, but returned in reduced intensity a few days later. I considered what else I was eating regularly and realized that during the week I was having an energy bar made from soy flour nearly every day, and sometime twice on days I went running. I stopped eating those energy bars and within a few days my plantar fascitis was completely gone and has stayed gone - just like turning a switch! I also realized that the my knees felt much better and didn't ache when going up the stairs.

I don't have any other indications of a wheat or soy intolerance and in fact now eat a five-grain breakfast mix of oats, wheat, triticale, rye and barley that I soak overnight. The problems appear to stem from the raw wheat cereal and soy flour, with all their anti-nutrients and enzyme inhibitors intact. I'm also not positive, but I think my astigmatism might have gone away too - I'll find out the next time I go to the optometrist! I've been following some other diet recommendations as well that may be contributing factors, and have been taking cod liver oil capsules for vitamins D & A, and the n-3 fatty acids.

Sincerely,

Don

Letter #5

DOC, I HAVE TO ADMITT IT'S HARD AND OFTEN TIMES DICOURAGING THAT YOU CAN NOT EAT CERTAIN FOODS YOU LOVE BUT YOU ARE RIGHT.

I HAVE BEEN FOR THE LAST MONTH OR SO WEANING MYSELF OFF OF DAIRY, WHEAT AND SOY PRODUCTS AND I FEEL BETTER THAN I HAVE IN YEARS. I ONLY HAVE ONE PROBLEM, I TEND TO STARVE MYSELF AT CERTAIN POINTS.WHAT I NEED IS A LIST OF THINGS YOU CAN EAT THAT ARE REALLY GOOD FOR YOU.PLEASE HELP!!

Gerard

Letter #6

Thank you for signing me up (for your Emailing list).

Incredible info !!!

I recently started drinking soy instead of low fat milk, thinking it would be beneficial.

After talking with David and reading the results of your research, I understood why I was having some stomach problems, fatigue, headaches and difficulty sleeping. I am no longer using the soy drink and feeling much better.

Thank you , thank you, thank you...

Beatriz.