Get To The Root Cause of Health Issues: Systemic Inflammation and Food Intolerance

By Dr. Cathy Sevcik, ND

If you are experiencing unwanted symptoms or have a common chronic condition, you can be assured that subclinical inflammation is a contributor to your problem.  Subclinical systemic inflammation has been implicated in virtually every chronic health problem that plagues the modern human, including accelerated aging, cognitive decline, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

What is systemic inflammation?  Basically, it is the result of immune system activation in any location of the body.  Any inflammatory event results in some amount of system wide inflammation because the immune system secretes substances called cytokines that circulate throughout the body via blood and lymph fluid.  These cytokines stimulate immune cells that reside throughout the body.  Even if the initial inflamed location is distant, there is an increased level of activity everywhere.  This system wide immune activity results in small but chronic and progressive tissue damage.

Did you know that 70% of your immune cells are in your digestive tract?  This design is advantageous because the intestines must make the right decisions about what to let in and what to keep out and the immune cells in the gut help make that happen.  Also, the large intestine houses our microbiome – a complicated and elegant relationship occurs between the microbiome and our immune system here.

So what goes wrong?  Incomplete protein and carbohydrate digestion leads to the immune cells in our intestines encountering food fragments that they weren’t trained to properly identify.  These food fragments eventually lead to food sensitivities.  The immune system is activated when the offending food is consumed because the immune cells mistake the food for a pathogen.

Identification and removal of food sensitivities can reduce inflammation and the person can feel much better from this elimination process.

But as I mentioned, poor digestion was the initial event causing the inflammatory cascade.

Poor incomplete digestion can be caused by food intolerances.  Food intolerances seem to be inherited and result in the reduced capacity to digest specific foods or combinations of foods.

Identifying and reducing or avoiding food intolerances is one of the most profound ways a person can reduce systemic inflammation and create an internal environment for healing and optimal health.  I help people identify their food intolerances using a methodology developed by Dr O G Carroll, named the Carroll Food Intolerance method.  The test requires a sample of a small amount of blood, from a finger poke.  The foods tested are major good groups and combinations of major carbohydrate categories.

This methodology is simple and generally requires that the individual reduce or eliminate one to three foods.  The results can be profound and almost any condition can improve when the source of inflammation is removed.

Get to the root cause of your symptoms by identifying and removing your food intolerance(s).

If you are not sure whether this approach is right for you and want further information concerning your specific circumstances, please call our clinic 604.558.1926 and book a complimentary 15 minute consultation with Dr Cathy to start your healing.