Healing Food Allergies?

I don't know what to believe.

I'm researching articles on whether food allergies can be cured or not, and it's literally almost an "every other" response- Yes, No, Yes, No.

Actually, many of the places state that food allergies are caused by "leaky gut", which is where the intestines are damaged and allow food particles to get into the bloodstream, causing an immune response. So, the theory goes, if you can fix your leaky gut, you can fix your food allergies.

Really?

Really?

Can it be that simple?

Is that why I developed food allergies?

I dunno, but I found a good (legit) article on how chronic stress induces intestinal hypersensitivity. Seriously, this quote just grabs my attention: "...Yang and colleagues demonstrate that, in a genetically susceptible host, stress contributes to the development of food allergies by increasing transepithelial permeability in a corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH)-dependent fashion. Their report offers convincing data to support their earlier groundbreaking observations that stress may alter epithelial function."

Hah! I knew it! And where do corticotropin-releasing hormones come from? Why, the hypothalamus, in response to stress. It's a peptide hormone and a neurotransmitter (affects the body/tissues and the brain). That makes sense, since the hypothalamus is the "crossover" between the brain and body. (By the way, my theory about my damaged hypothalamus has since been de-bunked. It's just way more likely that my problems are due to chronic sympathetic nervous system dominance, which led to adrenal insufficiency and hypothyroidism and intestinal hypersensitivity/food allergies and possibly depression.)

My teacher "Doc" (who actually is an M.D., btw) and I were talking about that last week. In class (we're covering the endocrine system right now), he brought out that the way to heal adrenal insufficiency is rest, lots of rest. And in our private conversation, he emphasized that I need to get out of sympathetic dominance and into parasympathetic dominance, because the parasympathetic system is the restorative one. Sympathetic is "fight or flight", keyed up, ready for action, pumping out those stress hormones... and that's where I've lived. Yeah, my whole life. No, I'm not exaggerating.

I've been thinking about making a timeline of my life one of these days. I just kind of want to see it all lain out in front of me. For objectivity's sake.

Anyway, back to the article...

Here's hoping!

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