ENZYMES AND FOOD INTOLERANCE: CAROL’S STORY

Carol was an active woman in her fifties, who had a part-time secretarial job and was a voluntary worker at the local hospital. With a large family of children and grandchildren to worry about, she tended to ignore the odd aches and pains that she suffered. But as the years went by these grew worse, and finally began to interfere with her life. She had difficulty getting out of bed in the morning, her joints were so stiff, and it was only by the evening that she really loosened up and could move around normally. As well as joint pain, she began to suffer from diarrhoea and wind, which was worse whenever she drank alcohol. Headaches became more regular until she had them almost every day, and she often had severe pains in her face due to sinusitis. She also suffered repeated thrush infections and an itchy rash between the toes which looked like athlete’s foot. It was these two items that made her doctor suspect a Candida infection. She put Carol on a sugar-free diet and prescribed an antifungal drug, nystatin. This made her feel much worse initially, but after a month her bowels were functioning normally, her joints were less

stiff and her headaches were less frequent. Since she was still not completely well, the doctor asked her to try an elimination diet, avoiding cereal grains, dairy products and eggs. Carol was impressed by the change this brought about – she felt much better in herself, less tired and able to be cheerful without making an effort. She also lost some excess weight that she had accumulated. On testing, it turned out to be eggs and wheat that caused her problems. Having improved so much, she was now able to notice the specific effects of certain other foods. For one thing, she noticed that foods containing a lot of additives made her feel tired and unwell, with vague muscle aches. Decorating the house also produced these sort of symptoms, and she found later that solvents such as white spirit and dry-cleaning fluid regularly had this effect.

As this case shows, there are often several different factors at work in individual patients. It is not unusual for food intolerance to go hand-in-hand with Candida overgrowth and sensitivity to synthetic chemicals. How these three problems might interconnect is still unknown.

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