To get rid of allergies, you have to get rid of inflammation and hyper-reactivity in our body. Where do you start:
The first place to start is in your gut.
The Gut and Allergy Connection
While the connection between your gut and seasonal allergy symptoms might not be instantly obvious, healing your gut is the first step to waving your seasonal allergies goodbye. Let’s take a closer look.
One of the major jobs of your digestive system is to provide an interface between the external world (foods, allergens, bacteria, etc.) and your bloodstream. It does this in the stomach by using natural digestive acids to break down potentially allergenic proteins and in the intestines via a layer of barrier cells that prevents these proteins from getting into your bloodstream.
You also have a whole host of special bacteria in your gut, as well as immune cells, whose job it is to break down and get rid of proteins and other molecules that can cause you to get sensitized to them, leading to gut – and systemic – inflammation. This is called leaky gut.
What causes your gut to become inflamed?
Many lifestyle habits and food choices can weaken your gut lining over time, making you more prone to inflammation and allergies. Here are a few examples:
• Acid reflux medication, such as proton-pump inhibitors. When you are taking medications for reflux (like a PPI such as Prilosec) this takes out the first line of defense – your stomach acid.
• Food sensitivities. When your gut barrier gets weakened from chronic exposure to foods that irritate your gut, you’re more likely to experience inflammation.
• Antibiotics. When the good gut bacteria get out of balance from antibiotics, you can develop a leaky gut.
Foreign proteins get into your system and place your body on red alert to react to many harmless triggers in your environment such as tree pollen.
So, the first step to quieting down your body’s over reactivity is to heal your gut. This will reduce both seasonal allergies and common food sensitivities.
In order to heal, you first need to cleanse your body out of all the toxins we are exposed to like medications, pesticides, fluoride, chlorine, etc. You do this by using some supplements like chlorella or milk thistle.
Then, you heal the gut by using some supplements or herbs like collagen, gelatin, Pau d’Arco, Wormwood, Golden Seal, glutamine, vitamin C, vitamin A, among others.
And more importantly, you need to eliminate junk foods out of your diet. Choose fresh, whole, organic foods with lots of vegetables and some animal proteins like salmon, grass fed beef and pastured eggs.
