Health news from around the world.

The driver of a cab I hired in Chicago told me that he was allergic to his new girlfriend. He didn’t know what it was about her, but he broke out whenever he got near her. He was certain it wasn’t anything obvious like perfume or cosmetics.

Far-fetched? Not at all. A few days later, I stumbled across a possible explanation. An allergist in that same city told me that sensitivity to human dander – hair and skin particles – has been written about in medical journals from time to time.

Of course, I never did find out how the cabbie fared. But his was just one of several types of odd allergies that I ran across while researching this book – allergies which I’ll review here in case you or someone you know happens to have a very unusual problem. Some of these allergies are so rare that doctors have had little opportunity to develop any real therapy – other than to avoid the cause of the problem. (Unless it’s something you’re willing to endure – like your girlfriend.)

Sunlight

Allergy to light may sound like the ultimate in hypochondria. But it does occur. And not only in people who are taking certain drugs or handling chemicals that activate skin problems in the presence of light, as we discussed in earlier chapters. Once in a blue moon (or sun), along comes someone who really is allergic to light per se – and then only to certain wavelengths: artificial light or light streaming through a window is okay, but direct light is a problem. The person’s skin gets red, swollen and tender, except for well-defined areas covered by sleeves, trousers or a hat – just like sunburn. But the skin flares up only moments after an exposure too brief to produce sunburn in most people. Sometimes the mock burn is accompanied by headaches, vomiting and burning eyes. Very rarely, light sensitivity can lead to anaphylactic shock.

People with allergy to sunlight don’t go to many beach parties. But they don’t have to go underground, either. Protective clothing is a must, of course. And sunscreens can be a tremendous help. Mildly sensitive people can build up their tolerance to sunlight by exposing small areas, a little at a time.

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Treating learning disabilities and/or hyperactivity with a drug-free therapy – mainly diet – is a better, safer way to remove the obstacles to learning. And certain foods turn out to be more common obstacles than others.

‘Refined sugar leads the list of foods that such children cannot tolerate,’ says Dr Vogel.

‘We change a child’s behavior dramatically by lowering his or her intake of sugar,’ says Patricia Hardman, director of the Woodland Hall Academy, a school for children with hyperactivity and learning disabilities in Maitland, Florida.

‘We had one child who was tested for his IQ and scored 140. Three days later, he was tested and scored 100! It turned out that Grandma had come for a visit and that morning had made the child pancakes for breakfast; of course they were smothered in store-bought, sugary syrup. Well, we waited another three days – three days without sugar – and tested him again. Sure enough, he scored 140. There’s no doubt about it. Sugar makes children poor learners.

‘If a child comes to school extremely depressed or complains that nothing is going right, or if he flies off the handle and can’t be controlled, we ask him what he’s been eating. It’s almost always the case that the night before he had ice cream or soda or some other food with a lot of sugar.

‘At Woodland Hall,’ says Dr Hardman, ‘sugar is eliminated from the diet of every child.’

Throwing out sugar often involves the elimination of many highly processed additive-laden foods – and with them go many of the most common causes of food allergy. Robert W. Boxer, an allergist in Skokie, Illinois, says, ‘If every family physician and pediatrician put all of their patients with hyperactivity, learning disabilities or behavioral disorders on a sugar-free, white-flour-free, chemical-free and caffeine-free diet, I think 80 per cent of our problems would be improved.’

Of course, learning disabilities can show up as late as during secondary school or college years. But some parents notice the child is different at a very early age, even though teachers continue to pass the child along from grade to grade to avoid dealing with him or her two years in a row. But ignoring the problem only puts more distance between the child’s achievements and potential. If your child is learning disabled and physical causes have been ruled out, you owe it to your child’s future to consider allergies – of any kind.

For just as there’s no one curriculum for each and every child, there’s no one diet for learning improvements.

‘When it comes to allergy-induced learning disabilities, we have to consider the entire world as potentially guilty,’ says Gary Oberg, a pediatrician in Crystal Lake, Illinois. ‘If you concentrate on only food, you may miss the boat’.

Doctors find that when the allergens are identified and removed, the child performs better. He’s calmer, pays attention longer, finishes his work, writes more clearly and is less impulsive. When he performs better, he receives praise – and self-esteem increases. That, in turn, motivates him to try harder. Allergy control gives learning ability quite an effective boost.

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While you work on controlling your allergies, pay special attention to nutrition and personal habits. Hard-to-explain fatigue may have more than one contributing factor, allergy being only one. For total relief of fatigue, consider the following (all of which have been shown to contribute to fatigue).

• Lack of regular exercise. Twenty minutes, three times a week, help to keep your battery

charged.

• Overuse of coffee or alcohol. Every ‘up’ is followed by a ‘down’.

• Deficiency of one or more vitamins. The  vitamins folate, pantothenate and B12 are vital to

high energy levels.

• Deficiency of one or more minerals. Potassium, magnesium, calcium and iron boost stamina.

• Boredom. Lack of interest equals lack of ambition.

• Stress. Your body uses up a lot of energy to fight money worries, family conflicts and

impossible deadlines.

• A ‘perfectionist’ attitude. Setting unrealistic standards for yourself practically guarantees a

sense of underachievement.

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To unstick your breathing equipment, drink plenty of fluids. Water and other beverages act as natural expectorants, keeping mucus thin and coughable, says Doris J. Rapp, author of Allergies and Your Family (Sterling Publishing). She recommends drinking one-half to one cup of liquid every waking hour, if at all possible. Just be sure you don’t drink cold beverages – the chill can shock sensitive airways into spasms. And be careful to avoid drinks that contain cola or food dyes, common asthma triggers.

Taking your beverages hot helps even more. A warm drink acts as a natural bronchodilator, or airway relaxer, as it glides past respiratory passages. Drinking soup or herb tea when you feel an attack coming on will do fine.

‘Sometimes a warm liquid relaxes the bronchial tubes and you may not even need to use your bronchodilator spray,’ says Dr Falliers. ‘We’ve had kids in the hospital for treatment, and when they can’t breathe, we try to get them to drink something warm, maybe just water or something with a little more flavor, like hot apple cider. They relax, control the panic and start breathing quietly again.’

Controlling panic is a big part of controlling asthma. If you know you’re an asthmatic and begin to sense an attack coming on, you may tend to panic and fight for air. That tightens your chest further. For children, the anxiety is heightened if they see Mum or Dad panic, too. If your child has asthma, you can help by simply trying to appear calm and confident, no matter how frantic you may actually feel. The sight of a reassuring adult in itself may help the youngster.

‘Some children relax the minute they see their doctor enter the room, even before they’re given any medication,’ says Dr Rapp.

Relaxation, in fact, is such a useful shield against asthma that many doctors are teaching child and adult asthmatics variations of the relaxation technique. Because it loosens tightened muscles surrounding airways, relaxation is a form of protection that can be used whenever an asthmatic feels an attack coming on.

In a subconscious effort not to tax temperamental lungs, asthmatics tend to take short, shallow breaths. Doctors call it ‘stingy breathing’. By filling and emptying only the top portion of the lungs, however, asthmatics don’t pull in enough oxygen. During an attack they get even less. ‘The average asthmatic is breathing at only 60 or 70 per cent of capacity,’ Dr Falliers told us. ‘And during an asthma attack, that can drop to 20 per cent.’ In the throes of an asthma attack, you may actually turn blue for lack of oxygen.

‘But if you’re having an asthma attack, you don’t think about breathing physiology and oxygen metabolism,’ says Dr Falliers. ‘You just think of how to get your next breath.’ By learning to breathe deeply and efficiently, you can increase the amount of oxygen you take in, so an attack isn’t nearly as disabling.

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Asthma is sometimes a consequence of uncontrolled hay fever – and can also respond quite well to bioflavonoids, says Leibovitz. ‘In fact, the standard treatment for asthma, a drug called cromolyn sodium, is nothing more than a synthetic bioflavonoid like molecule.’

And, as with hay fever, vitamin Ñ is a tremendous boon to asthmatics. In one study, asthmatics who took 1,000 milligrams [one gram] of vitamin Ñ a day had less than one-fourth as many asthma attacks as those receiving an inactive, fake pill. When they stopped taking vitamin C, however, they once again suffered the same number of asthma episodes as the untreated people (Tropical and Geographical Medicine).

Some exciting new research shows that magnesium may also help ease breathing difficulties of asthma. Zack H. Haddad, professor of allergy and immunology at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, evaluated thirty children with allergic asthma. Twenty of the children were then supplemented with a half-liter to a liter a day of magnesium-rich mineral water (such as Aviant). The other ten children continued as usual, with no extra source of magnesium. After three months, the blood levels of magnesium rose in the children who drank the magnesium-rich water, and they could breathe more freely {Annals of Allergy).

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