
Are
You Allergic or Oversensitive?
By Don Bennett, DAS
It may surprise
people to know that what they think of as an allergy is actually
an oversensitivity. Now, someone pondering this statement might
be tempted to say, "Yeh, so what? It's two ways of saying
the same thing isn't it?" Not really. When people think
of an "allergy" they see it as an unfortunate thing that
they have no control over, other than taking a pharmaceutical remedy
for it. But an allergy can be the body being oversensitive to something.
And an allergic reaction is just like the CHECK
ENGINE light on your car's dashboard; it means something's
wrong.
So a true allergy
is when you experience a reaction to something that shouldn't produce
that reaction (if it should produce that reaction, you aren't
allergic to it). If you were to eat a food of your bio-physiological
adaptation, like a banana, and you had a bad reaction to it, this
would indicate that something is wrong physiologically, and not
that you aren't designed to eat bananas. Okay, not many people argue
with this notion, but they will say that the way to deal with this
situation is simply to avoid bananas. But if you think of an allergic
reaction to something that you shouldn't react to as a warning light
on your body's dashboard, then instead of dealing with it by avoiding
the thing that gives you a hard time, you might want to ask yourself,
"How do I resolve the underlying condition that is causing
this hypersensitivity?" A good question, especially when
you consider that the underlying condition is not just causing this
noticeable over-reaction; if the underlying condition is also
a contributing factor to something that will one day result in a
diagnosis of something serious, then it is a "warning light"
that should be heeded, just like your car's LOW
OIL warning light.
We just looked
at what a true allergic reaction is. Now let's explore what most
people think of as "allergies", but aren't. If you ate
a bar of soap, and had a bad reaction to it (as you hopefully would),
your conclusion wouldn't be, "Well, I guess I'm allergic
to soap." And that's because you know that soap isn't a
natural part of the human diet. So it's safe to say that if you
have a bad reaction to something that you're not designed to eat,
this reaction is normal and is not an allergic reaction.
So what about
the people who have a bad reaction to dairy or grain products, or
to Nightshade foods? Is this an allergy or an oversensitivity, or
is this a normal reaction to something they shouldn't be eating
because we are not designed to eat it? The medical/pharmaceutical
industry sees it as something to treat with over-the-counter remedies,
or to simply avoid lactose-containing dairy products and gluten-containing
grain products; they see these reactions as an abnormal reaction
to a normal food. But if you're truly not designed to consume cow
milk products or things made from wheat, then these reactions are
a warning indicator lighting up on your body's dashboard, no different
than if you ate soap (although unlike soap, those products are designed
to be delicious). And although you are thought of as one of the
unlucky ones who react this way to dairy or grain products, you
are, in reality, lucky that you are sensitive enough to be bothered
by something that the human body is not designed to process (those
who don't react to unnatural things are actually under-sensitive).
Think about it, you want your car's dashboard warning lights to
alert you to impending problems so you can do something about it,
right? If they were under-sensitive, that wouldn't be a good thing.
If you didn't
know what LOW OIL meant, you might
keep driving until your engine died from lack of oil. Fortunately
we all know what that LOW OIL light
means, but most of us don't know what indigestion is trying to tell
us. Instead we assume that we simply need an antacid or products
like Lactaid
or Beano.
But the problem isn't a Beano deficiency, it's an information deficiency;
oh, there's plenty of information out there, but what we need in
order to have the best odds of never getting a diagnosis of something
serious is accurate information. (And when you understand
this information, that's when it's the kind of knowledge as in "knowledge
is power").
I should also
mention, that I have personal experience with many people who, after
they make health-enhancing changes to their diet and lifestyle practices,
they no longer have any allergies (like to cats and pollen). And
from my experience as a health creation counselor, the best/healthiest
way to eliminate bad reactions to things we're not supposed to eat
or drink is to not consume them. Food for thought.
See The
Natural Diet Primer
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