The term chronic is also used to describe some conditions that are permanent, yet the symptoms come and go. If you have arthritis (for example), you will always have arthritis, but some days are better than others. Symptoms may be aggravated by factors beyond your control, such as the weather, yet diet and lifestyle can also play a role. Thus your chronic condition is generally "treated", or "managed"; we rarely speak of a cure. On any given day, the right cocktail of prescription drugs, or the right foods, or sheer good fortune, might keep your symptoms at bay, but you still have the disorder, and those symptoms might come back to haunt you in the future. Your chronic condition, whatever it may be, is your companion, probably for life. Each day you take steps to manage it, so that it does not manage you.
Below is a short list of chronic conditions, which is by no means exhaustive. The disorders marked in bold have affected me, or members of my family. As you can see, there are quite a few of them. In every case, diet has played a role in the ongoing treatment of these conditions. In rare cases diet has completely eliminated the symptoms. Yet we dare not call this a cure, because a return to earlier eating habits could bring the illness back to life.
If you seek help from a physician for any of these conditions, he will rarely mention diet. And if you ask about diet, he will probably scoff at the idea. Instead, he will prescribe various drugs to combat the symptoms. The physician rarely asks what, if anything, is causing or aggravating the disorder. Why is the immune system compromised? Why does the patient keep getting these infections? Why is this woman so depressed? Why is this child hyperactive? Why are this man's symptoms worse on some days and better on others? When these questions are asked by a holistic physician or a desperate parent, the resulting investigation often points to diet as a contributing factor.
Over the past 15 years I have guided my wife, my son, and my daughter through several of these disorders. During this time, the sundry diagnoses, both professional and amateur, have been slanted toward the psychological and away from the physical. Several doctors and specialists told my wife she was "Under too much stress". At the same time, a diverse collection of physicians, therapists, and school administrators were quite certain my son's bad behavior was caused by his chaotic childhood in foster care. Getting past these psychological biases was certainly an uphill battle, as described in another article.
Finally one doctor realized my wife's debilitating digestive disorder was real, and he even suggested dietary changes, but his recommendations were somewhat off the mark. He hit the dartboard, but missed the bull's eye. It took us two years to find the "magic bullet", and today she is (almost) symptom free. My son, John, who has severe ADHD, could tell a similar story. When the biochemical nature of his disorder could no longer be denied, doctors prescribed various psychotropic drugs, without looking for a cause. You'll have to do a lot of research, on your own, to get some answers.
Why does western medicine eschew diet therapy? For starters, doctors have egos as big as all outdoors. If a patient can improve simply by eating different foods, as directed by a book that anybody can read, the doctor's superior status is threatened. The events of 400 years ago, when the Bible was finally translated into languages that the common folk could read, are being played out again, this time with medical knowledge. And like the clergy of old, the AMA's paranoia is misguided. We still need them, desperately, but we want them to work with us, not around us.
The universal bias towards drugs and away from foods became evident almost immediately, as I took John to his first doctor visit, shortly after his adoption. His previous group home warned me that ritalin and all its cousins didn't really work for this young boy, so naturally I asked about diet. "There is no proven connection between diet and ADHD.", declared his pediatrician. As I learned later, this was actually a generous (albeit inacccurate) assessment; she didn't dismiss diet out of hand. Other physicians are more entrenched. When I consulted a child psychiatrist, he stated, in no uncertain terms, that "Foods have no effect on brain chemistry." Apparently he has never heard of PKU babies, the ketogenic diet for epilepsy, Lorenzo's oil, or even alcohol or tea. I told him he was trying to paint a gray area black and white, since most of our drugs are derived from plant products, many of these used and abused by the indigenous cultures, but he was undaunted. Finally I asked our venerable expert if strawberries might cause hives in some patients, and he readily consented. In fact, foods might cause or aggravate rashes, asthma, allergies, heartburn, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, kidney stones, osteoporosis, or almost any (visible) symptom in almost any organ, except the brain. When a bias is this irrational, it must be self-serving. Obviously his profession, psychiatry, with the M.D. firmly attached, is superior to all others, including all other medical subspecialties, and especially nutrition. Only his magic pills can help, and by inference, only he, the purveyor of those pills, has the power to heal.
Other physicians with smaller egos try their very best to help the patient and remain objective, yet they are often influenced by money, without realizing it. Diet therapy will never be "proven" safe and effective, to the satisfaction of the medical community, because rigorous longitudinal studies are expensive, and nobody is going to fund them unless there is a big payoff at the end, such as a new drug to sell. Apparently doctors don't understand how money shapes their world, or even their opinions. They believe they are objective practitioners, unaffected by the glossy brochures and free samples they receive from drug companies on a regular basis. This alleged immunity seems unlikely; we are all influenced by covert and overt advertising. If this were not so, commercial television and free internet services would not exist. Drugs reap profits -- drug companies advertise and fund studies that discredit other modes of treatment -- and over several years, well-intentioned physicians are convinced of the efficacy of modern medicine and the futility of alternative treatments. They advise their patients accordingly, and in some cases they do a disservice to the few whose lives might be changed, simply by eating different foods.
Fortunately there is help, although it is definitely not covered by your HMO. No matter -- it's practically free! You will find the help you need in a few medical books, available at healthfood stores and libraries. Unfortunately these precious volumes, which can literally save lives, are tucked away inside an eclectic assortment of books on irrational, metaphysical approaches that can only offer a placebo effect at best. At the same time, there are extremely valuable organizations, with excellent web sites, just a few mouse clicks away from profit-motivated companies that exist solely to sell their supplements and magnets. In a world where anyone can publish, everyone does. At first it is difficult to separate the grain from the chaff, but when you finally locate a doctor and/or organization who understands both human phisiology and nutrition, and is well grounded in objective science, you will finally have an ally, as you continue to manage your chronic condition.
Of course diet therapy doesn't work for everyone -- it helps some people not at all -- but it has one advantage over mainstream medicine; it has no deleterious side-effects. In fact a healthier diet often brings unexpected benefits. Contrast this with the disclaimers that appear on every prescription drug. These are the comments that are read quickly at the end of television commercials. (If you're pregnant or nursing, forget it!) When the prescription drug is absolutely necessary, another drug may be prescribed to mitigate the side-effects of the first. And sometimes a third drug is necessary to manage the side-effects of the second. This house of cards is extremely fragile. The slightest breeze brings it crashing down on the patient. Even if diet therapy has a slim chance of helping, it is still worth a try, because the risks are near zero, and the potential benefits are enormous.
Whenever a chronic condition strikes me or a member of my family, my first impulse is to consult our family physician, and possibly a specialist. Anything less would be irresponsible. However, if there is no clear cause for the illness, or the "cause" is merely a label for the doctor's convenience, my next impulse is to vary the diet in systematic ways to see if foods make any difference. I believe this is a reasonable approach for everyone. The marriage of modern medicine and diet therapy often restores the patient to good health, while neither, on its own, is entirely effective. Food is a powerful (albeit inadvertent) drug, and we must take it into account as we manage our medical conditions and our lives.