IMMUNE POWER DIET: FOOD SENSITIVITIES AT WORK

One of the most devastating effects of food sensitivities is compulsive eating; or food-binge behavior. Binging is defined as explosive, uncontrolled eating far beyond the normal point of satiation. Instead of eating a plate of spaghetti, the binger eats a potful; instead of a bowl of ice cream, several quarts. It is not uncommon for binge eaters to go on uncontrolled, helpless food sprees several times during a week.

This tragic pattern has both physical and psychological roots. People usually binge on exactly the foods to which they have immune sensitivities. It is not surprising, then, that the most common food sensitivities—dairy products, wheat, and corn—are represented in the most frequent binge foods: ice cream, pizza, and corn chips.

Although it seems paradoxical that we binge on exactly the foods to which we are most immune-sensitive, research shows that when binge eaters go on a spree, they release a specific type of hormone called beta endorphins.

Beta endorphins are the body's own opiate substances, tiny proteins that cause changes in brain chemicals. They are considered to help regulate a wide range of functions, including relief of pain, sexual urges, body temperature, and appetite, as well as psychological activities such as memory, learning, and depression. We also produce a lot of beta endorphins during strenuous exercise, and researchers believe this creates the feelings of well-being and euphoria that many athletes experience—the so-called "runner's high." Because food bingers trigger a release of beta endorphins each time they go on a spree, they are, in effect, giving themselves a "high."

That, in fact, was exactly how Anders, another of my patients, explained it. At first, he said, his friends kidded him about his "addiction" to sweet, sticky desserts, but he began to realize that addiction was no laughing matter. Always a big-boned man (Anders had been a serious football player in college), he now watched as his weight increased by ten, then twenty, and thirty pounds. He would duck out on his lunch hour and make the rounds of bakery and sweet shops in a ten-block radius, buying pastries and wolfing them down before he got to the next store. At first these trips occurred once a week, then accelerated to every other day. "The feeling it gave me was total bliss—the same feeling I used to get after a hard football practice. I'd look forward to my trips a whole day ahead of time like some kind of drug."

It was not until he'd been working with me on the Immune Power Diet that he began to see how very destructive a drug his food binges had been. After two months, his weight dropped twenty-three pounds, and he has set himself a goal of fifteen more. Not surprisingly, his energy and enjoyment of life have flourished as his weight has dropped. But, most important, his attitude has completely reversed. "The very thought of going out on an eating spree now seems alien, almost comical. I can't imagine how I ever used to do it. When I think of what I used to shovel in . . . ugh!"

The binging syndrome isn't all physiological. Dr. Leslie-Jane May-nard, a clinical psychologist noted for her work with compulsive eaters, has shown that binging has strong psychological roots. Dr. Maynard's research with hundreds of patients has shown that compulsive, or "binge," eating results when people don't know how to handle the pressures of their lives. When stress levels get out of control, a food binge works like a safety valve to relieve anxiety momentarily. She has also found that binge eaters actually go into what she calls "binge narcosis" after an eating spree. They fall into a trance-like state, similar to that observed with many narcotic drugs.

Obviously, the worse emotional shape you are in—because of the depression, lethargy, and psychological torment that food sensitivities can cause-—the more you binge on food. Conversely, the better you feel about yourself and your life, the less need you have to plunge into destructive eating episodes.

Both at the physical level of measurable brain chemistry, and at the psychological level, bingers are a destructive cycle of addiction, a complex physical and psychological conspiracy caused by an immune imbalance.

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