Chemical Sensitivity
Conclusion. Multiple Food and Chemical Sensitivities
The concept of multiple food or chemical sensitivities manifested by numerous symptoms in the absence of objective physical findings lacks a scientific foundation. There is no evidence that such patients suffer from an immunologic abnormality. The existence of such an illness is based on anecdotal reports with no verification using properly controlled blinded challenges. The [...]
Immunologic Evaluation
Two studies up to now have reviewed the clinical and laboratory evidence for immunologic illness in patients with multiple food and chemical sensitivities. In 50 cases studied by Terr, levels of circulating immunoglobulins, complement components, and lymphocyte subsets fell mostly within the normal expected range and did not correlate with severity of reported illness or [...]
Clinical Studies.
In recent years, results of several critical evaluations of patients claiming IEI have been published. Collectively these studies do not support a role for food and chemical sensitivities as a cause of the patient’s symptoms nor do they indicate immunologic dysfunction. Instead, they do provide evidence for a significant role for underlying psychiatric illness.
Generic lamisil [...]
Treatment Methods
Treatment of environmental illness is accomplished according to primarily three modalities: a program of avoidance of environmental chemical exposure, special elimination diets, and neutralization therapy. Drugs are regarded as harmful synthetic chemicals that cause environmental illness. Nevertheless, patients are often instructed to take vitamin and mineral supplements, and some are treated with certain salts, such [...]
Diagnosis of IEI.
Cialis professional
The diagnosis of IEI is most often made by the combination of an extensive environmental history and a battery of provocation-neutralization tests. The patient’s self-report of symptoms occurring after presumed exposure to environmental odors and fumes or after ingestion of particular foods usually suffices to make the diagnosis. The provocation-neutralization test, described below, consists [...]
Theories of Environmental Illness.
The clinical ecology literature discusses a variety of theories and concepts to explain both the etiology and pathogenesis of environmental illness. Initially Randolphproposed a theory that failure of the human body to adapt to industrial synthetic chemicals produces a condition of hypersensitivity to these chemicals. This theory does not explain the mechanism of the hypersensitivity, [...]
Chemical Sensitivity. Causes
The most common complaints–fatigue, headache, nausea, malaise, pain, mucosal irritation, disorientation, and dizziness–are nonspecific. All these symptoms can occur in diseases with specified pathologic characteristics, but they also occur commonly in the absence of physical illness.
No gross or microscopic evidence of inflammation or other objective signs of a disorder have been associated with IEI.
The list [...]
Multiple Food and Chemical Sensitivities
The concept that certain individuals suffer a specific illness caused by multiple food and chemical sensitivities is the basis of a medical practice known as “clinical ecology.” This concept evolved from the earlier theory of allergic toxemia caused by multiple food sensitivities, described above. In the early 1950s Randolph broadened the idea of allergic toxemia [...]
