Quote from: gmomakesmesick2014 on January 27, 2014, 08:57:04 PM
i just stumbled across this site .  my allergy is suspected to be gmo related.  anyone here in the same boat?  wondering if this is the right place for me.

Suspected by you, or did a medical doctor examine you and say that he/she suspects it?  What kind of doctor?  (GP, allergist, other?)

Quote from: gmomakesmesick on January 28, 2014, 01:19:06 AM
ok i won't argue with you on stringent terminology here.  i just describe "food allergy" as medical experts in documentaries do, that's all.

Is this the doctor that you saw?  You watched tv and did the experiment and poof, self diagnosed yourself as "allergic" to gmo's?

Quote from: gmomakesmesick on January 28, 2014, 01:19:06 AM
ok i won't argue with you on stringent terminology here.  i just describe "food allergy" as medical experts in documentaries do, that's all.

They don't have much expertise as allergists or immunologists if they do.  Sorry-- but terms in medicine don't just mean whatever one CHOOSES them to mean.  I can't DECIDE that a rash on my arm is "cancer" and call it that without seeing a physician to determine whether or not the term even applies.  KWIM?  But that is what people-- including even a few stupid (IMO) physicians and quacks-- do with food allergy all. the. time.  For better information on "how to know which experts I should believe" please see this excellent write-up.    For how food allergy itself is actually diagnosed, please see this. (Food allergy is on the sidebar to the left.)

For a pair of studies that examine perception biases and point out what people with the actual condition find themselves up against--

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23394146


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10478614



and a layman's write-up of some related (important) issues surrounding self-diagnosis and misappropriation of the term "food allergy."

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but in my case, the symptoms aren't just once or twice but happened enough times.  they do include malaise ,strong discomfort, and digestive discomfort.  i was consistently well while on organic diet, too long a period to be coincidence. and you should consider that it isn't always possible to do sophisticated testing like you do in the lab.  sometimes you just have to do simple test like comparing one group with the other.

A "simple" test like that is what I was suggesting, preferably one conducted and observed by someone who does not know you particularly well emotionally.   The error here is in discounting any OTHER possible causative explanations.  Please see logical fallacies, explained in detail. While I have no objection to your lifestyle choices-- I do object to your self-diagnosis of "food allergies" on this basis because it has the potential to harm people with the actual condition-- people you may never even meet.  You seem to be surprised that food allergies can KILL PEOPLE.  That makes me concerned, but it points up the fact that food allergy is very widely misunderstood.  The average person, speaking very bluntly, needs NO help to misunderstand it further.  Imagine if the public were as confused about "cancer" and they encountered me, gleefully telling others that I had it (look at this rash on my arm) and that it was no big deal, I just manage it by doing ______ (whatever-- epsom salt soaks, warm baths, etc.).  That would harm people who actually have to undergo chemotherapy and surgical interventions by making their lives harder, and making it so that they would then have to UN-educate anyone that I had previously "enlightened" with my personal use of the term. 




Additionally, something that can't be tested isn't a hypothesis at all-- nor is it a theory.  It's magical thinking at that point.  Again, please read my post above.  You can't do "experiments" like this by using yourself as your subject.  Doesn't work because of experimenter-subject bias (perception bias) and the placebo effect.  There is a reason why subtle things like your symptoms tend to be investigated using double-blinded AND placebo controlled methodology.  It can be investigated quite well.  I understand that you might well be unwilling to do so, given that you feel much better when you eat as you do now, but it's certainly not that it "can't" be determined.  It could.  Very easily, in fact. 

A good physician-- and any scientist worth the term-- should be able to work out how to do this within about five minutes.  Have someone "trick" you at a time/place/way that you don't know about and see what happens-- then have the person 'reveal' the specifics to you at some other time.  Again:  this is not something to do-- EVER-- with someone who has an IgE-mediated allergy to a food.  NEVER. EVER.  Because you really could KILL someone 'tricking' them, and they'll certainly never-- ever-- trust you again.

However, if I were convinced that "caffeine does nothing for me" (just as an example)-- I might invite my spouse to substitute decaf for my morning coffee at random and he and I would BOTH track the "results" in my behavior and health for a week or two.    Why couldn't I just do this myself?  Well-- the placebo effect.  Seriously, it's a real thing, and it's REALLY potent-- but with some important caveats.

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i would argue against placebo because it's not something weak like you can imagine it, its like you saying you can imagine coffee buzz, you cannot imagine the coffee effect no matter how hard you try.

Actually-- you can.  Kind of.  (see above)

Do a little GoogleScholar searching on placebo effects-- I think that it will surprise you just HOW robust they can be.  If you truly believe it-- your mind really CAN make it so.  It works for things as diverse as acupuncture, pain relief, and yes-- allergies.

Quoteand in terms of terminology, i 'm casually describing things and not going strictly by perfect scientific terminologies.

while i agree that there are cases where more the one factor is possible, i feel  the  experts i listened to provided persuasive arguments the food allergy connection to gmos.

Okay-- but please understand why "stringent" terminology is kind of important to people who could DIE from a mistake.

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as one expert pointed out, the rise in food allergy coincided with the introduction of gmos.  and when gmos were removed from diet, the patients get better.  if there were no connections, how can the changes be explained?  that's powerful evidence in of itself, of course more investigation would be helpful.

Please re-read my post-- correlation fallacy.

This is a special case of logical fallacy, actually-- called an "appeal to nature"-- the science on GMO's is really, really fringe, at least on the "GMO's are poison, and organic is good" side of things.   For information on the specifics of this type  of logical fallacy (which SHOULD be self-explanatory as to why this places believers in it at odds with anyone who has a life-threatening food allergy), please see this-- the references are particularly worth investigation.

It always shatters illusions when people hear it was organic, non-GMO peanut butter, barley, and cow's milk that induced anaphylaxis in our family.

There are people claiming that GMOs cause food allergies.  They use the term 'food allergy' is all sorts of ways, not just the way used by allergists to describe IgE mediated food allergies.  Interestingly to me is that allergists themselves and other food allergy medical experts such as doctors who are food allergy researchers do not make these same claims.  The cause of the recent rise in food allergies is unknown at this time but there are various theories.  GMO is not one of the ones allergists feel is the likely cause.  Have *I* thought it was possible that GMO is the cause?  Yes, I wondered that.  But I have heard that there is just as much a spike on food allergies in all developed countries, including ones that limit or restrict or don't allow GMO. In my child's case, I grew up eating whole foods, spent most of my life eating organic, whole foods.  He was not exposed to GMO as far as I know or in any case was exposed to a heck of a lot less than most other babies and he had signs of food allergies his first day of life.  I didn't eat anything that wasn't organic during my pregnancy as far as I know.

CM gave you very good information.

People do tend to feel better eating an organic, whole foods diet, with less processed foods.  That does not surprise me. 

If you have, say, Celiac, and you cut out gluten, you would feel better.  Are you certain you have not cut down on gluten?  Have you seen a GI doctor to rule out GI illnesses?  It would be unfortunate if you thought you had the answer and it wasn't and meanwhile you had some real condition that was not being addressed because you are looking in the wrong place.

And, I agree with CM that it is nice when people use 'food allergy' the way *allergists* do, not the way some non-allergists use it.  An IgE food allergy has a narrow definition and is tied to carrying epi pens and having to avoid serious, possible, life threatening reactions by strict avoidance of one's allergens.  What you describe is something else.  CM is right that those who deal with IgE food allergies can have the experience of not being taken seriously or not being taken seriously enough because people see people who can sometimes eat a food and then sometimes say they can't and call it an 'allergy'. 

ok i won't argue with you on stringent terminology here.  i just describe "food allergy" as medical experts in documentaries do, that's all.

but in my case, the symptoms aren't just once or twice but happened enough times.  they do include malaise ,strong discomfort, and digestive discomfort.  i was consistently well while on organic diet, too long a period to be coincidence. and you should consider that it isn't always possible to do sophisticated testing like you do in the lab.  sometimes you just have to do simple test like comparing one group with the other.

i would argue against placebo because it's not something weak like you can imagine it, its like you saying you can imagine coffee buzz, you cannot imagine the coffee effect no matter how hard you try.

and in terms of terminology, i 'm casually describing things and not going strictly by perfect scientific terminologies.

while i agree that there are cases where more the one factor is possible, i feel  the  experts i listened to provided persuasive arguments the food allergy connection to gmos.

as one expert pointed out, the rise in food allergy coincided with the introduction of gmos.  and when gmos were removed from diet, the patients get better.  if there were no connections, how can the changes be explained?  that's powerful evidence in of itself, of course more investigation would be helpful.

"GMO" really isn't a food allergen, if you see what I mean.

For it to be an ALLERGY, you need to understand what the mechanism is.  So, for example-- how does your immune system recognize when food is "GMO" and when it is "organic"?  I'm not aware of any mechanism that has been supported by preliminary investigation there and published after peer review. 

For other types of food allergies, such a mechanism DOES exist, and has been demonstrated to operate fairly robustly and predictably across a wide range of allergens and individuals.

My own body, for example, simply does not CARE whether my allergen has been lovingly and sustainably produced in a pristine natural setting, or if it has been produced under the most artificial, polluting, factory-processed conditions imaginable.

My immune system considers that allergen a threat just the same-- and I do mean just the same-- and would be willing to react by killing me in a few minutes over less than a gram of it either way.  Yes, really.  I agree that this is grossly unfair.  I would raise my own happy little allergen for the opportunity to eat some occasionally, I assure you, if this were not so.  The form doesn't really matter to my immune system.  It reacts with anaphylaxis no matter how awesome the food is, and no matter how wonderful it might be for the planet or another person without my allergies.

What kind of symptoms did your food allergy seem to elicit?    Food allergy symptoms are actually quite narrow in scope, involving skin, gastrointestinal tract, and more ominously, one's cardiovascular system and airways.  If your symptoms don't fit into that range very well, it's probable that the answer is not true food allergy.

If you feel better eating non-GMO, then that's great either way.  You've solved your problem, right?

I'd ask that you NOT refer to this as an allergy to others, however, unless you have been to a board-certified food allergy specialist and determined whether or not you need to carry epinephrine with you for the rest of your life.  You know, just in case someone were to, say, not take your allergy quite seriously enough when prepping food for you at that nice vegan restaurant that you wanted to try for your anniversary.  Hypothetically.     I realize this seems petty-- but-- I can really die if someone doesn't believe me or isn't careful enough to keep my food from TOUCHING one of my allergens.  So when someone says "food allergy" to a food service staffer, I'd really prefer it if they meant "I could die if you screw this up, thanks."  I'd especially like it if people working in schools think about food allergies that way, given what's at stake for kids with peanut, milk, or egg allergies there.

I'll add that many OTHER things strike me as being more or less compatible with your hypothesis that GMO foods in particular caused particular symptoms for you.   Incidentally-- a theory is (technically) something that has been extensively tested in many trials, usually independently and by many individuals, and explains a wide swathe of related phenomena... like gravity, or natural selection.  A single counter-example is enough to DIS-prove a hypothesis-- so if your hypothesis is that GMO foods are allergens for you personally, a counter example could probably be had via an in-office food challenge in which YOU do not know which food sample is which, but the physician DOES.  Does that make sense?  By the way, with potential IgE-mediated food allergy, this is not a DIY or at-home project, and I strongly discourage people from trying this on their own with a life-threatening allergen. 

Back to "other possible explanations" for improved health upon the removal of GMO foods:

When people begin to pay more attention to their dietary choices and choose less processed, more fresh options, overall health often improves as a result of better diet.  That's not to say that this is an unimportant result!  It's really great when people treat what they eat with more respect and put more thought into it, period.  I'm also (just personally-- nothing to do with food allergies in particular) a BIG fan of eating seasonally and locally when feasible, and I try very hard to make my family's choices sustainable and healthy ones, food allergies aside.

It's also possible that lifestyle factors unrelated to diet may have been the underlying cause of your recent improvement in health.  Did you also begin paying more attention to adequate exercise?  Get rid of a pet about the same time?  Move to a home that doesn't have a mold problem?  Move to an area of the country where you no longer have seasonal allergies at this time of year?

The placebo effect is also a potent factor in possible improvements in overall health.  People really DO feel better when they expect that they will.   This is why a food challenge-- even a food challenge for an IgE-mediated allergen-- is often conducted "blind" so that the patient doesn't know when they've been dosed with the allergen.

The problem with self-diagnosis/investigation like this is that human beings are highly susceptible not only to suggestion, but also to correlation fallacy-- that is, that because two things are somewhat coincident temporally, that one must be the cause of the other.  This is why a blinded, controlled experiment is important; if you can't reproduce the effect that you think is linked with the stimulus, then the linkage isn't valid. 

It's a problem even when diagnosing IgE-mediated food allergy.  Suppose that you go to visit a friend in another city, and s/he takes you out for a very nice dinner.  On the way back to his/her apartment, you anaphylax in the cab-- having rushed to the hospital and gotten emergency treatment, you return home to your own allergist to narrow down just what could have caused such a thing to happen to you.  Your allergist asks you to list EVERYTHING that you ate, came into contact with, or did in the two to three hours prior to reacting in that taxicab.  Okay, but the problem here is that the list is nearly endless.  ANY of those things *could* have been the trigger.  In my hypothetical example,

You caught a flight last minute-- direct from your city to your friend's.  S/he picked you up at the airport and you went directly to dinner-- GREAT sushi restaurant since you don't live on the coast and s/he does.  Dessert was also to die for (well, you'd have thought so then... now, you're not so sure about stating that )... started to walk, it being a nice night, figuring that you'd catch a cab "whenever" basically,  but you realized how LATE it was, and ran to flag down a random cab you spotted, so that you could get back to your friend's apartment to catch some ZZzz's before your very early flight home-- obviously, never making it there.  The cab smelled a little like air freshener, but not bad otherwise.

Can you pick out the potential triggers?  Some of them aren't in the story, because our erstwhile victim doesn't know about them-- or doesn't understand their importance.    What would you pick out right away as the most LIKELY thing?  Shellfish?  You'd be wrong.  (Hey-- it's my example, I can do what I want.)

[spoiler]Your allergist skin tests you for shellfish... and nothing happens.  Well, this is certainly puzzling.  Then the allergist checks your other allergies-- tree pollens, to which several are highly positive... decides to include some other environmental allergens.  Dust mites-- that might explain a cross-reactive thing with shellfish, but alas, it's negative too... okay, pets, then-- WHOAHHHH....  the skin prick test that ate half your back and resulted in your allergist giving you meds in less than five minutes!!  Cat allergy is the real trigger-- you don't own a cat, and haven't been around one in a long time, really-- because your dad was so allergic as a kid, and swore that he'd never have one in the house or he was "moving out for good."  He even knew when you and your friend tried to sneak a kitten into your bedroom once.  He was REALLY allergic.   Since living on your own you haven't had time for a pet, and really-- your parents visit, and your dad IS still horribly allergic.  You have allergies, too-- occasionally your nose will run or your eyes will get all puffy out of nowhere.  It's annoying, but it's never felt DANGEROUS before now.  You've developed asthma in the last four years-- every spring when the trees bloom you wheeze a little and take allergy pills like they're candy.  It's spring already in your friend's city, even though YOUR hometown still has snow on the ground-- there's a big old hit to your immune system-- TREE pollen, all at once, and you unprepared to deal with it, not having brought antihistamines with you to tamp it down.  The person in front of you on the plane had a cat in a carrier.   Your friend works in a bookshop WITH a cat, and was snuggling it before coming to pick you up at the airport-- first thing you two ?  Hug-hug-hug, yup.  Finally-- the cab driver also has a cat-- it rides in the cab with him to keep him company. Too. much. cat.  + too much tree pollen =    *boom*  [/spoiler]


How realistic is this example?  Pretty realistic, unfortunately.  It is very easy to incorrectly identify a food allergen as a trigger, and way harder to pin down an environmental cause of allergy symptoms. 

i guess there are people with allergies that are not gmo based.  in my case, i tested things and they seems compatible with gmo theory.  i gotten sick with some many processed food, but when i switch to the organic counterpart, i was fine.

my case may not apply to people with normal allergy to heirlooms though.

but nevertheless, i'm open to whatever people have to say...

Are you open to anything else or locked in to the idea it's GMO?

i just stumbled across this site .  my allergy is suspected to be gmo related.  anyone here in the same boat?  wondering if this is the right place for me.