An article in the excellent Latitudes magazine about 18 year old Eli who was diagnosed with Tourettes Syndrome after developing eye, noise, throat and head jerking symptoms when he was 7. By following the Feingold diet and eliminating chemicals from the family home Eli's tics were brought under control - except when he went back to school each January after the school carpets had been cleaned with a harsh chemical cleaner. Now 18 Eli, who has just accepted a scholarship to play college baseball at Wallace State CC, remains on the Feingold diet and aware of environmental triggers - and tic free.
Read Eli's full story here on Latitudes.

Dr Janice Joneja is recognised as a world expert on histamine intolerance – or, to be more accurate, histamine excess - a condition affecting up to 1% of the world's population but rarely recognised by conventional medicine. Her books on the conditon and their accompanying cookbook have been hugely successful on Amazon and are now available through a number of other outlets. See here for full details.

Helpful post on Allergy Insight blog on cobalt allergy - often linked with nickel allergy. Read more.

Pholcodine is a drug that is to be found in a wide range of cough medicines. Unfortunately pholcodine has a similar molecular structure to the muscle relaxing drugs which are routinely given to patients about to undergo operations. If that patient has recently (within the last year) had an allergic reaction to pholcodine they could easily react to a muscle relaxant administered prior to an operation. Read more....

In a recent BSACI on line symposium Professor Stephen Holgate called for urgent action to tackle the environmental causes of the global explosion in allergy cases: the loss of biodiversity, pollution, diet and urbanisation. A timely call but the evidence has been there for many years. Read on...

Trehalose intolerance is caused by a deficiency of the enzyme trehalase, which is required to break down the dietary sugar trehalose into glucose in the gut, for absorption. It is found mainly in mushrooms, particularly shiitake and oyster mushrooms, but also seaweed / algae, shellfish, insects, sunflower seeds and yeasts. As an additive, it is sometimes used to prolong the shelf life of dried food — especially in Japan. 5 September 22 For more see the Allergy Insight blog here.

John Scott who suffered for many years from Total Food Intolerance (finally resolved through Helminthic Therapy) has now started a Facebook group for Total Food Intolerance sufferers. As he says, ‘thanks to the complete lack of effective treatment options in the medical kit bag and typical dismissal of the condition as psychosomatic by medics, some sort of support group is desperately needed'. For more on Total Food Intolerance follow the links from this blog post. Read more.