The process of ecological illness, leading to multiple allergies. It has become evident that many people in the Western World are developing chronic illness as a result of too many years on the over-refined Western diet. It appears that, although people who were fed wrongly during infancy are particularly prone to developing this problem, most people, in fact, will develop some form of ecologically-caused food intolerances during the course of their lives. The fact that this problem has not emerged en masse sooner, in our society, is probably because it is only during the past thirty years that manufactured and artificially processed foods have become the bulk of our daily diet.

The process of ecological illness can span years, even decades. That incredible mechanism, the body, can put up a very good fight for a very long time. The individual, being a fighter, keeps plugging along, coping with repetitive ailments, little realizing that he is inexorably developing a condition that will ultimately wreck his health. These days, once a person moves past thirty-five, it seems that a range of repetitive ailments, from backache to indigestion, have to be accepted as part of the ageing process. The fact that the body is becoming increasingly overloaded and is giving out warning signs, does not often appear to be recognized nor understood. These warnings are often the first signs of a weakening immune system, which if unheeded, will lead to complex food and chemical allergies, causing a further breakdown in health.

Dr Allen G. Grant of Charing Cross Hospital, London, reported, in the Lancet, on the study of sixty migraine patients. It was found that 78 per cent were allergic to wheat, 65 per cent to oranges, 40 per cent to tea and coffee, 45 per cent to eggs, 37 per cent to chocolate and milk, 35 per cent to beef, and 33 per cent to corn, cane sugar and yeast. Dr Grant found that, if these foods were eliminated from their diet, 85 per cent became free of headaches and the rest showed significant improvement. This work was supported by research at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, in London, where it was found that at least two thirds of severe migraine sufferers were allergic to certain foods. When these foods were removed from the diet, the headaches stopped.

Many elderly people, nowadays, are showing signs of ecological illness because their immune systems are less robust than a younger person's and the effects of the past thirty years have hit them first. They are told by their doctors that they must accept their recurring symptoms and their chronic fatigue, simply because they are getting old. They are not advised to examine their diet or eating habits and, accordingly, their later years are unnecessarily burdened with ill health. It has been shown overseas that a clean diet, free from processed and allergenic foods, can rebuild the immune system and, within a dramatically short time, restore elderly people to robust good health. Nathan Pritikin's now famous Longevity Centre, at Santa Monica, California, has been enormously successful in this field.

As time goes on, many younger people are beginning to show signs of the ecological allergy syndrome. Doctors' waiting rooms are evidencing increasing numbers of young people in their twenties and even younger, with recurring symptoms and health problems. Why is the percentage of young patients higher than, say twenty years ago? It seems that a growing intolerance to our artificial Western diet is the answer.