Covid-19 & Health Update: Wheat Sensitivity and Immune Health

RVAchironeuro • September 27, 2021

Hello again Everyone and Happy Fall:

  As you may know, we are all in a war with inflammation and infection. A major cause of unidentified food sensitivities that leads to gut inflammation can also potentially create nutritional deficiencies critical to maintaining optimal immune function. Standard methods of detecting gluten induced gut damage (endoscopy…a scope to look down into the intestines) fail to detect wheat sensitivity, and thus the authors suggest that using a withdrawal method might still be the best way to identify hidden food sensitivities. (1) You may have seen my previous blogs on the Modified Elimination Diet, also known as Whole 30 and other iterations. Fundamentally, you simply remove the most common inflammatory foods from your diet for at least 3o days (I find that 120 days is much better) and then re-introduce the food and note any symptoms. You can find more about this on my website under Resources and look for the Elimination Diet Plans.

As it turns out, even low-grade inflammation will negatively affect our digestion and may result in malabsorption of critical nutrients. (2) This may happen with or without obvious symptoms. For example, malabsorption of the essential mineral zinc can have very bad effects on many systems, especially the immune system. In these pandemic times, none of us can afford to have a sub-optimal immune system. (3)

Bottom Line:

If you want to optimize your health, consider going on the Elimination Diet for 90 to 120 days. This is the most recommended program that I use to help people overcome chronic inflammation. If you don’t create an optimal, anti-inflammatory food plan, no amount of supplements or exercise will overcome the inflammation you create. Thus, you may benefit from this if you have any chronic, nagging health issues (large or small) that you would like to see improve. You can find out more about this approach at link numbers 4 through 6 below.

Right now, in this evolving pandemic, it is even more urgent to address a new model for post-pandemic wellness that emphasizes our individual and collective responsibility to actively take care of our own health and wellness to secure a safer and brighter future. It is certainly more than worthy of the investment in your time. In case you are not aware of this, poor diet is the leading driver of death in our country.

 

By Mark Smith December 22, 2025
Health News Update: Tending Your Temple 12.22.25 Hello everyone, and Merry Christmas to you! Health Update: Predictable Crisis Hello everyone: As we celebrate this Holy time and the start of a new year, I want to just speak to you heart to heart. Most of us know that our physical body has been deemed to be the Temple for us to experience this worldly life. Additionally, we are meant to be stewards and caretakers of this awesomely wrought and magnificent Temple. While this may mean different things to each of us, most of us agree that taking care of the Temple involves a health promoting lifestyle. From interviewing thousands of patients, I have seen that deep within each of us there is a feeling or a knowingness of how well we are tending our Temple. And what emerges from these discussions is that most of us have never been taught or shown or educated on the concept of the need to be good stewards and how to do that. For me as a healthcare practitioner, science allows me to peer into God’s creation and be filled with awe and wonder. And yet as great as science has gotten at treating the leading causes of death and disability, it seems to have forgotten that recovery depends upon our innate healing abilities which in turn depends upon our food choices. Chronic unhealthy food choices really do affect your quality of life as well as what diseases or disabilities you may get, along with your ability to recover from them or to even prevent them. On top of that, science now recognizes how food choices have shifted over time and how this is leading to environmental destruction and contributing to climate change. The old saying “Let Food Be Thy Medicine” now applies to each of us as well as the planet. We Have Created a Predictable Crisis Nowhere can this be as easily seen as with the mismatch we are creating between what our body needs and what we are feeding it. Poor food choices, lack of physical activity, and stress drive the leading causes of death and disability. These facts are undeniable, and science has verified this many times over. What do we think will happen when we put diesel fuel into the gas tank? What are we thinking when we put drive-through into a Holy Temple? Each of us can do better and we all should try every day. Poor nutrition is now known to be the leading cause of death and chronic illness…and thus massive and needless suffering. Today, 8 out of 10 of the causes of death and disability are chronic inflammatory degenerative illnesses that are caused, perpetuated, aggravated, and sustained by food choices. Our societies current reactive approach to health care, without improving the underlying health of the patient, is expensive and has led us to the era of predictable yet unnecessary chronic illness, death, and disability. I am truly fortunate to have witnessed people recover their health through simple dietary upgrades. These people were patient, committed, and took one small step at a time until they had transformed their health, their kitchen, and in many cases, they assisted in the transformation of their entire family to better health and wellbeing. This transformation is available to you, too. If you have a chronic health condition, or want to avoid one, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by going predominantly plant based. Go into this upgrade with a 100% commitment for 6 months and see how it goes. Don’t you owe it to yourself to live a life congruent with your true nature? Shouldn’t we have the self-respect to make the best choices as to how we tend our Temple? Simply by making your food choices compatible with your nature, it is possible for you to massively improve your health and simultaneously feel better about your stewardship of the Temple and the planet that sustains it. Consider for a moment, how good it will feel to live in alignment with your true Nature. If you can imagine that, then you can achieve it! All of us here at Richmond Chiropractic Neurology wish everyone a healthy, safe, happy, and loving Holy Day and Blessed New Year!
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