Authors: Mark Hyman

The UltraMind Solution (94 page)

This means a complete 100 percent elimination of all gluten, no exceptions (not even a crumb), and all dairy foods (not even a drop in your tea) for a full six weeks.

That is enough time to feel better, and notice a change. And it is long enough that when you add it back, you will immediately see how you react to it.

At the end of the program, I will teach you how to systematically reintegrate gluten and dairy and test for reactions to see if they are contributing to your mental and brain problems.

But be warned: gluten and dairy (or other hidden allergens) may not cause symptoms for up to three days after eating them. That is why careful reintroduction of these foods and monitoring how you feel for three days is necessary.

In some cases, you may have to eliminate some foods you are sensitive to for a longer period of time or avoid them altogether if you want to maintain an UltraMind. I will explain all of this in more detail later, when I talk about food reintroduction.

The beauty of an elimination/reintroduction diet is that it gives you the power of knowledge—the power to know whether these items are contributing to your mental-health problems. Then you can make choices about what you eat and what you avoid based on your experience with food and how it affects you.

THE TOP FOOD ALLERGENS

While gluten and dairy are the most important allergens that lead to brain problems, there are a few other common allergens that may contribute to your health problems as well.

However, since these are not the most important or as common in creating brain problems, I have not addressed them in this program.

For an in-depth discussion of delayed food allergies and a comprehensive elimination diet, see
The UltraSimple Diet.
The following list constitutes the staples
of the American diet. It is also what we typically become allergic to if we have leaky gut lining.

If you do not experience relief by following the six-week program in this book just eliminating gluten and dairy from your diet, there may be other hidden culprits. Blood testing for IgG food allergens (
www.immunolabs.com
and other labs) may help you identify more uncommon foods that are responsible for symptoms. Or you can go on a more comprehensive elimination/reintroduction diet like the one outlined in
The UltraSimple Diet
to help you.

The top food allergens are:

Gluten (barley, rye, oats, spelt, kamut, wheat, triticale—see
www.celiac.com
for a complete list of foods containing gluten, as well as often surprising and hidden sources of gluten—salad dressing, soup, beer, etc.)