Right diet is key to better health

Ruth Gorb
Hampstead & Highgate Express
Friday August 20 1999

When Dawn Hamilton was 11 she started doing yoga. This was considered eccentric in the early '80s and the dish of nut curry she presented to her family was pronounced disgusting.

Her interest in alternative health never left her, but being a clever and "sensible" girl she launched into scooping up a series of degrees that included a masters in accounting. Two years working in mergers and acquisitions in the City cured her of that line of business and taught her quite a bit about the effects of stress - which is, she discovered, the most researched subject in the world with 6,000 academic papers published each year.

She added to the avalanche by doing a PhD in stress and adopted a sideways angle: what about the managers who do not suffer from stress? What are their ways of working, their attitudes to life? She learned a lot and broadened her knowledge with courses in psychology, biofeedback and the subject that now preoccupies her more than any other - nutrition.

We know, of course, that we are what we eat. But a growing number of medical practitioners, orthodox and alternative, are suggesting that a considerable proportion of actual illness could be cured by the right diet.

Dawn Hamilton, who now runs a practice in nutrition consultancy says it is extraordinary what results can be achieved by investigating a body's intolerance to certain foods. "Quite often we crave what we cannot tolerate. Remove those foods and you have a few days of absolute hell. Then the craving goes. You eliminate the bad and bring in the good".

Forget the media scares about what is good food and what is bad. It is what is right for you personally that matters and that can usually be worked out with a rotation diet, whereby three or four foods are eliminated at a time.

Take the case, says Dr Hamilton, of a man who came to her with gastric problems, emotional ups and downs, and a history of binge eating. "I eliminated sugar, yeast and wheat from his diet and cut down on his dairy food. I got him to eat nuts and seeds and fruit - all of it aimed at balancing his blood sugar. In only a month he was feeling better, and was delighted - although he had said initially that he didn't think it was going to work".

It's like playing detective, she says - and it is detective work with a great many clues: before you even go for a consultation you will receive a questionnaire that goes into everything in your life from teeth grinding to poor night vision, and runs to six pages - "nobody has complained so far".
It is with this complete in-depth analysis of diet, lifestyle and health history in front of her that Dawn Hamilton first sees a patient. She looks for blood sugar problems and says that glucose intolerance is one of the most common problems she sees.

"Drowsiness, irritability, dizziness, craving for sweet food, mood swings - all of them happen when our blood sugar is out of control. The causes can be eating a diet that is high in sugar-loaded foods and lacking in complex carbohydrates, too many stimulants such as tea, coffee, and nicotine or it can be stress: a cup of coffee or a bar of chocolate can send your blood sugar sky high - so does stress, in exactly the same way".

The lifestyle of the 1990s, she says, is not conducive to good nutrition with its pattern of no breakfast, rushing about and hyping up on coffee and biscuits. Over-consumption of any food, though, can lead to intolerance. Take what for some might be considered a normal diet of Shredded Wheat for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, pasta for dinner - "just white flour packaged in different ways".

She is a devotee of high complex carbohydrates: brown rice, lentils, beans, whole grain bread - food that is as near as possible to the way it has been growing. And she sticks her neck out and says there are not many conditions that cannot be improved by a change of diet. Aching muscles or night cramps? It could be a deficiency of calcium and magnesium, so eat lots of green leafy vegetables, nuts and seeds. Depression can be greatly helped by the elimination of wheat. Even rheumatoid arthritis can be helped by strengthening the body's own immune system and she will look into diet for the reasons why that system has gone haywire.

She does not promise miracles; help rather than complete cure is what she offers. Nor does she suggest that you live on lettuce: food is there to be enjoyed, as long as your body hasn't gone seriously awry - and that goes for the occasional drink or two.

She is a shining example of her own philosophy: slim, clear-skinned and bright-eyed. She doesn't eat meat, but plenty of raw fruit and veg, grains and pulses, fish and lots of eggs - "full of iron and zinc, really good for you and studies show there is no correlation between cholesterol in food and cholesterol in your blood". Yes, she does take a supplement in the form of a multivitamin and mineral pill, but issues a warning: do not buy cheap brands from chain stores, as they are synthetic, contain fillers and additives, and are not as the formulation would be in nature. "Look at the label and go for high-quality brands".

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