Nascent Naturopath Has the Answer
from Peter C.

In the last three months my psoriasis has just broken out, a lovely eighteenth birthday surprise.  It flared up after a case of heavy strep throat. 

I was visiting my sister this holiday, she's studying to become a Naturopath, and she said to me after I told her I had been diagnosed and been doing a lot of research on the net, “Those people who run web sites on psoriasis know nothing.  Psoriasis isn't caused by genetics, it's the diet.  If you don't eat healthy your body causes skin conditions like psoriasis.” 

I have yet to speak to her again... the ass.

*****

Ed’s Response:  Well, your sis is not alone in her belief.  And enough people have been helped by the diet therapies that it would be silly for anyone to say to your Sis, “You know not what of you speak.”  That said, the diet detractors make a strong case, too.  If you haven’t already, read Dave W.’s Anti-P Diet arguments.  They are thought provoking.

The whole argument makes me sigh.  Our diet is our fuel source and what and how we metabolize the food we eat was naturally worked out tens of thousands of years before fast foods, additives, dietary supplements in pills and potions were concocted.  We are not born with “how to feed” instructions sewn onto our lower lip.  In the past 25 years we have probably learned more about the way we metabolize what we eat than in all previous millennia combined.  And I think it’s safe to say we are still in the “opening doors” stages of discovery.   

The particular “loose end” that bothers me most about the arguments in favor of diet therapies for P is this.  Most of the diet therapists claim our P is a consequence of not eating well, but this does not explain the heartbreaking formula-fed P-babies, those infants who manifest P without having years of bad eating habits. 

Diet is a valid approach to managing P for some people.  That’s the weight I give it.

So, don’t be too hard on your sister.  We don’t know that she won’t become your ticket to lesion-free living.  :)  -Ed

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