Female speaker: Allergies are a real common problem Dr. Ferguson. What are some natural treatments for them?
Dr. Todd Ferguson: Now when I think about allergies there's different categories. There's environmental allergies, say the pollens or trees. There's food allergies and those can be immediate say like you eat a peanut and you swallow up and almost die or they can be delayed even up to 4 days. So it's hard to figure out which food is causing that symptoms. But yeah, you're right, they're are very common and most of them involved over production of histamine and inflammation and so then the treatments are to down regulate that.
Female speaker: Anti-histamine.
Dr. Todd Ferguson: Anti-histamines and anti-inflammatory that conventionally some like Benadryl is used because it's anti-histamine. But natural treatments there are a lot and they are pretty effective. One would be a flavonoid when I call Quercetin. It's ubiquitous among the plant kingdom. It's found in all kinds of fruits and vegetables mainly the outside red part of red apples and onions, it's found in capers, green leafy vegetables, dark berries. But it can be taken as a supplement as well and it down regulates histamine response but it's also anti-inflammatory at some of the same levels as steroids and aspirin work. But it's very safe and it can help --.
female speaker: Quercetin.
Dr. Todd Ferguson: Quercetin that's what it's called. It's a yellow flavonoid and makes things look kind of yellowish. Another and then there's lot of flavonoids like a hesperetin and rutin that also helpful and that are also found together. Along the flavonoid line is also you can food wise eat dark berries, blue berries, black berries, raspberries or you can get concentrated forms of those that can be really helpful at modulating that histamine response.
Herbs that are helpful one is called Tinospora. It's an Indian herb that's been shown to be helpful for allergic rhinitis like running nose, teary eyes type thing and there are various products that contain that. Other herbs that have been traditionally used is nettles known as stinging nettles. If you brush across that it stings you and hurts but in a food form or in capsule form it doesn't have that effect but it's basically an anti-histamine as well as some like vitamin C has anti-histamine effects. You know so if it's due to outside allergen, you try to avoid that . There's also a desensitization type of protocols that you can do to make your response to those less. But I find that a lot of people are food sensitive to these too and that's a contributing factor.
Female speaker: It is.
Dr. Todd Ferguson: And you can figure out your food sensitivities by doing an elimination challenge diet where you eliminate almost all foods but say 4 or low allergenic foods and then once every four days enter in a new food and see what you react to. The easier way is blood test. You can have your blood drawn and have a test run and there's several different types of blood tests. Some are more effective than others but it's good to get your food sensitivities out of the way because those can be contributing to that excess histamine response and inflammation response.
Female speaker: And air purifiers and things like that?
Dr. Todd Ferguson: Yes, air purifiers can be helpful especially for people with airborne sensitivities and people with asthma. If you had to get one air purifier and put it one place it would be in the bedroom because that's where you spend a third of your day and breathing is in your bedroom. So a good idea -- if you can it's better to have say a wood floor than a carpeted floor, have an air purifier and you know keep air exchanging in your house often to make the air cleaner and those things should be helpful for allergies.
Female speaker: Thank you very much!
Dr. Todd Ferguson: You are welcome!
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