CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME / CFS (M.E.)

Welcome to www.nutritionhelp.com

Did you know that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / CFS (or M.E. if that is the diagnosis you’ve been given) can often be helped by Nutritional Therapy? In my clinical practice, I have seen it happen time and time again - and now you can receive tailor-made advice online from www.nutritionhelp.com!

My name is Erica White. I’m Nutritional Director of Nutritionhelp, a Fellow of the Institute for Optimum Nutrition and an Honorary Fellow of the British Association for Applied Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy. I’m also the author of the “Beat Fatigue Handbook”, and in 2005 I had a research paper published by the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine reporting some very successful research into my work with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I have now retired from clinical practice, but we have set up an online Questionnaire and Report system which can give you all the advice you need, with an optional facility to have contact with one of our associate team of qualified Nutritionists.

I’m going to answer a few questions about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / M.E. which I hope might be helpful to you.

Q.. So, Erica, what exactly is CFS or ME?

For a start, they are two names for the same illness, and I believe they are just ‘umbrella terms’ which cover a great many possible symptoms that can vary from person to person - apart from chronic fatigue, which is the common denominator. And all the symptoms have many different causes – so we’re not talking about just one condition which can be given just one label. Specific situations within the umbrella need to be identified – and then tackled – because each of them creates a load on the immune system, causing it to weaken and break down, as well as affecting a wide range of other systems in the body, including the digestive system, the nervous system, muscles and joints, the hormonal system, and so on.

Q. How did you first realise that there were various causes involved?

Forty years ago, having struggled with my health throughout my life, I became even more ill than usual and stayed that way for a whole year – weak, sick and aching, unable to care for my young family. Today, I am certain I would be diagnosed with CFS/ME. At the end of a year we discovered that I was allergic to North Sea gas which had just been piped into our neighbourhood and our house! That particular load on my immune system was allergy, and all our gas appliances had to be removed from our house before I started to feel better. But the point was that I had already been struggling enormously with my health because, totally unrecognised at the time, my immune system was having to cope with an unsuspected overgrowth of Candida in my body together with horrendously low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia). In other words, my immune system was already so severely over-loaded by Candida and the effects of my poor nutritional status that it broke down completely when faced with the new gas; it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and this is so often the case.

Q. So you are saying that allergy, yeast infection and low blood sugar are three of the possible factors which can lead to a weakened immune system and open the door to CFS/ME. Do you think there are even more factors involved?

Yes I do. In fact, I believe there are ten possible factors, any of which might play its part in the onset of this illness: a virus, allergy, nutritional deficiencies, negative lifestyle factors (like burning the candle at both ends), inefficient thyroid function, stress and exhausted adrenal glands, hypoglycaemia, toxicity and hyperventilation. That makes nine - and in my experience of many hundreds of sufferers, whatever the combination of other predisposing factors they each might have, there has without fail been one factor which they all had in common – yeast infection, or an overgrowth of Candida albicans.

Q. Do you believe that there is hope for a full recovery from CFS?

I really do. For people who discover and then find ways of removing specific loads from their immune system – as I did, eventually – there is a great deal of hope that they will make a full recovery. My research project showed encouraging improvement in the space of one year in 83% of participants; one lady became 100% well in just eight months! Full recovery does not usually happen as quickly as that, but it has certainly been achieved in an enormous number of my clients who have persevered with their nutritional programme.

Q. What do you think is the main reason that you yourself were eventually able to become well?

For most of my life I ate lots of sugar and junk foods – with devastating consequences. In particular, I was encouraging my resident Candida to thrive and invade my body. It really wasn’t at all surprising that I was ill all the time. But then I discovered that it really is never too late for things to change, and I found ways to take control of the situation by learning how to improve my nutritional status, regulate blood sugar levels, overcome allergies – and bring Candida under control. At the age of 53, I had become so well that I started three years of training in Nutritional Therapy and then set up an extremely busy practice. I realised that if my appalling health could be turned around to such a remarkable extent, there was hope for others as well – and that’s exactly what I’ve seen.

Q. So what would you say to someone who has been given a medical diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or M.E. ?

Well, I certainly don’t want to raise false hopes and of course we can make no claims for you as an individual, but it is true to say that I have seen very many people make a full recovery through following carefully-formulated nutritional advice.

Maybe you would like to consider having an online analysis and report from www.nutritionhelp.com. A detailed Questionnaire will enable personalised advice to be prepared for you, based on my clinical experience over nearly twenty years.

For just £47 you will receive an extremely detailed report giving tailor-made nutritional advice to help you on your road to recovery. Read how the system works on www.nutritionhelp.com/quest_more.php.

Register now for an online Questionnaire on www.nutritionhelp.com.

I wish you well.

Erica White, Dip.ION, FBANT
Nutritional Director, Nutritionhelp Ltd