A Clear Voice

Partially digested food particulates can adhere to the gut wall and, when sufficient amounts gather, they can be absorbed through the cells of the gut and into the blood stream. Once in the blood stream a food particle can be carried to any organ or tissue, anywhere in the body, hence the wide spectrum of inflammatory conditions that can be attributed to food intolerance. These include: Migraine, Acne, Hayfever, Psoriasis and Eczema, IBS and Crohn's disease, PMS, Glue Ear and Hyperactivity.

The food particulates in the blood are marked for immune response and the first cell to react is the neutrophil. This cell is recognised as producing more than fifty different inflammatory chemicals and is able to produce a wide range of subtle responses. The neutrophil's responses can be so fast and so subtle and the cell itself is so small that responses are very difficult to measure.

The NuTron Test uses a haematology analyser to assess the degree and nature of neutrophil response in blood incubated with reconstituted food samples. It is thus possible to detect foods that produce a neutrophil response and to construct a diet that avoids them.

Ian's current explanation for the test sounds pretty much exactly the same.

The automated hematology analyzer is employed to interogate a blood sample that has been incubated with food and to compare it to a control sample i.e. a sample from the same person that has not been exposed to a food extract.

The state of the cells are carefully checked for sign of activation, the platelets are checked for activation, too. In this way, it possible to build up a picture of the response that will occur if the food is eaten.

Let’s just forget, for the moment, the questions of whether or not food particles (as opposed to more basic nutritional building blocks) really pass through the gut wall and float around in the blood stream. Let’s also forget about the question of whether or not a hematology analyzer can really detect the “fifty different inflammatory chemicals.”

Instead, let’s just do a search on the internet for “NuTron.”

Several articles from the Health Watch newsletter, as well as a blog article show up. Let’s look at this one.

"Don't be tempted by the Nutron diet - it’s a con," says Which? magazine (11/94). The £135 diet is provided by the Individual Diet Company, which tests your blood and devises a personal food sheet for you. The sheet excludes foods to which it says you have an intolerance.

Which? investigated the company's claims by sending in two blood samples from the same person under different names. The company sent back two diet sheets. One listed 20 foods to avoid, the other listed 12 to avoid - there were only five foods in common to both lists.

More dangerously, the company failed to notice that the investigator was intolerant to gluten and similar proteins because of coeliac disease.

In fact, Nutron listed gluten as safe to eat. It told Which? when challenged that the test could not be expected to pick up a gluten allergy.

The company also did not tell the sufferer to avoid rye, wheat and oats, all of which must be avoided in this condition.

Nutron claims that its diet will help solve problems from irritable bowel syndrome to obesity.

Experts told Which? that the diet may lead to loss of weight simply because it bans a lot of calorie-high foods.

The other articles say the same thing. This isn’t something I’d advise anyone to spend $25 on, let alone $1500 on. (Besides, other scam artists, apparently old associates of Ian Stoakes, will provide the same useless thing for half the price elsewhere.)

Of course supporters say "oh, there's naysayers everywhere." Yeah. Uh-hu. That sounds like a great excuse for sending back two very different reports on two blood samples for the same person. Hey - who needs repeatability? Certainly not valid scientific health care procedures or anything.

I must admit the only thing that really surprised me about this was how old the scam really was. I certainly wasn’t surprised that it really was a scam – it had all the hallmarks including, but not limited to, a refusal to discuss the credentials of the writer, a refusal to provide research supporting his claims, paranoid accusations of the money driven pharmaceutical industry and doctors hiding the information, claims that the only reason that hadn’t published research was a lack of money, calls to “take control of your own health” by trying this expensive and unproven technique, escalating costs as people are drawn in, personal attacks on people voicing skepticism, and a supposition that it’s up to skeptics to prove them wrong rather than up to them to prove themselves right.

Instead we were expected to believe this miraculous cure merely on the basis of a few testimonials. Testimonials are all well and good, but they don’t prove anything: only carefully controlled double blind placebo research does and I have a hard time beliving that after over 10 years they haven't managed to scrounge together enough money for a study. The people testifying to the success of the program could be lying, or they could not. But either way their weight loss and other successes are mostly likely due to the placebo effect or the result of going on a very restrictive diet, rather than a result of avoiding an allergy to lettuce.

I don't care if one person or one million people swear by this method, that doesn't provide a lick of proof to its efficacy. The number of positive newspaper articles containing glowing testimonials also mean nothing. Reporters are no more or less guilible than anyone else. (Thousands of people have also believed in the healing power of everything from arsenic to distilled water.) Indeed the proponents don't provide ANY proof and instead expect you to just take them on their word.

Check out the next post for what the research REALLY says about PCOS and inflammation, as well as more reasons why you shouldn't trust Ian Stoakes.