Nutrition and allergy interact in a lot of ways. First, many allergic people may have trouble meeting all their nutritional requirements. Food allergies may force some to eliminate foods that customarily supply a large portion of their needs for particular vitamins or minerals. People who can’t drink milk or eat dairy products, for instance, may get too little calcium.

People who are allergic to citrus fruits may not be getting enough vitamin C. A few astute doctors and dietitians are also discovering that, because of the drain on the body created by allergies, people with allergic problems may have special needs for more of certain vitamins and minerals – and that those nutrients may even help to control allergy.

But the amounts of a vitamin or mineral that are needed to deal with allergic problems are often so high that a person needs to rely on supplements. People with food allergies, however, need to choose supplements as carefully as they choose their foods, to avoid dyes or other ingredients that may trigger reactions.

At this writing, only a few people in this country have taken a serious look at the interlocking aspects of nutrition and allergy. Those who have, however, say that proper nutrition – makes quite a difference in allergy control. Lyn Dart, a registered dietitian and supervisor of the nutrition department of the Environmental Health Center in Dallas, told us, ”We’ve been working with nutrition for about two years. Without it, we aren’t as effective.”

Vitamin C to the Rescue

The need for vitamin C seems to be greater in some allergic people, ”Ms. Dart told us. ”For many people, large doses of vitamin C – up to eight grams taken orally, divided over three or four hours – will break a reaction. ”That’s a lot of vitamin C in anyone’s book,” she commented. ”But it's at that point that the reaction or the symptoms subside.”

To determine the approximate amount of vitamin C required to break an allergic reaction in an individual, Ms. Dart works gradually. First she tries three grams, then another gram, until the symptoms subside (Ms. Dart cautions that because such large doses of ascorbic acid can cause stomach or intestinal upsets, people should use the ascorbate forms of vitamin C instead).

”The average dose to break a reaction is five to eight grams,” says Ms. Dart. ”It's hard to say how the vitamin works – whether it's because of it's antioxidant capabilities (which prevent cell damage), the fact that is boots the immune system or the vitamin’s antihistamine action. But we use it on regular basis.”

Mows Down Hay Fever

For hay fever, at least, the way vitamin C works is quite clear: it acts as a natural antihistamine, helping to relieve the red, watery eyes, runny nose and congestion provoked by histamine. Researchers in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn studied 400 people, and found that with higher blood levels of vitamin C, histamine was lower – and vise versa.

When 11 people with low vitamin C/high histamine levels were given daily supplements of 1,000 milligrams (one gram) of vitamin C, their hay fever symptoms improved three days (Journal of Nutrition, April, 1980). Stuart Freyer, M.D., an ear nose and throat specialist in Bennington, Vermont, prescribes vitamin C for hay fever and gives his patients relatively high amounts of the nutrient. ”Five grams or more is typical,” he told us.

Incidentally, Dr. Freyer advises anyone taking that much C to take calcium, too. ”High levels of vitamin C may bind with calcium and pull it out of the bones. It's then flushed out in the urine when the body discards any excess vitamin C,” he explains. ”Vitamin C may also combine with calcium in the diet to interfere with absorption.

”There should be no problem with calcium deficiency if a person uses vitamin C in the calcium ascorbate from rather than it's simple ascorbic acid from, or if the ascorbic acid is supplemented with adequate amounts of calcium,” he assured us. ”I usually recommend that any patients take 400 to 600 milligrams of dolomite calcium a day during hay fever season.”

Bioflavonoids and B Vitamins Boost Vitamin C

To get the most of your vitamin C during hay fever season, take it with citrus bioflavonoids. Studies done on animals have shown that citrus bioflavonoids may favorably alter the body’s metabolism of vitamin C, raising the concentration of the nutrient in certain tissues and enhancing it's availability to the body (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, August, 1979).

Brian Leibovitz, a nutritional consultant in Portland, Oregon, has found citrus bioflavonoids to be the answer to many a hay fever victim’s prayers. One hay fever sufferer in particular weathered every summer indoors, knowing that only the first frost would free him from his air conditioned prison. Killing the ragweed that disabled him. Meanwhile, he took prescription antihistamines – eight a day. Yet he still suffered.

Leibovitz recommended a nutritional program that included six grams of citrus bioflavonoids a day. A few week later, during the height of hay fever season, the young man no longer required dugs to control his hay fever symptoms. ”More than once, I’ve had hay fever patients who did not respond to vitamin C recover when given citrus bioflavonoids,” Leibovitz told us.

Dr. Freyer also has found that vitamin C works better when accompanied by B-complex vitamins, especially panthothenic acid. ”I recommend 200 to 500 milligrams of panthothenic acid, plus another 50 milligrams of B-complex,” he says, ”Sometimes, when a patient has impaired absorption – and many people with allergies do – I also give pancreatic enzymes. These help to break down the foods so vitamins can be absorbed better.”

Asthma Yields to Vitamins and Magnesium

Asthma is sometimes a consequence of uncontrolled hay fever – and can also respond quite well to bioflavonoids, says Leibovitz. ”In fact, the standard treatment for asthma, a drug called cromolyn sodium, is nothing more than a synthetic bioflavonoids molecule.”

And, as with hay fever, vitamin C is a tremendous boon to asthmatics. In one study, asthmatics who took 1,000 milligrams (one gram) of vitamin C a day had less than one fourth as many asthma attacks as those receiving an inactive, fake pill.

When they stopped taking vitamin C, however, they once again suffered the same number of asthma episodes as the untreated people (Tropical and Geographical Medicine, vol. 32, no. 2, 1980). The protective role of vitamin C in asthmatics is also discussed in Allergy Drugs and Their Alternatives.

Some exciting new research shows that magnesium may also help ease breathing difficulties of asthma. Zack H. Haddad, M.D., professor of allergy and immunology at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, evaluated 30 children with allergic asthma.

Twenty of the children were then supplemented with a half liter a liter (about two to four cups) a day of magnesium rich mineral water (appolinaris, Hepar and Vittel Brands). The other ten children continued as usual, with no extra source of magnesium. After three months, the magnesium rich water rose in the children who drank the magnesium rich water, and they could breathe more freely (Annals of Allergy, abstract no. 19, April, 1982).

Calcium and Iron Are Often Neglected

Aside from the special need for calcium crated by vitamin C supplements, calcium is of special concern for people with milk allergies or lactose intolerance. ”We see low calcium levels across the board in people on allergy restricted diets, in all age groups,” say Lyn Dart oh her work with food allergy patients.

Nondairy foods do contain reasonable amounts of calcium. The thing is, you’d have to eat 6 cups of broccoli, or 2½ cups of almonds – or comparable quantities of similar foods – to meat the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for calcium of 800 milligrams.

”So we rely on supplements of calcium gluconate of other calcium complexes if an individual can tolerate that,” says Ms. Dart. ”Iron is the next deficiency that shows up frequently in people (especially women) on Rotary Diets or other food allergy diets,” Ms. Dart continued. ”It's difficult enough for them to meat, a woman requirement 18 milligrams. Even on an unrestricted diet, a woman has to be very careful to meat the daily quota.

With food allergies, women have to try extra hard. In fact, it's almost impossible. ”So we have to supplement with iron, in the form of either fumarate, citrate, gluconate or sulfate,” she told us. ”But I don't like to give iron alone. I recommend a combination of iron, vitamin C, vitamin B6 and B12, folic acid and manganese (often marked ”hematinic” iron on the label).

”Selenium is another nutrient that many of our allergic patients are low in,” Ms. Dart told us. ”I think that’s because the immune system in these people are highly taxed, so the nutrients that are depleted are those that hard work in the immune system – selenium and vitamin C.” Dr. Dart also mentioned that vitamin A, C and B6+, thiamine, and niacin seem to run consistently low in allergic people.

Eczema Improves with Zinc

Zinc is a key nutrient in skin health. When combined with vitamins A, D and E, plus essential fatty acids, zinc can help speed healing of eczema, one of the most common forms of allergy. Jonathan V. Wright, M.D. of Kent, Washington, has used zinc centered therapy successfully in over 40 people.

Basically, zinc therapy begins at 50 milligrams, three times a day, combined with 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C twice a day. During acute flare-up a tablespoon of cod liver oil (containing vitamin A, D and E) is added. After the eczema begins to subside, therapy is reduced to 25 milligrams of zinc a day, 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C a day, and daily cod liver oil in winter.

Zinc therapy takes from three week to six months to take effect, depending on the stubbornness of the rash. To speed healing, Dr. Wright recommends the addition of essential fatty acids, sesame and others ”Very recently, research work has uncovered the zinc essential fatty acid connection – showing zinc to be crucial to the transformation of some of the nutritionally derived fatty acids to their active form,” explains Dr. Wright.