More people try elimination diets

Elimination diets—which call for cutting out a certain food or group of foods—are having a moment. People often start the diets in an effort to cure a symptom that doesn't necessarily seem worth seeing a doctor about: headaches, skin irritation, joint pain, digestive problem or just feeling tired. Maybe cutting out certain foods will help, they think. Weight loss often isn't the primary motivation.

Eating in this manner is different than elimination diets intended to detect sometimes immediate and life-threatening allergic reactions, often done under close supervision of a doctor, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The idea behind these elimination diets is to help people identify more subtle, gradual reactions to common food groups such as dairy, soy, nuts, eggs, gluten, sugar and alcohol. They completely avoid those foods for a few weeks. Later each food is added back one by one to test the body's response.

After years of increasingly uncomfortable stomach cramps and other intestinal issues, Amanda Deming, a 35-year-old mother and legal assistant, saw a friend post rave reviews on Facebook about an elimination diet called the Whole 30. It recommends cutting out gluten (a protein found in wheat, barley, rye and other grains), dairy, sugar and sweeteners, white potatoes, alcohol, some food additives and even legumes and grains for 30 days. What's left? "You eat meats, fruits and vegetables," says Ms. Deming. Within two weeks of starting the regimen her stomach felt better.

She stuck with the eating habits past 30 days, even though it has been hard to skip her family's Friday pizza night.

Many elimination diet proponents suggest the regimen can help find the cause of leaky gut syndrome or increased intestinal permeability. The idea is that some foods irritate the intestines and cause food proteins to leak through the intestinal wall where they shouldn't be. Once there, the proteins come into contact with large numbers of immune cells that live just below the intestinal wall, says Dave Rakel, director of the University of Wisconsin Integrative Medicine Program.

"The immune system along the gut is triggered to see friend or foe," says Dr. Rakel. If foe, an immune attack begins causing inflammation that can move throughout the body, he says.

Dr. Rakel recommends a three-week elimination diet to patients with digestive problems, joint inflammation, asthma and reoccurring sinus infections, among other symptoms—but not to everyone. Overall, people should eat a "high-fiber, multicolored, whole-food diet," he says.

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter