The allergy alternative

Health Correspondent Barry Nelson considers how we are rising to the challenge.

GEORGIE Ashwell endured nearly 20 years of misery because of an undiagnosed intolerance of dairy products. She visited doctors, chemists and health shops and tried every pill and potion on offer.

"I had resigned myself to a life of suffering," says Georgie, who works as a learning mentor at a school in Stockton. In desperation she turned to Pam Bracken, a complementary therapist working in the unconventional field of applied kinesiology. After just one visit to Pam's clinic in Bradbury, near Sedgefield, Georgie's life changed for ever.

"I have not got a clue what Pam did to me but after one visit my symptoms vanished. She explained that I had a dairy intolerance. Every aspect of my life has changed since that day and I can honestly say that I feel like a new person."

Georgie Ashwell's experience is all too common in modern Britain, where allergies of every kind are on an apparently unstoppable rising curve.

Latest estimates suggest that 18 million Britons suffer from an allergy.

While many sufferers find relief through conventional medicine, increasing numbers of patients are turning to the complementary health sector.

A month ago a report by the Global Initiative for Asthma showed that the UK has a higher percentage of 13 and 14-year-olds who suffer asthma symptoms than anywhere else in the world. About 30 per cent of English children in this age bracket have experienced asthma symptoms, rising to 37 per cent in Scotland.

Doctors and health campaigners have called for more to be done to help people manage their symptoms and reduce NHS costs and for more research to be carried out to try to identify what is triggering allergies.

Views are divided among scientists but there seems to be increasing evidence that the rise in allergies could be linked to the way we live and our environment.

Sir Tom Blundell, chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, argues: "Given our understanding of the way chemicals interact with the environment, you could say we are running a gigantic experiment with human and all other living things as the subject."

One way of responding to this public health challenge might be to make complementary health more accessible to the general public.

While therapies such as applied kinesiology - which has its origins in traditional Chinese medicine and involves gentle muscle testing to look for "imbalances" in the body - are sometimes dismissed by medical and scientific figures, individual patients often find that they get some benefit.

That's the view of no less a figure than the heir to the throne.

Writing recently in The Guardian newspaper, Prince Charles outlined his own, controversial views on how the UK should respond to the allergy epidemic.

"It seems extraordinary to me that despite a recent poll indicating that 75 per cent of people would like complementary medicine to be available to all on the NHS, there are still only a handful of clinics offering integrated healthcare for free. Indeed 90 per cent of complementary medicine is only available to those who can afford to pay for it."

The Prince argues that we should take allergy more seriously, considering that scientists have predicted that half the population of Britain will be affected by an allergy by 2015.

In the short-term, he says, we should improve its management and increase the resources given to specialist allergy services in the NHS.

But the Prince of Wales also suggests that more credence should be given to "traditional approaches" such as acupuncture, homeopathy, herbal medicine and controlled breathing, which have all been shown to help control the symptoms of asthma. The Royal Household has recently appointed an alternative health practitioner, whose private clinic offers treatments including acupuncture, yoga and aromatherapy.

The pressure group he founded, the Foundation for Integrated Health, is hoping to work with the Royal College of Physicians and other groups to explore whether a more integrated approach can be adopted.

Crucially, HRH argues that we need to look at the big picture.

"Allergy is about lifestyle - what we eat and touch, and what we breathe. There are some things we can do individually, but collectively we need to create an environment that causes less allergy in the first place," writes the Prince.

WHILE Pam Bracken agrees that a more integrated approach needs to be taken towards the way that complementary medicine works alongside conventional medicine, many doctors and scientists are far from convinced.

Dr Chris Baldwin, a senior lecturer in immunology at the University of Northumbria, is sympathetic to the notion that what works should be given credit but believes there should be more research to stand up or knock down claims by alternative practitioners.

"If something works for a patient, why not try it? There is some evidence that herbal medicines do have very potent active ingredients. After all, aspirin came from the Birch tree," says Dr Baldwin.

While he accepts that there is documentary evidence that something like acupuncture can help relieve symptoms of asthma he is less sure about some other therapies, such as applied kinesiology.

"I have done some work in this area. There is no documented scientific rationale for the diagnostic efficacy of applied kinesiology. Nothing has ever been published to show that it works.

"If people want to go along and try these therapies that is fine but I do worry when people are told that this is the cure. They part with money but there is no documentary proof that it works," he says.

Dr Baldwin would like to see more rigorous testing of complementary therapies but accepts that it is difficult to attract funding in these areas.

The lecturer says that allergy is being taken increasingly seriously by the NHS.

"Recently we have seen new senior hospital posts created for allergy specialists, to be known as allerologists. They will be separate from the existing immunologists and be trained in the diagnosis and treatment of allergy."

As for the reasons why allergy problems are affecting more and more of us, Dr Baldwin says the jury is still out.

"I see lots of different scientific journals and every month you can see ten different papers coming up with different views. There is no real consensus at the moment," he says.

Suspicions remain that the underlying cause is probably to do with modern lifestyle factors.

"One that people find very interesting is the hygiene hypothesis, the idea that people today are not exposing themselves to things like bacteria in the way they used to."

This view is based on the idea that the human immune system needs to be kick-started early in life if it is to function normally as an adult.

"We know that children who live on farms are less likely to get allergies and asthma and we know second and third children in families seem to be protected because it is the first child who comes home with infections," he adds.

Pam Bracken shares the concerns of the Prince of Wales over the increasing pollution in our bodies and the poor quality of food we eat today. Using the system of diagnosis developed by the inventor of applied kinesiology, Dr Charles Goodheart, 30 years ago, Pam says she can often uncover food allergies which have laid undetected for years.

She accepts that conventional doctors might find the ideas behind her chosen therapy difficult to understand but points to the numerous testimonials from satisfied former clients.

"We are really busy. More and more people are discov ering the benefits of what we do," says Pam, who now runs the Northern School of Kinesiology from her home.

The tension between the two wings of medicine is unlikely to go away but recent changes, such as the decision by the NHS to recognise new national occupational standards for alternative practitioners and this week's announcement that acupuncture and herbal medicine are to be more tightly regulated, may help to heal the divisions. With an estimated one in five of the population currently using alternative medicine regularly, the country is voting with its feet.