Dr. med. Johannes Engesser

High total score in the Cytolysa test as a correlation to food intolerances in connection with the acid-base balance

Experience has shown that the Cytolisa test is an effective tool: Patients with digestive difficulties and associated diseases such as nutrient deficiency due to absorption disorders, loss of immune incompetence in the sense of a lack of defense or excessive reactions such as allergies and autoaggressive diseases, such as rheumatic diseases, are given a highly specific orientation for food selection. It can sometimes lead to a rapid improvement in symptoms without having to resort to medication with many side effects. Despite the help provided by avoiding incompatible foods, the question of what the actual cause of the diagnosed intolerances is still remains unanswered. With the following considerations, observations and practical experience, I try to contribute to tracing the chain of these causes in stages.

Permeability of the intestinal mucosa due to overload – with optimal digestion there are no immune reactions

Digestion begins with the selection of food, continues with preparation, smelling, tasting, chewing, salivating and swallowing in portions. All these digestive steps are very important preparations for the next one: the breakdown of proteins into their building blocks, the amino acids, in the stomach. This is because they all promote the secretion of the components of gastric juice in the correct composition. The responsible enzyme in the gastric juice, pepsin, is activated by acid from pepsinogen. As anyone who is familiar with heartburn knows, stomach acid is also produced in the stomach itself.

This splitting of the proteins contained in food is relevant insofar as amino acids, in contrast to proteins, cannot usually cause intolerance reactions in the sense of the Cytolisa test. This is because proteins that are not or not completely broken down enter the bloodstream through an intestine that is too permeable after overstraining. There, the immune system attempts to take over what digestion has not achieved in its own way: Specific immunoglobulins bind the corresponding food proteins in order to break them down in further steps or expel them from the body again. Cross-reactions with the body’s own tissue, excessive release of histamine and other messenger substances of the immune system can cause senseless inflammation and a depletion of the immune system’s resources, a weakening. Repeated contact of the blood with proteins that do not belong there causes the immune system to respond with a kind of memory function: repeated ingestion of incompatible food proteins can cause an increase in the corresponding immunoglobulins, which bind them specifically. The binding of immunoglobulins to individual proteins is different and depends on the individual immune system of each person. It can be analyzed individually in the Cytolisa test. The sum of the percentage specific bindings forms the unspecific total score. It measures the severity of general IgG-related food intolerance.

This means that if digestion is optimal and the proteins are completely broken down into their amino acids, there can ideally be no binding of immunoglobulins to dietary proteins. Then there should no longer be any food intolerances in the sense of the Cytolisa test.

Lack of energy, tired, reflux of bile, intermittent multiple sclerosis

Against this background, we were able to observe and experience the following with a patient in my general practice: Just under a year ago, the then 52-year-old father of a family came to us for treatment. His tonsils were surgically removed when he was 8 years old. Decades ago, he had already undergone an amalgam clean-up without a discharge. After a reactive depressive disorder due to family problems five years ago, he had initially recovered when his gall bladder was surgically removed four years ago. Due to a leiomyoma, a benign tumor, a large part of his stomach was removed. This resulted in peristaltic problems with reflux of bile into his residual stomach. A year later, she was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Immunosuppressive treatments preceded recurrent respiratory and urinary tract infections, repeated antibiosis of an intestinal mycosis. The patient suffered from severe back pain that radiated forwards like a band and improved with bowel movements. A year ago he had surgery on his throat because of snoring. He complained of kidney pain. A constant nausea always improved when urinating. When he came to us, he was so drained of energy and tired that he couldn’t leave the house without strong psychostimulant medication. Psychiatrists diagnosed him with chronic fatigue syndrome and depression. The chemist had been on sick leave for 4 months. The list of medications he regularly took included cortisone, fluconazole, modafinil, paroxetine, zopiclone, flupirtine and metamizole.

The patient came to my practice mainly for bowel cleansing because he had extreme flatulence and stool irregularities. Routine laboratory tests revealed leukopenia and thrombocytopenia, decreased total protein with increased albumin and deficiency of gamma globulin, increased glucose and HbA1c. The Cytolisa test showed a total score of 1127. All dairy products, yeast, meat and nuts were found to be incompatible. On physical examination, the pupils were maximally constricted, the tongue was map-like and cracked. On his back he had bruises that could be pushed away while still alive, his stomach was full to bursting, the extensive scar formed a hernia. Without nicotine abuse, his fingernails were yellowish and ridged. He had varicose veins on his legs.

A one-week fruit and vegetable-only diet followed by weeks of building up carbohydrates, proteins and fats that were tolerated according to the Cytolisa test was initially difficult for the patient, but soon relieved him to such an extent that he was motivated to persevere. Probiotics were prescribed to rebuild the intestinal mucosal flora. Gentiana gastric globules should promote the remaining secretion possibilities of the stomach and small intestine. He was able to slowly reduce his body weight of 105 kg. Medication, especially cortisone, sleeping pills and psychostimulants, could be gradually reduced. After this initial improvement, taking the alpha-blocker Alfulozin prescribed by the urologist on suspicion of prostate hyperplasia unfortunately set him back a long way and he felt extremely tired again. Because I saw no clear evidence of prostate hyperplasia in my own digital and laboratory examinations, nor in the urologist’s sonography report, and because I associated the residual urinary symptoms more with a slight weakening of the bladder muscles as a consequence of MS, I discontinued the alfulozin and replaced it with a natural goldenrod extract with few side effects; but the patient recovered only slowly. I started a thymus therapy, which is a series of injections with a thymus extract for immune modulation. With the help of neural therapy with procaine and homeopathic supplements, including injections of all scars, the pain also became more bearable, so that the patient was willing to reduce the pain medication. The patient initially delayed an acute attack of his multiple sclerosis with sensory disturbances, increased pain, increased sensitivity to cold and tension and severe low back pain by taking metamizole. Later, we were able to respond with two therapeutic whole-body hyperthermias with core body temperatures of up to 39.4°, to which the patient responded with completely reversible, very severe fatigue. However, they stopped further relapses and led to a reduction in sensory disturbances without the need for additional immunosuppressants.

Lack of stomach acid

However, the patient still reported that food was heavy in his stomach and complained of tiredness, although not as extreme as before. Because we couldn’t get a gastroenterologist to determine the acidity of the gastric juice, I finally had the patient swallow a gastric tube in my practice and had to confirm the suspicion that the gastric juice was not acidic enough: it no longer contained any acid at all and was pH-neutral. I then prescribed the patient betaine HCl with pepsin, i.e. hydrochloric acid similar to gastric juice, together with the protein digestive enzyme itself in capsule form, which is only released in the stomach. I had to assume that the pepsinogen itself was not sufficiently present as a result of the gastric resection. This is a preparation that was not or no longer available on the official German pharmaceutical market and had to be obtained from the Internet. It led to an improvement in symptoms. However, the experiment with a breakfast meal that is usual for the patient, which was made into porridge in the blender with increasing amounts of betaine HCL and tested for its acidity, showed that very high doses of up to about 10 grams of betaine HCL had to be added to actually bring the porridge to the pH value below 2.5 required for pepsinogen activation. That corresponded to about 15 capsules. Swallowing such quantities of capsules several times a day was unpleasant for the patient in the long term. So I initially prescribed him an astronaut’s diet on a trial basis, which contained only synthetically produced amino acids instead of proteins. Synthetic, to ensure that the product was guaranteed not to contain any protein residues, as might be present in amino acids produced by (possibly incomplete) hydrolysis of proteins. My patient recovered quickly: he no longer had any digestive problems and was no longer tired after less than a week. A month later, I suggested that he slowly expand his diet with vegetables that were tolerated according to the Cytolisa test. He bought a high-performance blender that can reduce vegetables down to the cellular level and found that he was able to digest his food prepared in this way. He gradually reduced his astronaut diet to zero and has now been eating exclusively smoothies for around five months. Monthly laboratory tests show significantly better values than ever before, and in particular the control of amino acid levels and proteins has also confirmed a sustainable balance. Apparently, the vegetables and herbs digested in this way contain enough proteins that the patient can tolerate and at the same time provide enzymes so that he can digest them without any problems. The patient is now working as part of a reintegration program and is determined to return to full employment soon.

After this experience, I came up with the idea of determining the gastric acidity of other patients with a high score in the Cytolisa test. Many were not considered because swallowing a tube is often perceived as unpleasant and is therefore rejected as disproportionate in many cases. However, I found that of the other 10 or so patients with poor digestion that I was able to recruit for this trial, none reached the required acidity level.

There is already some literature on these connections, but it should be worthwhile to do further research in this direction. Perhaps this practical observation can give one or two holistically oriented doctors the impetus to at least incorporate the knowledge they have long had back into their practice. Those affected often benefit from betaine HCl, with or without the addition of pepsin, depending on the weakness of secretion. However, as already mentioned, the sometimes high dosage required can be problematic. Another variant is the enzynorm produced from pig stomach, which has the potential not only to substitute gastric acid and pepsin, but also to stimulate the function of the patient’s gastric mucosa as well as possible as a concentrated organ preparation (which is also said to be the case with betaine to a certain extent). Organ preparations that are increasingly aimed at activating the function of the gastric mucosa are the corresponding potentized remedies from Wala such as Tunica mucosa suis. And let’s not forget the many herbal medicines that can stimulate not only gastric secretions, but those of the entire digestive tract. The tried and tested Wala stomach globules or the Amara drops from Weleda and Gastritol are aimed more at secretion, while Balsamic Melissa Spirit with warming effect can induce relaxation, which can be particularly important for regeneration between meals.

There is no solution for everyone

So there is probably no clear solution that helps everyone in every situation. Nor for those related to a lack of acid secretion from the stomach. But there are a variety of solutions for digestive problems. For me it is certain that gastric acid blockers are prescribed far too often, which can make the digestive situation considerably worse. Even acid regurgitation is often caused by a lack of acid, as a result of which the chyme remains in the stomach for too long and overstretches the stomach entrance so that it loses its valve function and no longer prevents reflux. The (albeit too low) residual acid in the chyme can then easily be interpreted as excess acid and falsely suggest a need to block acid.

In the search for the even deeper cause of such disorders, the discrepancy between tissue acidification on the one hand and an acid deficiency in the stomach on the other is remarkable: health is, after all, the creation and maintenance of a balance between polarities, in whose field of tension life processes can only unfold powerfully. In anthroposophic medicine, the ability to do this is attributed to the regulatory level, the ego. A loss of polarities and their balance leads, metaphorically speaking, to graying.

This is a weakness of the ego that leads to questions about life in general: Where do we avoid balancing polarities? Of course, this question does not only apply to the food sector. So not only in the sense of too much sugar on the one hand and the exclusion of natural bitter substances on the other. Or from too much fat on the one hand and the consumption of industrially produced fruit and vegetables on the other, which have been bred in such a way that they contain far too few minerals in order to increase yields for the fastest possible growth and multiple harvests.

Holistic research into the causes

But it also makes sense to identify the avoidance or imbalance of polarities in general life: for example, do we sit too much motionless in front of the computer on the one hand and spend our free time not doing physical exercise, gardening, hiking and sport, but also lazily watching TV on the other? Are we too wide awake all day long, possibly even with the help of coffee, and do we sleep too little? Are we perhaps too focused and performance-oriented on the one hand and forgetting about dreaming and idleness on the other? And do we then possibly go on vacation a few times a year to indulge in reverse one-sidedness? After all, on the one hand we work too much the whole day in the sense of a predetermined task fulfillment and on the other hand we no longer get to develop our own creativity?

All these approaches – no matter how much they want to get to the bottom of the problem – cannot, of course, lead to a universal recipe, but they can lead to an individual healing concept. May these observations and considerations inspire doctors and therapists to face the individual needs of their patients with determination. And may they encourage patients to embark on their personal healing journey and to seek out the doctors and therapists who can offer them adequate support without compromise.

Dr. med. Johannes Engesser

Find out more about the Cytolisa Immune Test and the nutrition program here

 

 

 

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