Chronic Fatigue and Nutrition

What you can do to help?

At the Neurolink Clinic our approach is to find out what your brain knows about the processes that are taking place in your body.

Only by having control over all of these processes will you be able to enjoy optimum health.

This is true for everything - from Chronic Fatigue to Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Hormonal issues and any other of the myriad of problems that can be keeping you from enjoying optimum health.

It’s during each of your treatments at the Neurolink Clinic that we are trying to find out what the brain knows about your current condition, to acknowledge this and to return your body to your optimum potential.

Aside from what takes place during an NIS treatment, you as a patient can help this process by making informed decisions about nutrition and the role it can play in helping you recover.

The duality of nutritional influences on health is striking. On the one hand our current diet is a principal agent of chronic degenerative disease in our time. On the other hand, with proper nutrition we can see amazing benefits that can be had in combating chronic health issues.
Food and its components can act directly or indirectly to affect what is known as gene expression (how the cell behaves) and consequently influence health and disease. This is the new field of nutrigenomics. Food can therefore be said to contain information as well as energy. The food you eat will have an impact on cell signaling and other informational processes such as the regulation of growth factors and production of molecules that are involved with inflammation.

When we look at something like Chronic Fatigue we are looking at a wide variety of symptoms that can benefit from proper nutrition. Specific nutrition that is geared to assist in giving the body proper nutrients to reduce the inflammation which is taking place. Nutrition can also help with the process by which the cells convert food into energy.

Below are some general guidelines as to which things should be avoided in the diet and what things should be included.

• Avoid sugar and sweets. Sweet foods cause dramatic fluctuations in blood-glucose levels, and unstable blood-sugar levels cause fatigue. If sweetener is used at all, choose a natural sweetener like honey, which contains the vitamins needed to digest it. Frequent, small meals help keep blood- sugar levels stable.
• Diet is crucial to building the immune system and conquering CFS. Avoid foods low in nutrients and high in sugar and fat. Instead, eat high-nutrient, high-protein, complex carbohydrate foods such as vegetables, grains, beans, fish, and poultry.
• Drink eight to ten glasses of pure water and vegetable or fruit juices daily to flush out toxins.
• Eat raw fruits and vegetables, whole grains and unroasted nuts and seeds. Raw fruits and vegetables and whole grains provide fibre. Fibre alleviates constipation, a factor in fatigue. Apples, oatmeal and oat bran are particularly beneficial because the fibre they contain is water-soluble and binds and eliminates toxins. Unrefined, cold-pressed nut and seed oils and cold-water fish provide essential fatty acids which help boost the immune system.
• Sixty percent of people suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome also suffer from candidiasis. Candidiasis is fed by simple sugars, it’s therefore important to cut back or avoid all forms of sugar, including milk products (lactose), fruit, caffeine, alcohol, and refined carbohydrates (white flour, white rice). Eat plain, unsweetened yoghurt or drink kefir daily to provide friendly bacteria which inhibit the growth of candida yeast.