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Sceptics might suggest that we have deliberately chosen to describe trials that support our ‘case’ – ignoring trials with negative results unless they had some obvious flaw, for example. In fact, the studies described here are not a carefully chosen selection – they represent the major scientific trials of food intolerance carried out in the UK during the 1980s. Although a few studies of this sort have been carried out elsewhere in the world, there is little doubt that the United Kingdom is a major centre for serious, scientific research on food intolerance at the present time.

We believe that the studies which produced no evidence for food intolerance in rheumatoid arthritis and irritable bowel syndrome are both seriously flawed. The doctors earning out these studies are sceptical of the whole idea, and this has led them to disregard some important aspects of food intolerance – that it is vital to exclude all the likely foods at once, that wheat and citrus fruits are common culprits, and that normal-sized portions are usually needed to provoke a reaction during testing. The number of patients studied in these trials was small, and in the case of the IBS trial, they may not have been representative.

No medical trial is ever perfect, and various criticisms can be made of the three trials that showed a good response to an elimination diet. But they are all fairly minor criticisms, and they do not invalidate the overall findings. The doctors who carried out these trials were well aware of the controversial nature of their approach, and all took special care to design their trials very carefully. Moreover, some of the doctors who planned these trials believed that they would not see any response, or that it would be a placebo effect if they did. Their own results changed their minds.

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