Are You Allergic to Carrageenan?

I was not aware that Carrageenan might be a cause for eczema until I got this email from Jason. If you have eczema and still not quite sure the cause, you might want to check out Jason’s experience. I thanks Jason for graciously allow me to share his email with my readers.

Here’s Jason’s email:

“Hello Audrey! I am 31 year old father of 3 that has been suffering with
Dyshidrotic Eczema and digestive problems for almost 15 years until recently.
After many attempts with different doctors – allergists, dermatologists,
immunologists, gastro specialists, etc. – and many different diets and drugs
with not even remote success, I had pretty much given up on finding what the
trigger(s) were for my problems. The doctors I had seen threw every disease at
me from a simple allergy, to Chron’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome and
stress while never linking anything directly to my skin problems except an
allergy, which according to the allergists, I was only midly allergic to dust
mites. It turns out they were wrong.

Recently, I had managed to get my skin and stomach under control. I had a
fairly restricted diet (similar to that of a low-dairy diet) for quite some time
when all of a sudden I had a major outbreak from only one new thing that I added
to my normal foods, which was a new flavor of coffee creamer (from Nestle). The
good thing about this was it had only a dozen or so ingredients so it was easy
to compare to foods I had been eating for quite some time with no reaction and
eliminate the common ingredients. One ingredient stood out – CARRAGEENAN. It is
in Soy Milk, almost all dairy products, jellies and jams, toothpastes, and a
myriad of other things. In some cases, it is also called AGAR and for most
people, it is harmless and causes no problems for them. For others like myself,
the stomach acid is a little stronger than other people and so their stomach
breaks the molecule down further, allowing it to be passed into the blood when
it normally wouldn’t be, and as a result it turns into a carcinogen that the
body attacks with an immune response, which in my case is inflamation of the
digestive tracks and then inflamation of the skin (which is likely due to the
area of my intestines that this substance passes through). Carrageenan is used
in research labs to intentionally induce inflamation in the intestinal cells of
lab animals. For me personally, when this substance enters my body, all hell
breaks loose. First my stomach and bowels almost immediately react, then between
2-24 hours later, my skin as well as my lymphnodes would become inflamed and I
was one miserable person. It also caused cysts behind my ears and patches of
red, dry skin on other parts of my body that I was told would never go away, and
they have. I have to admit, I was pretty skeptical at first, but could not
refute the results of my own very thorough self-testing.

With some additional research, I also found that in these labs where they use
carrageenan for testing, the interleukin-8 compound is found to be increased
when testing with carrageenan on intestinal cells… coincidently, that same
comound is also found in the areas of the skin during an eczema outbreak when a
biopse is done. Is it just coincidence? Maybe… I’m not a doctor, but I did go
to college (for something else) and was top of my class, so after testing myself
by puposely consuming more amounts of this substance to see the effects, I was
able to find the trigger for my stomach problems and my skin problems, both of
which have completely gone away as long as I avoid that ingredient, which is
still very difficult because of how many things it is in. What I also found
interesting is that there are several people who have been diagnosed with IBS,
Chron’s, lactose intolerance, Celiac disease, which still had problems after
very restrictive diets of only Soy Milk and soy based products (which usually
contain carrageenan) that as soon as they eliminated this substance, most if not
all of thier problems went away. The best diet so far has been all fresh foods
and just making sure that I stick with brands I know don’t manufacture or use
this substance in their foods.

The tricky thing that other people need to be aware of is that this ingredient
is not listed on every product that it might be included in, especially
chocolate. I also found that several different chocolates cause similar yet
milder problems, and it wasn’t until I contaced companies and demanded that
they find out what additional products might have been used but aren’t listed
(because of loopholes in the laws) that I found this same ingredient used as a
thickening agent in chocolate processing. I found it in my toothpaste, my ice
cream, my sour cream, my cherry pies, soy milk (from SILK), prescription pills,
and several other cheeses and dairy foods. I’m sharing this information because
I hope that you can pass this along to others and warn them about what kind of
“natural” substances can also be harmful (carrageenan is made from Irish moss,
or seaweed so it appeals to vegetarians and is used in many vegetarian foods
like Tofu) and how to keep track of what you eat in a journal every single day
for every thing you eat and drink. Write down all of the ingredients or keep
wrappers and boxes. Immediately following an outbreak, look over the ingredients
in the last 24 hours and compare them to everything else that has been safely
consumed to find the ingredients that are upsetting the body. There is so much
information available online, you just have to know where to look and find it.

Everyone has different allergies or foods that effect them, but this single
ingredient is drawing a lot of attention, and I can personally testify to the
fact that it is the one thing my body can’t handle and have seen that others
have had similar related problems. Even if carrageenan is not the problem for
everyone, it is very easy to fully document every ingredient in every food you
eat and keep track of them over time with outbreaks, and this was the key to
solving my problems after 15 hard years. I hope this can help someone else and I
will be sharing this with as many people as possible because I think it’s a
shame what companies will put into foods to save a buck, because that’s really
what this is about. It’s cheaper to use less milk if you can use something to
make it thicker that is “natural” because it came from the ocean, even though
it is processed with acids that would melt the skin right off of someone’s body
- aka Carrageenan / Agar. Thanks for taking the time to read this and please
keep the information flowing.