Alpha Nutrition is suggested as both a diagnostic and a treatment procedure. The first Phase of Alpha Nutrition is an attempt to clear symptoms. This is home science. You start with the hypothesis that your food intake is causing or contributing to your illness and you do an experiment to find out if it is true. Although, we are often presented with a major illness, apparently of limited duration, close scrutiny of the medical histories of many patients reveals an evolution of symptoms over several years.
Patients often discount or fail to report long-term, chronic or recurrent symptoms.
They are encouraged to report only major events and are discouraged from linking their symptoms together as a complex that evolves over time. Symptoms of a mild ADS are often intermittent and ambiguous. A new factor such as move to a new home, a change in eating habits, a viral infection, an injury, childbirth, or a drug reaction may precipitate sudden decompensation with collapse into a more disabling illness. A consultant's medical history stated that she was well until 10 months previously when she developed a flu-like illness with lymph node swelling, fatigue, aching, and sore throat. When she did not recover as expected, extensive investigations for infections and other problems were inconclusive.