The adage that you are what you eat doesn't quite ring true for some people. A growing group is swearing by the idea: You are what you don't eat.

“饮食决定健康”这句俗语对有些人来说并不一定准确。越来越多的人坚信：身体状况取决于你不吃什么。

Elimination diets -- which call for cutting out a certain food or group of foods -- are having a moment. People often start the diets in an effort to cure a symptom that doesn't necessarily seem worth seeing a doctor about: headaches, skin irritation, joint pain, digestive problem or just feeling tired. Maybe cutting out certain foods will help, they think. Weight loss often isn't the primary motivation.

眼下正流行食物排除疗法(Elimination diets)――即禁食某种食物或某几类食物。人们通常会为了治疗一种看似没有必要去看医生的症状而采用这种做法：比如头疼、皮肤瘙 、关节疼、消化问题，或者感觉疲劳。他们觉得不吃某些食物或许会有帮助。减肥通常不是主要动机。

Eating in this manner is different than elimination diets intended to detect sometimes immediate and life-threatening allergic reactions, often done under close supervision of a doctor.

这种方法不同于以检测即时或危及生命的过敏反应为目的的食物排除法，后者通常是在医生的密切监督下进行的。

The idea behind these elimination diets is to help people identify more subtle, gradual reactions to common food groups such as dairy, soy, nuts, eggs, gluten, sugar and alcohol. They completely avoid those foods for a few weeks. Later each food is added back one by one to test the body's response.

这种食物排除法背后的理念是帮助人们判断自己对乳品、大豆类、坚果、蛋类、含麸质食品、糖以及酒精等常见食品种类的更细微更缓慢的反应。他们会好几个星期完全回避这些食物。随后再一种一种陆续添加，以检测身体的反应。

There is little science to prove specific cause-and-effect behind this style of elimination diet and an improvement in symptoms, many doctors say. Yet lots of people report feeling significantly better. Is that because 'they are eating healthier or because, say, wheat was taken away?' says Linda Lee, director of the Johns Hopkins Integrative Medicine & Digestive Center.

许多医生说，这种食物排除法以及症状改善背后的具体因果关系并没有什么科学根据。不过很多人都表示感觉好多了。约翰霍普金斯整合医学及消化系统研究中心(Johns Hopkins Integrative Medicine & Digestive Center)主任琳达・李(Linda Lee)说，是不是因为“他们吃得更健康了或者其他原因，比如小麦成分没有了？”

Still, there is little harm in cutting out a food group for a limited time if people aren't at risk of poor nutrition, don't begin to develop a fear of food and don't have a history of eating disorders, which restrictive diets can trigger, say most doctors.

尽管如此，大多数医生都说，如果没有营养不良的风险，不会形成对食物的恐惧，没有饮食失调的历史――限制性饮食会引发的三种后果――一段时间内禁食某种食物是没有什么坏处的。

After years of increasingly uncomfortable stomach cramps and other intestinal issues, Amanda Deming, a 35-year-old mother and legal assistant, saw a friend post rave reviews on Facebook about an elimination diet called the Whole 30. It recommends cutting out gluten (a protein found in wheat, barley, rye and other grains), dairy, sugar and sweeteners, white potatoes, alcohol, some food additives and even legumes and grains for 30 days. What's left? 'You eat meats, fruits and vegetables,' says Ms. Deming, who lives in Greenville, S.C. Within two weeks of starting the regimen her stomach felt better. 'And that means the world to me,' she says. 'I have more energy.'

家住南卡罗来纳州格林威尔(Greenville)的阿曼达・戴明(Amanda Deming)今年35岁，是一位母亲，从事法律助理工作。多年来她一直有胃痉挛及其他肠道问题，并且越来越严重。她看到一个朋友在Facebook上的一个有关一种名叫Whole 30的食物排除法的热帖。这种方法推荐禁食麸质（小麦、大麦、黑麦及其他谷物中的一种蛋白质）、乳品、糖和甜味剂、土豆、酒精、某些食物添加剂、甚至豆类及谷物30天。那还能吃什么？戴明说：“可以吃肉、水果和蔬菜。”开始两周后，她的胃就感觉好多了。她说：“这对我的意义太重大了。我精神更好了。”

She stuck with the eating habits past 30 days, even though it has been hard to skip her family's Friday pizza night. Also, her food budget has gone up. 'I don't have a meal that doesn't have meat in it,' she says.

The Whole 30 plan is intended to improve overall health, break bad eating habits and in some cases will identify food sensitivities,says Melissa Hartwig, a sports nutritionist and co-owner of Whole 9, the company that designed the plan.

30天后她仍继续坚持，即使不参加每周五晚的披萨家庭聚餐对她来说很难熬。她的食物开支也涨了。她说：“我没有哪顿饭是没有肉的。”

Harry Eschel, vice president of products and marketing for a mobile software company, noticed his weight creeping up and sports injuries piling up. 'I used to travel a lot, so dinner was McDonald's,' says Mr. Eschel, 48, who lives in Wilmette, Ill. A year ago he tried a two-week elimination diet with a holistic health coach to jump-start weight loss. He gave up gluten, dairy, sugar, alcohol, eggs, soy and other foods.

Whole 30饮食法由Whole 9公司设计。公司老板之一、运动营养学家梅丽莎・哈特维希(Melissa Hartwig)说，该饮食法旨在改善整体的健康状况，改掉不良的饮食习惯，有时还会检验出食物敏感性。

After losing 10 pounds in the first two weeks, he decided to stick with many of the habits. Now he doesn't eat fast food, has mostly stopped eating gluten, sugar and dairy, and he has taken up yoga. 'I got a lot of teasing for [the yoga], but now friends are going, 'he hasn't thrown his back out,'' he says.

哈里・埃斯凯尔(Harry Eschel)是一家手机软件公司的产品及市场副总裁，今年48岁，住在伊利诺伊州威尔梅特 (Wilmette)。他注意到自己的体重在逐渐增加，还有一大堆运动损伤。埃斯凯尔说：“我以前经常出差，所以晚饭都是在麦当劳(McDonald's)。”一年前，他在一名综合健康教练的指导下尝试了两周的食物排除法，准备减肥。他放弃了麸质、乳品、糖、酒精、蛋类、大豆类等食物。

Many elimination diet proponents suggest the regimen can help find the cause of leaky gut syndrome or increased intestinal permeability. The idea is that some foods irritate the intestines and cause food proteins to leak through the intestinal wall where they shouldn't be. Once there, the proteins come into contact with large numbers of immune cells that live just below the intestinal wall, says Dave Rakel, director of the University of Wisconsin Integrative Medicine Program at the School of Medicine and Public Health.

前两周减掉10磅后，他决定坚持其中的很多习惯。现在他不吃快餐，基本上不再吃麸质、糖和乳品，而且还开始练习瑜伽。他说：“很多人都嘲笑我练瑜伽，但现在朋友们会说‘他不再闪着腰了’。”

'The immune system along the gut is triggered to see friend or foe,' says Dr. Rakel. If foe, an immune attack begins causing inflammation that can move throughout the body, he says.

很多食物排除法的支持者都表示，这种方法可以帮助找到肠漏症或者肠道通透性增加的原因。威斯康星大学(University of Wisconsin)医学及公共卫生学院综合医学项目(Integrative Medicine Program)负责人戴夫・拉克尔(Dave Rakel)说，原理是有些食物会刺激肠道，导致食物中的蛋白质通过肠道壁渗漏到不该去的地方。一旦渗漏，这些蛋白质就会和大量处于肠道壁下的免疫细胞接触。他说：“消化道的免疫系统就会判断是敌是友。”他说，如果是敌，免疫系统就会发动免疫攻击，会导致遍及全身的炎症。

In recent months, Katie Collette, a 36-year-old graduate student in pharmacology, physiology, and therapeutics, had daily headaches she thought were related to seasonal allergies. At one point, her allergist suggested an elimination diet, says Ms. Collette. Guided by what she read online about a book called 'the Virgin Diet' by J.J. Virgin, she cut gluten, eggs, dairy, soy, peanuts, corn and sugar for three weeks. 'I just assumed I should cut alcohol,' as well, says Ms. Collette.

36岁的凯蒂・科利特(Katie Collette)是一名药理学、生理学及治疗学的研究生。近几个月，她每天都会头疼，她觉得是季节性过敏引起的。科利特说，后来她的过敏症医师建议她尝试食物排除法。她从网上看了一本J.J. Virgin写的名叫《the Virgin Diet》的书。在这本书的指导下，她禁食了麸质、蛋类、乳品、大豆类、花生、玉米和糖三个星期。科利特说：“我觉得酒精也应该戒掉”。

Her headaches became less frequent on the diet and when she brought back soy -- a small amount of edamame -- she got a headache and runny nose. She plans to avoid most soy in the long term. 'No more tofu for me,' she says.

采取这种方法后，她的头疼不那么频繁了。再吃豆制品――少量的日本毛豆――时，她又头疼了，而且还流鼻涕。她打算以后大多数豆制品都不再吃了。她说：“豆腐不能再吃了。”

Compared with an allergic reaction, people are more often able to eat the offending food again in limited quantities after giving the body a break from the food causing the inflammation, says Dr. Rakel. He recommends a three-week elimination diet to patients with digestive problems, joint inflammation, asthma and reoccurring sinus infections, among other symptoms -- but not to everyone. Overall, people should eat a 'high-fiber, multicolored, whole-food diet,' he says.

拉克尔说，和过敏反应相比，在禁食一段时间导致炎症的食物后，人们通常可以再次食用少量引发反应的食物。他推荐有消化问题、关节炎、哮喘、鼻窦炎等症状的病人可以进行为期三周的食物排除，但并不是所有人都可以。他说，总的来说，人的饮食应该“高纤维、多色彩和全面”。

Some doctors say the connection between many symptoms and gut health isn't well understood. Increased intestinal permeability 'can be linked to disease, but by itself it isn't linked to things like headaches, fatigue and general malaise,' says Jerrold Turner, associate chairman of the Department of Pathology at the University of Chicago. Dr. Turner last year co-authored the paper 'Intestinal Permeability Defects: Is It Time to Treat?' But Dr. Turner adds: 'If it makes people feel better, I'm not sure why we should oppose,' elimination dieting.

有医生说，很多症状和消化健康之间的联系并没有得到很好的理解。芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)病理学系副主任杰罗尔德・特纳(Jerrold Turner)说，肠道渗透性增加“会引起疾病，但它本身并不会造成头疼、疲劳和全身不适等症状”。但特纳说：“如果食物排除法能让人们感觉更好，我觉得没有任何理由反对。”特纳去年与他人共同撰写了名为《肠道渗透性缺陷：是时候治疗了吗？》(Intestinal Permeability Defects: Is It Time to Treat?)一书。

After headaches, fatigue and other symptoms started to become more frequent last year, Jean Panko, a 35-year-old portfolio administrator in Edison, N.J., turned to a mail-in blood test that promised to reveal food sensitivities that could be causing her symptoms, she says. Based on her results, she stopped eating chicken, gluten, corn, soy, cane sugar, honey, apples, blueberries, grapes and other foods. 'Within two days I felt like a new person,' she says.

35岁的琼・潘科(Jean Panko)是新泽西州Edison的一名投资组合主管。她说，去年她头疼、疲劳及其他症状开始越来越频繁，于是她做了邮寄到信箱里的一份血液测试，该测试宣称可以测试出造成这些症状的致敏源。根据测试结果，她不再食用鸡肉、麸质、玉米、豆类、蔗糖、蜂蜜、苹果、蓝莓、葡萄等食物。她说：“不到两天我就觉得自己像是换了一个人。”

This type of blood test, which looks at cellular reactions to hundreds of foods and chemicals, is viewed as inconclusive by some doctors. 'Ask the body the question rather than asking the lab,' says Susan Blum, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

这种血液测试主要是检测细胞对数百种食物及化学物质的反应，有些医生认为这种测试没有说服力。西奈山医学院(Mount Sinai School of Medicine)预防医学助理临床教授苏珊・布卢姆(Susan Blum)说：“应该问身体问题，而不是实验室。”

Andy Panko, Jean's husband, did the blood test after seeing how much better she felt. The experiment helped 'kick the habit of eating all this junk, but I never actually felt better,' he says.

看到妻子有这么好的效果后，丈夫安迪・潘科(Andy Panko)也做了这个血液测试。他说，这次尝试帮助我“改掉了吃垃圾食物的习惯，但我的身体并没有感觉更好”。

He plans to try eating some of his forbidden foods soon like dairy, gluten and brewer's yeast, an ingredient in beer. 'I very much miss dairy in my life. I miss pizza. I miss yogurt. I miss cheese,' he says.

他打算不久后开始尝试自己不能吃的某些食物，比如乳品、麸质和啤酒酵母。他说；“我特别想念乳品，我想念披萨，想念酸奶，还有奶酪。”