A similar programme to Nutron is offered by Inches in Blackrock, Co Dublin, which offers an eating plan based on the "Food Sensitivity Test". This isn't a diet, but a way of "feeling better" and it just so happens that many people lose weight. Inches charge £210, the same as Nutron, and send the blood samples to a different laboratory - the Brompton, in England which is run by a biomedical chemist and has been testing for food sensitivity for 14 years. Brompton tests for 155 foods, which is considerably more than Nutron, and also looks for the effects of food particles on neutrophils.
One Dublin academic who doesn't want to be named, went on the programme after seeing friends at the golf club lose dramatic amounts of weight. The Brompton advised her to avoid eggs, olives and olive oil, mushroom, crab, wheat, yeast, dairy products, tea, coffee and alcohol. She "diligently" avoided these foods for two months and lost a mere two pounds. She wasn't impressed.
However, the Inches/Brompton diet was a big success for Mary Aldridge, of Ennis, Co Clare. Since eliminating beef, dairy products, wheat, oats and monosodium glutamate from her diet, she has lost 22 lbs in three months. Her arthritis in her right foot has also been cured, so that she has been able to stop taking the anti-inflammatory drugs on which she used to rely. "I've lost that dead, tired feeling, where you have to drag yourself out of bed in the morning," she says.
Specific examples, however convincing to the layperson, are scientifically meaningless. If laboratories such as Brompton have discovered the secret of weight loss, mainstream medical science won't believe it until they can see it proven in double-blind, controlled, medical trials, which are peer-reviewed and published in reputable medical journals.