Abstract
Purpose: To evaluate whether food avoidance methods could be successfully applied to a primary care environment. Design: An open uncontrolled trial. Materials and Methods: A total of 76 patients were offered the food exclusion method. Of these, 45 patients chose to proceed with this method and record all symptom levels. All symptoms were equally weighted and the sum of all symptoms was used as a score for measuring overall patient progress. Results: The results showed that over 37 patients improved, with an average improvement of over 80% of symptom scores. The remaining eight patients showed no improvement. Conclusions: For suitable patients, dietary management, using exclusion methods, can be successfully employed at a primary care level, with similar success rates to those expected at hospital out-patient units.