Often feeling sick after meals? Not looking forward to eating out because you can never tell which meal, or which day or time will bring on unpleasant symptoms? Don’t worry you aren’t alone. You may be experiencing a food intolerance, which is similar to an allergy, just not quite as severe.
Food is broken down in the body with differing enzimes. Without them, your body would develop a food intollerance. With intolerances, the food might not cause a reaction in your body for some time. Because the reaciton can be delayed, it is often difficult to find the food for which a body has developed an intollerance.
Some common intolerances, which you may have heard of before, are lactose intolerance (the inability to process dairy products) and gluten intolerance (the inability to process gluten, or wheat products), but there can be several other types, and all will produce unpleasant symptoms.
The symptoms of food intolerances may include diarrhea, constipation, flatulence, irritable bowel syndrome, fatigue, and pain. The best real way to prevent these symptoms is simply not to eat the foods in question – and the way to discover just which foods these are is to take a food intolerance test.
One common type of food intolerance test is the elisa food test (it stands for enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay). Blood is collected, usually from the fingertip. This may be done at home or at a doctor’s office. It is then analyzed at a lab for reactions with certain foods. Strong reactions will produce many IgG antibodies in the blood; the more are present, the worse the reaction.
The food intolerance test will show the extent of the intolerance and the type of foods that cause it. While different testers use different scales, all food intolerance tests measure the same thing — the body’s production antibodies. The results of the test should make apparent which foods (if any) are the cause of intolerance reactions; studies have shown that measuring antibody production is an effective means of discovering the source of food intolerances.
If you learn that you are intolerant of a particular food, you can take several steps. Most obviously, you can remove that food from your diet. Depending on the food, it may be simple or very difficult to avoid. Manufacturers have marketed “safe” products for the more common intolerances, such as dairy, but other intolerances will require you to read ingredient lists and ask questions. While watching ingredients closely may be inconvenient, it’s better than experiencing symptoms of food intolerance. Relief from symptoms makes a food intolerance test well worth the cost and effort.
When you experience digestive problems, such as fatigue, diarrhea, constipation, flatulence, or irritable bowel syndrome, you may often mistakenly think you have a food allergy. However, the problem may be food intolerance. A food intolerance test will help you determine if this is the case. Frequently doctors will use the ELISA food test (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), in which they will take a blood sample and analyze it to test for reactions to certain foods. If you are diagnosed as having food intolerance, the best way to avoid the symptoms is to avoid consuming the food which causes it.
- Robert Harrison