Do you suffer from food intolerance?

Have you ever feel bloated and suffer discomfort in your stomach after a meal? Are you accepting these discomforts as part of the your life and accepting it without finding the cause? Do you know that the underlying cause of ailments like migraine, eczema, arthritis, bloating could be a case of food intolerance?

Food intolerance is different from food allergy. Food allergy is the adverse reaction of the body on certain food taken causing an almost immediate response. The IgE antibodies target the food allergen setting off an allergic reaction. This reaction surface in the form of rashes, wheezing and it can be life threatening.

Food intolerance is usually not life threatening but it will give you discomfort and make you unwell. Food intolerance happens when certain food taken are not digested well. The reason for incomplete digestion is due to a lack of certain digestive enzymes required to digest that particular food. Undigested food cannot enter the blood stream and it starts to ferment. These trigger a response from our body immune system with an increased level of IgG antibodies targeting the undigested food. Repeat intake of food that is sensitive to the body stresses our immune systems thereby giving rise many chronic health problems.

The symptoms of food intolerance can be easily mistaken as it sometimes mimics the symptoms of common problems such as headache, diarrhoea and bloating. The other symptoms of food intolerance are arthritis, eczema, asthma, joints pain, irritable bowel syndrome, sinusitis and rashes.

One way to diagnose food intolerance is to find the food that irritates the body through a process of elimination that is, removing certain food from the diet, wait to see if the symptoms clear up. However, it is sometimes very difficult to identify the food or combinations of foods that are causing the problem as symptoms can appear up to 48 hours after the food is eaten. The process of blind elimination is also lengthy and would require lots of patience.

The other way to test for food intolerance is through a proven medical test. To diagnose food intolerance, a blood test is done to check any elevation in the level of food specific IgG antibodies. The test identifies the food or ingredient that is making us unwell. Such test will significantly reduce the process of identifying the sensitive food and corrective treatment can be carried out quickly.

Common types of food intolerance- Gluten intolerance, Wheat intolerance, Lactose intolerance, Yeast intolerance.

Source: Food Intolerance