The Truth About Food Sensitivity Tests, Elimination Diets and More
A food sensitivity is hard to define as it’s a relatively new phenomenon. When someone is sensitive or intolerant to a particular food, he or she may experience gastrointestinal ailments such as bloating, gas and abdominal pain, as well as symptoms like rashes, migraines and fatigue.
Growing interest in food sensitivities has created a new marketplace for food sensitivity tests – and with the creation of this industry comes a lot of questions and confusion. A lot of holistic health professionals are excited to have another tool that allows them to understand how food can hurt and heal a person. On the other hand, many medical professionals skeptical of food sensitivities altogether demean holistic approaches to healing – thereby resorting to calling food sensitivity testing “junk science,” name calling that carries little merit in my book.
While I am pro food sensitivity testing (the more knowledge you have about yourself, the better), I do want to present a balanced look at food sensitivity testing, its accuracy, and how the results of a food sensitivity test should be used to help you overcome your personal health challenge(s).
You can determine if you have a food sensitivity through a simple blood test. The test will look for how the immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies bind to each food and by what degree.
IgG accounts for 75 percent of the antibodies circulating in your blood. Antibodies are an important part of your body’s response to toxins because they recognize and bind to particular antigens, such as bacteria or viruses, and then helps to destroy those toxins.
It’s important to note that an IgG test is a test for a food sensitivity ONLY – not a food allergy. Unfortunately, the terms “food sensitivity” and “food allergy” are used interchangeably, adding to marketplace confusion. (IgE tests for allergies, not IgG.)
Experts believe that IgG reactions can take hours or days to develop, making it difficult to determine exactly which food is responsible for symptom flare ups. This means you can’t always blame the last thing you ate in understanding how a food sensitivity is affecting you.
On one side of the coin, you have researchers say that an IgG subclass, known as IgG4, (which stands for immunoglobulin G4), is simply a marker of exposure to a particular food and possibly signifies a person’s tolerance – not intolerance – to that food.
On the other side, a researcher found that IgG testing showed “promise,” netted “clinically meaningful results,” and could serve as a “useful as a guide for elimination diets.” Another article published by an otolaryngologist found the majority of his patients experienced “substantial health improvements after an elimination of foods positive by IgG food allergy tests.”
What this all means is two-fold.
One, it means that more research is needed to understand the accuracy of tests for food sensitivities, and two, it means that food sensitivity tests should not be on the only diagnostic tool used to determine your food intolerances (i.e. you should go on an elimination diet to complement/confirm your food sensitivity test findings).
(Of note, many medical and diagnostic procedures are controversial but still widely recommended and used among the medical community. One procedure that comes to mind is mammograms. Before the Internet attacks me, please know that I am mammogram neutral. I only say this to illustrate the point that there are differing viewpoints when it comes to understanding how to diagnose and test for disease in our bodies.)
for full instructions please see : www.goodforyouglutenfree.com
Growing interest in food sensitivities has created a new marketplace for food sensitivity tests – and with the creation of this industry comes a lot of questions and confusion. A lot of holistic health professionals are excited to have another tool that allows them to understand how food can hurt and heal a person. On the other hand, many medical professionals skeptical of food sensitivities altogether demean holistic approaches to healing – thereby resorting to calling food sensitivity testing “junk science,” name calling that carries little merit in my book.
While I am pro food sensitivity testing (the more knowledge you have about yourself, the better), I do want to present a balanced look at food sensitivity testing, its accuracy, and how the results of a food sensitivity test should be used to help you overcome your personal health challenge(s).
You can determine if you have a food sensitivity through a simple blood test. The test will look for how the immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies bind to each food and by what degree.
IgG accounts for 75 percent of the antibodies circulating in your blood. Antibodies are an important part of your body’s response to toxins because they recognize and bind to particular antigens, such as bacteria or viruses, and then helps to destroy those toxins.
It’s important to note that an IgG test is a test for a food sensitivity ONLY – not a food allergy. Unfortunately, the terms “food sensitivity” and “food allergy” are used interchangeably, adding to marketplace confusion. (IgE tests for allergies, not IgG.)
Experts believe that IgG reactions can take hours or days to develop, making it difficult to determine exactly which food is responsible for symptom flare ups. This means you can’t always blame the last thing you ate in understanding how a food sensitivity is affecting you.
On one side of the coin, you have researchers say that an IgG subclass, known as IgG4, (which stands for immunoglobulin G4), is simply a marker of exposure to a particular food and possibly signifies a person’s tolerance – not intolerance – to that food.
On the other side, a researcher found that IgG testing showed “promise,” netted “clinically meaningful results,” and could serve as a “useful as a guide for elimination diets.” Another article published by an otolaryngologist found the majority of his patients experienced “substantial health improvements after an elimination of foods positive by IgG food allergy tests.”
What this all means is two-fold.
One, it means that more research is needed to understand the accuracy of tests for food sensitivities, and two, it means that food sensitivity tests should not be on the only diagnostic tool used to determine your food intolerances (i.e. you should go on an elimination diet to complement/confirm your food sensitivity test findings).
(Of note, many medical and diagnostic procedures are controversial but still widely recommended and used among the medical community. One procedure that comes to mind is mammograms. Before the Internet attacks me, please know that I am mammogram neutral. I only say this to illustrate the point that there are differing viewpoints when it comes to understanding how to diagnose and test for disease in our bodies.)
for full instructions please see : www.goodforyouglutenfree.com
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