Do You Have a Hidden Food Sensitivity?
Identifying food sensitivities can be a game changer when it comes to health and wellness.
Eliminating reactive foods was my first ‘aha!’ moment in the nutrition world. When I first embarked on my nutrition journey I felt like I was 20 going on 90. I had so many aches and pains and was always hungry, nauseous and tired and my joints were in so much pain I couldn’t sleep at night. I never considered that my diet was causing my health problems
After graduating college I started working for a functional nutritionist who helped me test myself for food sensitivities. Once I eliminated my highly reactive foods, every symptom I was experiencing disappeared in a few short months!
I have since helped countless individuals identify and eliminate their own sensitivities. I constantly hear how much better people feel after their elimination - in fact, most people comment on how they didn’t realize how poorly they were feeling until they cleaned up their diet and started feeling better!
Food sensitivities can cause inflammation, which can deplete and exhaust us and make us sick. But it also goes the other way - when we take away those inflammatory culprits and feed ourselves whole (anti-inflammatory) foods, we have a tremendous power to heal ourselves from the inside out.
Unfortunately there is no one size fits all approach - we all have unique bodies and react to different foods in different ways. But, if you’re struggling with the below symptoms you may benefit from identifying and eliminating your sensitivities.
What is food sensitivity?
A food sensitivity is an immune based reaction to food. The goal of our immune system is to keep us healthy by protecting our bodies from harm. While our immune system is meant to protect us against foreign invaders, it sometimes gets confused and can see specific foods as a threat. This can result in food allergies or food sensitivities.
How do you develop a food sensitivity?
Under ideal conditions, we eat food and our body breaks down that food through digestion - we absorb its nutrients (carbs, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients) and we eliminate (aka poop out) the rest.
The gut is lined with lymph tissue, called ‘gut associated lymphoid tissue’ (or GALT for short). Our lymphatic system is our immune system, and it’s main job is to alert the body if there’s a threat of infection. For example, if you are exposed to a harmful bacteria, your lymphatic system turns on your immune system which then triggers a cascade of inflammation. This is a normal and healthy immune response - it’s main goal is to protect your body from infection.
But from time to time, our immune system can be turned on when there is no threat. This is what can lead to a food sensitivity - our immune system reads harmless food as a threat. If you’re unknowingly eating foods that you’re sensitive to, you may be exposed to chronic inflammation, which may be contributing to the symptoms outlined below.
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What are the symptoms of a food sensitivity?
The conditions and illnesses described below may seem unrelated to food sensitivities, but there’s such a wide variation in symptoms associated with food sensitivities because our body’s immune system is complex. The body has many different types of immune cells that release different inflammatory chemicals that act on different parts of the body. That’s a lot of different variables!
The difference in chemical messengers and where they act in the body is what determines which symptoms you have.
In functional medicine we’re always looking to identify why you are experiencing certain symptoms. Sometimes there’s one root cause and sometimes there are several reasons why you are experiencing discomfort. For example, if you sit on a tack we want to take the tack out to help you feel less pain. Sometimes you sit on a whole chair of tacks! Food sensitivities may be one reason for your diarrhea, but it might not be the only cause. Bottom line: work with an experienced practitioner to individualize your nutrition, help you create a comprehensive wellness program and monitor symptoms that may be ‘red flags’.
The following symptoms, conditions and illnesses may be related to hidden food sensitivities and benefit from food eliminations.
Symptoms:
Diarrhea
Indigestion
Chronic Fatigue
Migraines
Joint Pain
Acne
Congestion
Swelling - especially in joints and feet
Conditions and Illnesses:
Inflammatory Bowel Disease - like Crohn’s or Ulcerative Colitis
Sinusitis
Eczema or Dermatitis
Chronic Urticaria
ADD or ADHD
Arthritis
Hay fever
Fibromyalgia
What’s the difference between a food sensitivity, a food allergy and a food intolerance?
There are some important distinctions between food sensitivities, allergies and intolerances.
Food Allergies - These are what we think about when we think about “true food allergies”. They involve the release of IgE antibodies, histamine and mast cells. True food allergies are usually immediate (ex: you eat a peanut and develop hives) and are normally for life, however some people seem to outgrow their childhood allergies.
Food Sensitivities - Both sensitivities and allergies involve the immune system, but sensitivities are a blanket term for any immune reaction to food that does not involve IgE antibodies. They may involve IgG antibodies, a cytokine storm, or another mechanism of reaction - but the result is the same: inflammation. Other key differences between allergies and sensitivities are:
Sensitivities are delayed reactions and can take hours to days to show up, making them a little bit harder to pin down. For example, you eat bread on Monday and get a migraine on Wednesday - it is not always an obvious link.
Food sensitivities can be reversed and are not forever. You may be able to regain ‘oral tolerance’ to sensitive foods once you’ve eliminated them and given the gut a chance to heal and the immune system a chance to calm down.
Food Intolerances - Unlike allergies and sensitivities, food intolerances do not involve the immune system. They are usually related to digestive factors, rather than the immune system. The most common example of this is lactose intolerance - individuals who cannot tolerate milk and milk products may be missing the enzyme lactase, required to break down the sugars in milk.
Are elimination diets helpful for food sensitivities?
Elimination diets remove common offenders, like gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, corn, etc. for a set period of time. Every elimination diet is different, as it is up to you (or the practitioner you’re working with) to decide which foods to eliminate. Basically you choose the foods you want to remove, eliminate them for 4-6 weeks and then systematically re-introduce them one by one to see how your body feels.
Elimination diets are the best way to understand how foods affect your specific body. But the biggest frustration is that you may either be eliminating foods that you’re not reactive to OR completely miss foods that you are reacting to.
Bottom line: elimination diets can be really helpful, but it can be like reaching around in the dark. Testing can help guide your elimination diet so you can experience the best results possible.
How can you test for food sensitivities?
Running labs can be so helpful because it takes the guesswork out of nutrition and completely individualizes it to you and your body. Every person has completely different reactions and your reactions may also change over time! For example, the first sensitivity test that I ran 8 years ago showed that I was sensitive to gluten and dairy. My most recent test indicated I was no longer sensitive to wheat and gluten, rather I was now reacting to spinach, rice, almonds and strawberries (to name a few!). Not only did my sensitivities change over time, but also I would have never discovered my new reactive foods through an elimination diet, because they are not obvious offenders.
Not all food sensitivity tests are created equal
There are so many tests out there that look at food sensitivities, however some are more accurate than others.
As I mentioned above there are many different immune players involved in food sensitivities. IgG tests have gained a lot of popularity in the past few years because it is easy to run these tests at home. This is the main method of testing for labs like Everlywell and Pinnertest. IgG testing is controversial because:
You may miss food sensitivities by only testing IgG antibodies. Your body has many different immune reactions and IgG antibodies are just one way your body may be reacting to food. Tests that only look for IgG antibodies may miss other routes of sensitivities and inflammation. So you may eliminate foods based on your IgG test, but you may still be reacting to foods in other ways. This can be really frustrating - especially if you complete a full elimination based on IgG antibodies and don’t see positive results because the test missed other reactions at play.
These tests can make you eliminate foods you’re not sensitive to because they have a high false positive rate. Our bodies produce IgG antibodies all the time, but they may or may not cause inflammation.
Mediator Release Test - A better food sensitivity test!
I run a food sensitivity test called Mediator Release Test (MRT) that looks at end point reactions, which means it shows us the total inflammation produced when your specific cells are exposed to foods. The test takes a sample of your blood and cross-reacts it to 170 different foods and measures how much inflammation your cells produce as a result.
This method of testing is much more accurate than solely testing IgG antibodies and can lead to less clinical frustrations. The other thing I love about this test is it ranks your reactivity to these foods, which allows for a much more guided elimination and reintroduction process.
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