Food Allergies Affect People Each Day
Food allergy is a common and often un-diagnosed cause of illness. The entire immune system can be affected, resulting in many different symptoms.
Many people know of individuals with sudden, severe reactions to certain foods (peanut, shrimp, etc.) with this known as a "fixed" food allergy. This means the reaction may occur each time the offending food is eaten. This type of reaction can only be treated by strict avoidance of the specific food (and is the reason peanuts aren't served on commercial airline flights, anymore).
A more common and difficult to diagnose problem is the "hidden" (cyclic) food allergy. This results from repetitive, frequent eating of the same common foods. Corn, wheat, soy, milk protein, yeast and egg are the most frequently eaten foods, with current food manufacturing techniques including one or more of these in many prepared food products.
A unique characteristic of hidden food allergies is that the individual will often crave the food that causes them symptoms. Due to the nature of the body's immune reaction, frequent eating of the offending food will lessen the severity of the reaction, although the individual will not feel "well".
The very routineness of our diets may make this concept difficult to believe, but it is quite real. Think of it as a health problem hidden in plain sight. Complicating the situation is the fact that many (or most) of us are truly creatures of habit, especially related to what we are used to eating.
The second obstacle, after accepting that a hidden food allergy could be a problem, is establishing a diagnosis. There are few repeatable, reliable tests for cyclic food allergy. An "oral challenge" can be diagnostic with the draw back that the patient must be totally and completely off the suspect food for five days pre-test. Also, only one food can be tested at a time. An oral challenge is simply eating a pure form of the food and watching to see if symptoms develop. This test will not be reliable unless the suspected food has been completely withheld from the diet for several days beforehand.
At this office, we prefer a skin test known as "provocation-neutralization" to diagnose hidden food allergies. The patient must have the food in the diet for a valid result, with increased symptoms and/or a skin reaction considered a positive test. This test can establish a diagnosis and also allow treatment. A "neutralizing dose" which can be taken as a sublingual (under the tongue) allergy drop, either daily or prior to eating the problem food can be effective. At this time, food drops are not covered by insurance.
An accurate food diary is essential, with each and every item that goes into the mouth written down. This is not to judge the individual's eating habits; rather it helps determine, objectively, what is really going into the body.
A "diversified rotation diet" can be curative, with the offending foods to be eaten only once every four to five days. Sometimes this is hard for an individual to stay with.
In summary, food allergies are common, affect us in different ways, and can be difficult to diagnose.
I encourage everyone to read food labels, both for the ingredients as well as the quantities of salt, sugar, fat and total calories.
