food intolerance chronic allergies

Food intolerance and chronic allergies are fundamentally two different types of problems. The former is mostly due to a lack of digestive enzymes and a non-IgE-mediated low-grade inflammatory reaction. The worst results are discomforts such as bloating, acne, and headaches, but there is no fatal risk.； The latter is an IgE-mediated immediate or delayed allergic reaction. In extreme cases, it may induce anaphylactic shock. Most of the "90 food intolerance tests" and "chronic allergen screening" currently circulating on the market do not comply with formal clinical standards. Don't blindly avoid foods after getting a report full of arrows. It is most likely that you will waste your money and torment your body.

Last week, I met a 24-year-old girl. She was holding a food intolerance report from Zhang’s physical examination center. The columns for eggs, milk, wheat, and soybeans were all red arrows. She said that she had given up staple food and egg milk for three months. Recently, she felt dizzy when she squatted, and her aunt had postponed it for almost 20 days. I asked her to list the foods that she usually felt uncomfortable after eating. After turning over and over, she only found that drinking ice milk would cause diarrhea, and eating steamed buns and noodles had no reaction at all. In the end, it was found that it was a simple lactase deficiency, which had nothing to do with wheat and eggs.

Many people tend to confuse the two. After all, an attack is not an acute reaction like "go to the emergency room immediately after eating it." Symptoms may not appear until more than ten hours or even a day or two. It is really difficult for non-professionals to distinguish. But if you look at the mechanism, it’s not that bad: what we often call chronic allergies is essentially an IgE-mediated immune response, but the concentration of antibodies is low and the onset is slow. For example, some people are fine when they eat mangoes, but then have a circle of eczema around their mouths the next day. In fact, this is still an allergy, and it may develop into respiratory symptoms in severe cases. ； The causes of food intolerance are complicated. It may be that you don’t have enough lactase to drink milk, it may be that your histamine metabolism is poor and you cannot eat aged cheese or tuna, or you may be sensitive to certain added ingredients in food. Most of them are not related to fatal allergic reactions.

Oh, by the way, the test for food intolerance is very controversial now. If you go to the allergy department of a regular tertiary hospital and ask, nine out of ten doctors will tell you that it is an IQ tax - after all, as long as the human body is exposed to foreign food proteins, it will produce IgG antibodies. This is normal immune memory and is not a sign of "intolerance" at all. Most of the hundreds or thousands of tests sold on the market today measure total IgG, and the results will be as long as everything you have eaten basically has antibodies, which is purely misleading. But functional medicine practitioners on the other side also have different opinions: they feel that if the IgG4 subtype is measured, the increase is indeed related to chronic low-grade inflammation. However, most institutions’ testing does not distinguish subtypes at all, which makes the entire project a mess. My own clinical experience is that if you really have chronic diarrhea, eczema, or migraine that cannot be found for a long time, don’t do random tests first. Keeping a food diary for 2-4 weeks is more reliable than anything else.

Keeping a food diary is not complicated. It doesn’t need to be accurate to the gram. Just record everything you eat every day (including spices, snacks, milk tea and coffee), and then write down the body’s reaction within 72 hours after eating, such as whether you have bloating, headaches, acne, unformed stools, and fatigue. After remembering these minor problems for a month, make a list of the foods you had eaten before you felt unwell. The foods with the highest number of overlaps are the suspicious ones. Stop for 2 weeks and try eating them again in small doses. If you have similar reactions every time you eat them, then they are really unfriendly to you. There was a mother who brought her 5-year-old baby here before. She said that the intolerance report showed that her baby was allergic to rice. I asked her to keep a diary for three weeks. Finally, she found that every time her baby ate rice, she would have children's ketchup with it. The culprit was potassium sorbate in the ketchup, which has nothing to do with rice.

Don’t think that as long as you are “intolerant” or “allergic” to food, you have to avoid it for the rest of your life. I have seen people not eating a bite of tomato scrambled eggs for three years because the report said they were intolerant to tomatoes. It is purely unnecessary. For example, people who are lactose intolerant can drink zero-lactose milk and eat some lactase, which is completely fine. People who are not severely allergic to IgE can also slowly introduce tolerance training in small doses under the guidance of a doctor. Even if they are gluten sensitive, as long as they are not diagnosed with celiac disease, they will not be devastated by eating gluten-containing bread occasionally. Oh, and don’t blame food for any discomfort you feel. Sometimes if you stay up all night for a week, your gastrointestinal function becomes disordered and you feel bloated no matter what you eat, that is your own fault and has nothing to do with eggs, milk, and wheat.

After all, our body is more sensitive than any precision instrument. You know best whether it is comfortable or not when you eat it. Don’t put dietary shackles on yourself with a report full of red arrows. If you really have recurring discomfort, go to the gastroenterology department or allergy department of a regular hospital for investigation first, and don’t believe those scammers who sell alternative foods and health products. After all, eating well is more important than anything else.