Food intolerance hits a new high

Bengaluru has always been a paradise for food lovers. Although experimenting with different flavours and foods can be a pleasurable experience, it could also be equally painful if your body does not react favourably to an unfamiliar ingredient. Allergies and food sensitivity are on the rise today. However, food lovers don’t need to put an end to their culinary adventures if they can assess the ingredients that are likely to affect their health. Leading diagnostic centres across the country have now launched ‘food intolerance testing kits.’

Not an allergy

Food intolerance differs from food allergy though both are based on immune reactions within the body. Food allergy relates to hypersensitivity, and is an immediate reaction that can sometimes become life-threatening. It may manifest as hives, asthma-like condition and swelling of lips. Food intolerance, on the other hand, is more cryptic and vague in its manifestation, and can cause several minor to severe discomforts in the body.

Symptoms for food intolerance may range from abdominal discomfort, bloating, gassy feeling, diarrhoea, tiredness, lack of concentration, migraine, joint pains and more. Food intolerance can also be a leading cause for autoimmune diseases and even conditions like infertility and frequent miscarriages.

In predisposed individuals, the immune system misreads some of the food antigens to be harmful and mounts a reaction against them. This low-level battle from within the body results in immune complexes of proteins getting deposited in various tissues of the body. Ignoring symptoms of food intolerance could result in more serious malfunction of vital organs due to long-standing inflammation.

The most widely-reported types of intolerance relate to dairy especially cow’s milk and gluten. A blend of environmental, genetic, and lifestyle factors are to blame for the increase in food intolerance.

With food intolerance testing, you can now identify the foods that you are sensitive towards. This involves a sophisticated test called microarray, which is performed on a sample of blood. This test will help categorise over 210 food items into three groups — red (intolerant), yellow (borderline) and green (compatible).

The treatment for food intolerance involves abstinence from foods in the red zone, limited and rotational consumption of food in the yellow and enjoying food in the green.
After eliminating the intolerance, the body can recover from many of the related medical conditions. If you cannot completely avoid consuming an ingredient or food, you can either reduce the frequency of consumption or follow it up with supplements that help digestion.

(The author is managing director, Anand Diagnostic Laboratory.)