Over the last few weeks there has been a lot of hype in the media about food sensitivity testing, so I thought I would share some information on how learning what foods you are sensitive to can benefit your health. First let’s refresh what we know about allergies. We are most familiar with allergy testing in which your doctor does a ‘scratch test’ on the skin to see how your body responds. This tests your IgE response, a rapid response that occurs within minutes of consuming a food, such as a life threatening allergy to peanuts. These tests are great for those types of reactions , but they often don’t give us the full picture. Food sensitivities are reactions that your body has to foods that may take hours to days to develop which can be evaluated by measuring a marker in the blood called IgG. Food sensitivities also involve an immune reaction but because the reaction is delayed, you may not know that you have an issue with these foods, until doing this test.
Who Benefits From Testing for IgG Food Sensitivities?
Conditions which strongly benefit from food sensitivity testing are, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and irritable bowel disease (IBD), weight gain or difficulties losing weight; asthma and eczema; neurological disorders such as ADD/ADHD and Autism; mood disorders; auto-immune conditions such as SLE and Multiple Sclerosis; rheumatoid arthritis; migraines and any other condition that is connected to immune dysregulation. This lab test is also great for anyone who is interested in their health and wants to make informed choices about which foods they eat because undiagnosed food allergies may contribute to changes in your body which can eventually lead to illness.
Check out this video of Dr. Oz discussing food sensitivities.http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/are-food-allergies-making-you-fat-pt-1http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/are-food-allergies-making-you-fat-pt-2
I help my patients learn their food sensitivities by offering an in-office finger prick blood test to discover their food sensitivities to 96 different foods. Check out the laboratory that preforms these tests for more information. Rocky Mountain Analytical