Food Sensitivity
How to Determine if You Have Food Sensitivities
Often, foods we think are good for us contribute to health problems, keeping us sick. With a food panel and subsequent results in a few weeks, you can eliminate any offending foods, improving many health issues and leading you to enjoy a better quality of life.
Food sensitivities arise from repetitive eating or lack of diversity in the diet. Sensitivities will often change or improve with the elimination of the offending food.
FAQs
Answering your most asked questions so you can be prepared.
What are the most common foods causing sensitivities?
The most common foods causing food sensitivities are milk, eggs, peanuts, soy, wheat, shellfish, fish, and tree nuts.
Is there a cure for food sensitivities?
Currently, there is no cure for food sensitivities, except eliminating the problematic foods from the diet; this allows the immune system to calm down and the inflammatory response to decrease with time.
What are the categories of food sensitivities?
Food sensitivities are divided into two major categories: immediate and delayed.
When an immediate food reaction occurs, sufferers experience symptoms within hours of ingesting the food. Symptom onset is rapid and may include tingling of extremities, wheezing, coughing, tightening of the throat, nausea, abdominal cramps, and diarrhea. Sometimes in cases where nuts, shellfish, fish, and peanuts have been eaten anaphylaxis can occur.
An immediate food reaction is a fixed food allergy. The food you are allergic to will almost always provoke an immune reaction when ingested.
Symptoms of delayed food sensitivity can take up to 72 hours to appear. This type of immune response is mediated by the largest circulating antibody in our immune system and can cross the placenta from mother to child. Often nursing mothers will find the foods they eat can directly affect their baby, increasing the baby’s risk of colicky, gas, or skin rashes.
It can be challenging to identify the offending food since we eat so many foods that go through different processes and have several ingredients.
What can happen if I am sensitive to something and don’t know it?
Unidentified food sensitivities can contribute to many chronic health conditions: including Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn’s Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Headaches, Autism, ADD/ADHD, Eczema, Acne, Chronic Ear Infections, Malabsorption, Insomnia, Brain Fog, Fatigue, and Weight Gain.
How does food sensitivity testing work?
Dr. Hartman will draw all your food panels in the office. State-of-the-art ELISA testing is performed to identify the offending foods and create a healthy diet of non-reactive foods. Results typically take about three weeks.
We believe as important as it is to eliminate offending foods, we must replace those foods with good choices. Your results will include an extensive “shopping list” providing recommendations of safe foods based on your lab results. This serves as a great starting point and helps focus your attention on the vast assortment of foods you can have, and not just those you must avoid.
Is it possible to treat food sensitivities naturally?
Food sensitivity symptoms are basically due to inflammation, so addressing core health issues, such as diet and exercise, will improve them.
Research has shown a Mediterranean diet, high in fresh produce, is associated with less potential for a response as plant antioxidants have been found to reduce inflammatory substances resulting from food sensitivities. Additionally, a German study found sedentary children are more likely to develop hay fever than those who are more active, underscoring the important role of exercise.