Food Allergy, Intolerance, & Sensitivity

Written & Edited by : Dr. Andersen

Individualized Approach to Nutrition

Before we can begin to discuss the difference between food allergies, intolerances, & sensitivities we must first have an understanding of the various biochemical differences from one individual to the next that allow for such variances to specific foods and their constituents. Biochemical individuality is made up of many factors including a person’s genetics, constitution, environment, inflammation, microbiome (gut flora), stress/anxiety, & toxin exposure. 

Genetics include not only your ancestors and their diets, lifestyles, & environmental influences, it also includes your behaviors & experiences, blood type, and constitutional make-up. An individual’s constitution refers to their elemental or energetic combination. For instance, some people are inherently warm & moist while others are generally cold & dry. This influences the types of foods that provide balance & benefit to an individual & those which are more provoking to their innate disposition.

The influence of one’s environment cannot be overlooked. From stress & anxiety to toxin exposure in the air, food, & water we need to live, environmental impact affects us all. It’s effects contribute to increased dis-ease & inflammation, as well as negatively altering microbiome diversity & our ability to digest, absorb, & assimilate the nutrients we put into our body. As you can see there are many factors to consider when talking about how foods sit, so to say, in any given body.

With that said, let’s dive into the world of reactions around food that affects most everyone…

Food Allergies vs. Food Intolerances vs. Food Sensitivities

Food allergies are defined as, “an immune-mediated allergic reaction to a particular substance.” Allergies are mediated by immunoglobulin E (eg. IgE), which is an antibody produced by your immune system (ie. the system that fights infections, neutralizes harmful substances, and helps to resolve non-infectious dis-ease in the body). This is usually a very fast response due to the particular effect from the IgE antibody attaching itself to the food in question, causing the immune system to outright attack the offending substance, which commonly results in an anaphylactic reaction. This reaction presents as congestion, difficulty breathing, chest constriction, itchy, red, watering eyes, or a raised, itchy, red rash. Allergies often are lifelong, but occasionally do resolve when a person moves from one stage of life to the next. An allergy panel is used to identify food allergies & the results are normally very accurate.

Food intolerances are not related to primary immune function responding to a particular food, instead, they are the result of enzyme deficiencies toward a specific food group or combination of foods consumed together or within a certain time frame of one another. The enzyme deficiency & corresponding intolerance are usually attributed to one’s genetic make-up and therefore can never be corrected (ie. one will never outgrow or start to spontaneously produce the deficient enzyme). The intolerant food(s) is never fully digested into its individual constituents (ie. fats, minerals, proteins, sugars, vitamins, etc) leading to secondary immune-mediated intervention. Since the foods are unable to be digested and absorbed, the immune system attacks these foods in the digestive tract causing inflammation & eventual “leaky gut”, which allows the undigested particles to cross the mucosal lining of the intestines and enter into general circulation in the blood. Once there, these intolerant food remnants are unable to be assimilated by the body because they are not broken down into their individual component parts, so they deposit in an individual’s weakest organ or tissue system as some form of toxic, morbid matter. Here they can cause any number of an array of symptoms, inflammations, & dis-ease over the course of hours to years in that organ system or those which rely on its proper function. Examples include acne, allergies, arthritis, asthma, auto-immune conditions, cancer, constipation/diarrhea, depression, eczema, fatigue, headaches, heartburn, heart disease, liver disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, IBD (crohn’s/colitis), IBS, joint pain, kidney disease, low back pain, neck/shoulder pain, osteoporosis, stroke, thyroid issues, recurrent infections, & many, many more. Intolerance testing is performed in a variety of ways (Carroll Food Intolerance Evaluation, Electro-Acupuncture According to Voll, Etc) each varying in the reliability of their results.

Food sensitivities are also considered an immune-mediated response to particular substances, much like food allergies. The differentiating factor between the two is in the type of immunoglobulin that is involved, which in this case is IgG antibodies. Due to this difference the response is slower with onset in hours to days following the consumption of an offending agent. Reactions are also quite variable including gas, bloating, constipation/diarrhea, cramping, headaches, irritability, nausea, nervousness, etc. Food sensitivity testing is performed with a panel, this time IgG is the test of choice. IgG panels, and sensitivity tests in general, suffer from very poor specificity to any given food because of the fact that the body produces IgG to mark all of the foods that we feed our body. Therefore, the test, more often than not, is simply letting the individual know what they’ve recently been consuming the most of, and mistakingly identifies these foods as “sensitivities.” To further the confusion, individuals with the most sensitivities commonly find that these are the result of inflammation in the digestive tract that has given rise to a “leaky gut” environment. Consequently, when the individual identifies and avoids the food intolerance that is causing the inflammation most, if not all, of the food sensitivities resolve.

In Summary

In conclusion, food allergies are almost always known by the individual prior to testing as the reaction is so quick to ensue and the severity is often disabling. Food sensitivities are either simply identifying the foods you most commonly eat or more likely pointing to a an underlying food intolerance that needs to be addressed. Finally, food intolerances, not unlike sensitivities, are difficult to diagnose without a proper evaluation due to the fact that their symptoms are so variable and often take days, months, and even years to notice the full-fledged effects. This confusion is only compounded by the fact that many of these intolerances are normally consumed daily, where the body forms a “tolerance” to the particular food, & the individual becomes insensitive to the food that’s most affecting them. They fall into the feeling that this is just “normal”, and have trouble finding any solution for their situation that lasts for more than a week or two. This is why first identifying & then avoiding that primary food intolerance &/or combination intolerance is at the core of health & healing.

Food for Thought!

Addendum: A thorough explanation of food intolerance must also include the effect that the undigested food matter has on digestion, available energy, and every other organ system in the body. When we don’t properly digest a food, our body doesn’t know that it can’t… so it keeps working and working, trying to digest the food that it simply cannot. The body, during optimal digestion expends roughly 30% of the energy taken in during meals just to break the food down into molecules the body can absorb and assimilate. The brain requires another 20-30% of the caloric intake from the foods we eat, depending on how hard one’s brain is working. This leaves at best 40-50% of the nutritional content in one’s diet to power them through their day and accomplish all their activities of daily living. When one takes into account that we are only able to absorb about 90% of the calories we take in, that further reduces our available energy from the food we eat to 30-40%. If we tack onto that the extra energy expenditure required for inefficient digestion of not only our particular food intolerance, but also other foods we eat, we lose another 10-20%. This is starting to look bad, we only have 10-30% of the energy from the foods we ingest to use in all of the activities of our daily life. No wonder one feels fatigued, overwhelmed, & generally stressed-out! And to think, by simply identifying and avoiding our food intolerance we can more than double the available energy from the food we eat, start to reintroduce foods we may have become sensitive to due to reduced inflammation, and maintain stamina for all the activities we hope to accomplish from day to day.