Super Fitness Health BlogFood intolerance versus food allergy – what’s the difference?
What’s a food intolerance?
Food intolerance, or non-allergic food hypersensitivity, is a digestive problem. It involves some sort of bad response, which is caused by the body’s inability to digest a certain food, beverage, food additive or compound located in foods.
Just how is a food intolerance set off?
Reactions to chemical products in the diet (i.e. food intolerances) are considerably more regularly occurring than actual food allergies.They occur more often in women, which may be on account of hormone variances, as lots of food chemicals mimic hormones.
They are caused by many chemicals (both natural and manufactured) in a wide selection of foods. Most food intolerances develop from a deficiency in, or lack of, specific chemicals or enzymes within the body, needed in order to process a certain food substance.
Digestive enzymes are proteins that break down the sugar and proteins in foods, transforming them into a form that is absorbable by the body. If you can’t generate enough of the necessary enzymes, your body won’t be able to digest the sugar or protein, ultimately causing digestive troubles.
They can also be the result of poor absorption of nutrients (as occurs in fructose malabsorption) and by the emission of chemicals within the body when the particular foodstuff, beverage, additive or compound is ingested.
Pharmacological reactions to naturally-occurring compounds in foodstuffs, or chemical intolerance, may develop in people from both allergic and non-allergic family backgrounds. Signs and symptoms may begin at any age, and may develop rapidly or gradually over time. Triggers can range from a viral infection or sickness to environmental chemical exposure.
So how does a food intolerance differ from a food allergy?
Food intolerances are often confused with food allergies, as similar symptoms can arise from eating offending food products. Having said that, in truth, they’re very different.
Food intolerance is a digestive system response to the inability to process certain materials in food, which doesn’t involve the immune system. In comparison, a food allergy is an irregular reaction to foodstuff, which is generated by the body’s immune system. A genuine food allergy necessitates the presence of IgE antibodies against the offending food, but a food intolerance does not.
In an allergic attack scenario, your immune system actually generates antibodies against a certain food protein. Therefore, when you ingest a food that you’re allergic to (such as peanuts, shellfish etc), there is an immediate reaction (often in a few minutes).
This divergence is important because, whilst a food intolerance may result in some unpleasant symptoms (see below), it is not life-threatening and symptoms often appear more steadily – usually about thirty minutes after eating or drinking the food in question, but from time to time as much as 48 hours later. An allergy, in contrast, is commonly a a lot more intense and might even be terminal in the case of severe allergies (e.g. through anaphylaxis).
How’s food intolerance discovered?
Food hypersensitivity (food intolerance) is more chronic, less acute, less apparent in its presentation and frequently more challenging to identify than a food allergy. This is specially so because the body does not produce antibodies to fight against the toxic chemicals and the reaction commonly develops over a prolonged length of time.
They’re therefore mostly discovered through a straightforward trial and error technique – a dietitian or nutritionist goes through a process of elimination with the individual, taking away possible problematic foods and systematically re-introducing them back into the diet, trying to find corresponding improvement and deterioration of symptoms.
Different approaches to diagnosis include hydrogen breath testing for lactose intolerance and fructose malabsorption and ELISA testing for IgG-mediated immune responses to specific foods.
What are some of the warning signs of food intolerance?
“Food intolerance” is an overall expression used to describe a number of adverse physiological responses, which will produce symptoms in one or more body organs or bodily systems. Symptoms will hence range from person to person and will usually depend on the type of intolerance. Food intolerances can therefore be grouped according to their mechanism. For instance, food intolerance can present with symptoms afflicting the skin, respiratory tract and the gastrointestinal tract, either independently or in combination.
A few typical symptoms include bloating, gas, tummy soreness, diarrhea, heartburn, indigestion and nausea or vomiting, all of which indicate a negative response to the food which has been taken in. The discomfort that is felt is a result of the inability of our body to breakdown the food and process it normally and effectively. Some other typical symptoms include welts, fluid retention, sweating, rapid breathing, breakouts and migraine headaches. Food intolerance has been connected with, to name a few, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, inflammatory bowel diseases (such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis) and chronic diarrhea.
Some examples of food intolerances
Lactose intolerance
The most common food intolerance is to lactose, found within milk and other dairy products. Lactose intolerance is caused by the human body’s incapacity to properly digest high amounts of lactose, which is the predominant sugar in milk.
This is due to a lack or absence of the enzyme lactase, which breaks down lactose into more basic forms, so that it is more easily aassimilated into the our blood. Standard symptoms of lactose intolerance include diarrhea, feeling sick, cramps and bloated tummy. These symptoms can occur anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours after eating or drinking something that consists of lactose.
Gluten intolerance
Gluten intolerance is another common sort of intolerance. Gluten is a protein composite present in foods processed from wheat and related species, including barley and rye.
Although celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder brought on by an immune response to gluten, it actually also leads to gluten intolerance and can produce temporary lactose intolerance.
Managing with food intolerance
Once the offending food or foods are revealed, the best way forward is arguably to keep away from those whenever you can. Fortunately, nowadays there are a number of specialised foods on the market to make life a little bit easier for the people with a food intolerance. For instance, soya milk.
Even so, with any diet with limited or constrained food choice, it is crucial to make certain you are still accessing all of the nutrients you require everday. This can be achieved through careful and proactive meal planning. Intense food intolerance can result in serious weight-loss and, occasionally, may even result in the individual becoming malnourished.
People that have a food intolerance often find it beneficial to supplement their diet with specialist meal replacements (shakes) and/or protein powders, which are nutrients-fortified. These are available as gluten, dairy, sugar, yeast and wheat free drinks and are quick and simple to include into your daily regime.
* Before changing your diet or taking health supplements, always be sure to consult your doctor or qualified health practitioner (particularly if you are pregnant, breastfeeding or on medications).
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