Symptoms of allergy start immediately or within 2-3 hours of exposure, while intolerance symptoms may not be immediate. In addition, the severity of symptoms may be far lesser when compared to allergy which can be life threatening at times. When we consume any type
of food, it is digested partially with saliva and rest in stomach. It then passes through the gut for absorption of various nutrients.
“I get severe headache on and off associated with bloating, heartburn and irritability,” said one of my colleagues who works with human resources. Most of us ignore these symptoms blaming our lifestyle habits and lack of mobility to be the reasons. I advised her to get her food intolerance test done. The results showed intolerance to many of the foods she has been taking regularly such as cow milk, cashew nut, soya, baker’s yeast, green pea etc. I referred her to a good nutritionist who evaluated her lifestyle history in detail. She admitted on munching cashew nuts while working. Her favorite cuisine is Chinese food, which has a lot of soya sauce in it. She regularly has cow milk and
bread in her breakfast and has green peas predominantly in her lunch or dinner. Her counsellor gave her a diet plan, which included complete elimination of certain foods with restriction and rotation of the other intolerants.
While many of us may ignore the nutritionist’s advice and continue with our food habits, thinking, “It is too much”, it is important for us why not to do that. Firstly, there is a need to understand the difference between food intolerance and food allergy. Food allergy is IgE mediated while intolerance is IgG mediated. Symptoms of allergy start immediately or within 2-3 hours of exposure, while
intolerance symptoms may not be immediate. In addition, the severity of symptoms may be far lesser when compared to allergy which can be life threatening at times. When we consume any type of food, it is digested partially with saliva and rest in stomach. It then passes through the gut for absorption of various nutrients. At times, undigested food particles also get absorbed which form immune complexes and leads to an inflammatory cascade, which is responsible for the symptoms of food intolerance.
Our ancestors always used to advise us “chew your food 32 times before swallowing it”. In last two decades, food habits and lifestyle have heavily changed. Urbanization and change of work culture have changed the concept of home cooking to readymade food. Many of the individuals eat outside food more than 70% of the time in the month. Food additives, alcohol, caffeine, and contamination of food are some of the reasons believed to affect the health of the gut. Damaged gut then becomes more permeable to undigested food particles, which in turn increases the spectrum of food
intolerants. Food intolerance if ignored can damage the gut and lead to more severe symptoms and diseases, which then becomes difficult to manage.
There is an advanced test available for testing food intolerants in your blood. Using microarray technique, we can now detect intolerance against 200 + foods. Worldwide reported prevalence of intolerance by testing is ~ 0.8% to 2.4%. Due to paucity of testing, there is lack of clear prevalence data in Indian population. In a study conducted at Metropolis Healthcare limited on around 600+ individuals, each one of them was found to have intolerance for some or the other food. Most common ones were barley, egg white, cow milk, green pea, brewer’s yeast, corn, and cola nuts. A significant number of individuals were also found intolerant to wheat, kidney bean and sunflower seeds.
These common foods are part of our daily platter, and their complete elimination may become challenging at times. Nutrition experts hence have derived a strategic diet plan for this. For example, if your test results show high intolerance against wheat, you should completely replace it with oats, quinoa or brown rice for at least 3 month. Post 3 months, you can re-introduce it in your diet gradually. Similarly, if there is a borderline intolerance against cow milk, it can be replaced with
buffalo milk or cow milk can be rotated every 4 th day whichever suits better. Today after 6 months, my colleague has completely transformed her food habits. She eats keeps her diet balanced and has not complained of headache, heartburn, or any other symptom she was facing earlier.
The author is an Associate VP and Scientific Business Head–Clinical Chemistry at Metropolis Healthcare Ltd, Mumbai.
Our ancestors always used to advise us ‘chew your food 32 times before swallowing it’. In the last two decades, food habits and lifestyle have changed heavily. Urbanization and change of work culture have changed the concept of home cooking to readymade food. Many of the individuals eat outside food more than 70% of the time in the month. Food additives, alcohol, caffeine, and contamination of food are some of the reasons believed to affect the health of the gut. aDamaged gut then becomes more permeable to undigested food particles, which, in turn, increases the spectrum of food.