Test To Help You Obtain Optimal Health
Intolerance, food sensitivity or food allergy?
Optimizing Your Diet To Work For You
We’ve all heard of food intolerances but for many it still isn’t clear what they are and how they negatively impact our health. Food allergies are obvious, as they create an immediate acute immune response. Intolerances and food sensitivities on the other hand are less obvious because we have a non-immune reaction and therefore responses can be seen on the body up to several days after consumption of the food. Although food sensitivities can cause chronic illnesses in the long term, premature signs and symptoms are felt in the body and these symptoms can range very broadly. Here is a list of possible symptoms: bloating, rashes, brain fog, sinus issues, joint pain, hormonal issues, anxiety, hyperactivity, depression, digestive problems and poor sleep.
Getting To The Root Of The Problem
The test I use measures your inflammation response to foods. More specifically, it measures two cytokine responses (BAFF and PAF) that may be released by a specific antibody (IgG) after the ingestion of foods; this inflammation response is a sign the body is negatively reacting to the food.
What’s Inflammation Got to Do With It
Food intolerances can throw the whole body out of balance as they cause chronic inflammation, which is now thought to be at the root of all chronic illnesses (from heart disease, cancer to depression to dementia). Hidden intolerances like sugar, processed food, stress, toxins and being sedentary are all causes of inflammation. Addressing the root cause of the inflammation is a crucial key to staying healthy, ageing well and warding off chronic disease.
How Will a Test Improve My Life?
Addressing food sensitivities by temporarily removing them from your diet is a way to reset your body’s balance, digestive system and your general health. You allow your gut to heal and your body to eliminate the root cause of the problem and inflammation. A specific multiphase protocol is put into place after the test results are in to:
Post Test Protocol
The interesting thing here is that the actual root cause of the food intolerances and not feeling great is usually leaky gut. Many things can compromise your intestinal lining. The encouraging thing is that by allowing the gut to heal, we not only eliminate most (if not all) of the initial food sensitivities and intolerances but we also allow for better absorption of food nutrients and better immune function.
Elimination Diets
The above can also be done without testing for food sensitivities by simply doing an elimination diet.
What is an Elimination Diet?
An elimination diet is when we rid the diet of the most common foods which people are intolerant to, such as dairy, grains and gluten, FODMAPS, sugar, alcohol, caffeine and yeast.
After a sufficient period, whole foods are reintroduced to the diet one at a time to monitor whether or not they still create a negative response on the body. It is really important to work with a naturopath or other nutrition expert especially during the reintroduction phase in order to do this process properly as it is time consuming and some of these foods hide under different names, we don’t want to have to start again from scratch if a food is mistakenly consumed.
If there is one thing you can do to reset your health I would say it is an elimination diet. Not only will it help heal your gut but it will get rid of unwanted inflammation in the body: both essential keys to longevity and vitality.
To help determine what is right for you, please leave me a note here.
