Food Intolerance and Food Sensitivity

A food intolerance is when your digestive system struggles to break down certain foods. Another word for food intolerance is food sensitivity.

Food intolerance means that your gut is sensitive to certain foods and can't tolerate them. When you eat these foods, you may experience symptoms like gas, bloating, diarrhea, heartburn, or abdominal pain.

Food intolerance, or food sensitivity, is not the same thing as having a food allergy. A food intolerance:

• Affects your digestive system.

• Occurs when your digestive system can't break down certain foods.

• Causes symptoms like an upset stomach that aren't life-threatening.

• Symptoms start within a few hours after eating as food moves through your digestive tract.

It often may not cause symptoms if you eat just a small amount of a food.

A food allergy affects the immune system.

• It occurs when your immune system mistakes a protein or other ingredient in food as a threat. (In my case, it was gluten. I suffered with this for years, unaware I had it.) Your immune system then releases antibodies (proteins) called immunoglobulin E (lgE) to fight the threat.

• Causes an allergic reaction, such as hives and swelling, shortness of breath, or wheezing. (When I ate gluten, I had shortness of breath, swelling, and fluid retention.)

• Brings on symptoms within minutes of consuming even a small amount of an allergy-inducing food.

May cause a severe, life-threatening reaction called anaphylaxis. Without an epinephrine (Epi-pen) treatment, this can be fatal.

Some common food sensitivities are:

• Lactose: A sugar found in milk and dairy products. Your body lacks an enzyme to break down lactose.

  It is the most common food intolerance.

• Histamine: This naturally occurring compound is found in foods like cheese, pineapples, bananas, avocados, and chocolate. Red and white wine also have histamines. Histamine intolerance occurs when your body does not make enough diamine oxidase enzyme to break the chemical down.

• Gluten: It is a protein in wheat, barley, rye, and oats. Gluten sensitivity is similar to having celiac disease, an autoimmune disease. When you have celiac disease, gluten damages the small intestines (villi). If you have a non-celiac gluten sensitivity, your body has a harder time digesting gluten.

Certain gastrointestinal conditions may make you more prone to food sensitivities. Such as: Celiac disease and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

Symptoms of food intolerance are:

• Abdominal(belly) pain

• Diarrhea

• Gas and bloating

• Headache or migraines

• Heartburn

• Nausea

• Upset stomach

  
  

There are certain tests that your doctor can do to detect lactose intolerance. There is no test for gluten sensitivity or histamine intolerance. An allergy test can detect food allergies, but not food intolerances. Keeping a food diary and documenting daily can help you recognize when a food is causing specific symptoms. I also recommend doing a food elimination diet for two to six weeks to see if the symptoms disappear during that time. You can slowly add those foods back into your diet one by one. If any food causes a specific symptom, then eliminate it permanently from your diet. Doing this will help your gut to heal and allow inflammation to subside.