Food Intolerance – from Migraine to Depression

Food intolerances are a topic that raises a lot of interest. More and more people decide to test what foods their body does not tolerate and eliminate them from their diet for a certain period of time. It is often a very good decision. Research studies carried out so far show that an elimination diet can be effective in fighting many diseases. Why is it so?

Food intolerances are the common name for latent (delayed, hidden) food allergies. The key word here is ‘hidden’. Well, unlike the typical, immediate allergy, these reactions never appear immediately after eating poorly tolerated food.

 

 IgE-dependent allergies

A person with immediate allergy (IgE – dependent) is well aware of what makes them allergic, because right after they’ve eaten the allergenic ingredient, symptoms develop. It often means swelling of the lips and tongue, an allergic rash, abdominal pain, and in extreme situations, even breathing problems. So the recipe is simple – we avoid anything that harms us! Who wants to eat an egg when a rash appears all over the body?

 

 

IgA and IgE-dependent allergies

However, if we have food intolerances – that is, delayed reactions to foods – then after eating poorly tolerated products, we often feel quite good and nothing seems to hurt us – because inflammation develops later. It takes longer to produce IgA and IgG antibodies to food, which causes the first symptoms of reaction to appear even from 9 to 96 hours after the meal. What’s more – we do not associate them with food, because they are very non-specific and initially  not intense. Unknowingly, we keep consuming the foods we don’t tolerate, and inflammation in the body increases without hindrance.

Remember that food intolerance is acquired over the course of life, when the intestinal epithelium is damaged under the influence of various factors. The reasons can be an unhealthy diet, drug abuse (especially antibiotics, reflux medications or painkillers), chronic stress, and even… excessive physical activity!

As a consequence, the intestinal barrier may be damaged. It is a filter which lets the elements we need (enzymatically decomposed food, minerals) into the blood and retains unnecessary and harmful factors (food toxins, bacteria) on its surface. However, when this barrier is damaged, a number of undesirable and aggravating factors penetrate the blood system – and our immune system begins to actively fight them because they think they are a threat. This is what happens with foods that we don’t tolerate.

 

When can we suspect that we have a problem with food intolerance? Once our health and well-being systematically deteriorate, even if we try to live and eat healthy. What’s more, the results of our basic blood tests are also great. So what, when we feel worse every day, the amount of energy drops, the mental mood deteriorates, and we still feel tired. Then it is worth checking whether the reason for this condition is not our daily diet.

 

The most common symptoms of food intolerance include, among others:

• Excess weight and obesity, despite following a diet with reduced energy value and properly selected physical activity. In other words – you are on a continuous diet and spend half a day in the gym and … nothing! In addition, people with food intolerances often declare retention of excessive amounts of water in the body. It may then turn out that the main reason for accumulating excess kilos is inflammation, which leads to insulin resistance and leptin resistance. It often happens that withdrawing several intolerant foods from the diet gives spectacular results in the form of rapid weight reduction – often without the need to reduce the energy value of the diet.

 

• Intestinal problems such as abdominal pain, flatulence, constipation, diarrhea. Food intolerance often gives symptoms similar to irritable bowel syndrome, basic and imaging results show no abnormalities, and we still suffer from digestive discomfort. No diets or medications help – stomach hurts all the time. Then it is worth considering testing for food intolerances – the cause of digestive problems may be precisely inflammation and damage to the intestinal barrier. Improvement after the implementation of the elimination diet is often observed after a few days

 

• Skin problems, especially acne or atopic dermatitis. Studies to determine poorly tolerated foods make sense, especially for patients who have skin-related changes suggestive of allergies, and classical allergological (IgE-dependent) tests work out correctly. The next step is then to determine whether delayed hypersensitivity reactions are responsible for skin hypersensitivity. The situation is similar with acne, which, as you know, may have various conditions, even hormonal or bacterial. However, in a large group of patients, this type of problem is diet dependent. We often observe that depending on what we eat, our skin looks better or worse, but sometimes it is difficult to grasp which food harms us the most – remember that skin can react negatively to food consumed even a few days ago!

 

• Deterioration of mood, depression, chronic fatigue. Mood drops are not foreign to any of us and often result from the woman’s hormonal cycle. However, the problem arises when our mental well-being is worse almost without a break, we are not happy, we react less and less to everyday stress. Chronic fatigue syndrome is common, too, in which even a few hours after waking up we are so tired that we would gladly go back to bed.

 

Some of you may be surprised how strongly the intestine and food intake affect our mental mood, but believe me – it is not without reason that we say that the intestine is the second brain. It is in the digestive tract that most of the serotonin (the so-called happiness hormone) is produced. The existence of the brain-bowel axis as a two-way communication pathway plays a particularly important role in this case. In other words – what happens in the gastrointestinal tract has a huge impact on our psyche and well-being. So what happens when there is damage to the intestinal barrier, microflora disorders and the development of food intolerances? Inflammation develops, and instead of making serotonin to stay happy, kinurenine is formed in our body, which has a toxic effect on the cells of the nervous system. Hence, people with gastrointestinal disorders do not have a great mood. Maybe many of you doubt that your well-being may depend on your diet, but trust me – that’s the way it is. Anyway, scientists confirm this, who are increasingly showing that depression is simply an inflammatory disease. Diet based on food intolerance tests (and appropriately selected probiotics) are a really effective support in mood disorders.

It’s only a small part of possible symptoms that may suggest you have latent food reactions. Certainly, this research should be looked at by a person who has a problem with autoimmune diseases (Hashimoto’s disease, celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, endometriosis and others), because any inflammation suppressing effect in the body is of great importance in this situation. Food intolerances can also be manifested in the form of recurrent migraines and even problems with becoming pregnant. Also, deterioration of physical condition, deterioration of regeneration ability and increased amount of injury in physically active or professional athletes suggests that the body can fight poorly tolerated foods – and there is no more strength for proper regeneration.

 

 

In order for the elimination diet based on intolerance tests to give the effects you expect, you should always choose good quality tests. The key is to determine all possible types of latent reactions to foods. For this reason, the best test is to assess food hypersensitivity not only in the IgG class, but also in IgA. Other foods may sensitize you in the IgA class and others in the IgG class. You want to feel better – you should eliminate all foods that your body doesn’t tolerate from your diet.

We also do not eliminate any foods from the diet without proper research. It’s not true that everyone can’t tolerate gluten or milk. Remember that your problem may be completely different foods, even those generally considered to be the healthiest. So eliminate it wisely and always based on appropriate research.

And finally – elimination is not everything! If we take something from the diet, we must replace it with something else – otherwise the diet, which is to improve our health, will eventually become deficient. After carrying out tests for food intolerances – do not be afraid to use the help of a dietitian or professionally tailored nutrition systems – such as diets available in the application Diet & Training by Ann.

 

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