Food Intolerance
Do you have a Food Intolerance, a Food Allergy, or both?
Food Intolerances
The immune system is constantly sampling the contents of the intestines to try to identify anything that will cause the body harm. Food intolerances occur when the immune system that surrounds the GI tract identifies a food as foe.
Food intolerances and food sensitivities, which may be used interchangeably, cause latent and inconsistent reactions, where symptoms can appear in hours or days after eating a food. This is why it can be difficult, and sometimes near impossible, to identify a food intolerance by merely paying attention to what you are eating.
Over time, a food intolerance can lead to an immune response, where the intestinal mucosa produces IgA antibodies as a defense mechanism. If IgG antibodies are found, it means that the food exposure has crossed into the blood stream and the immune system is mounting a response to food.
Food intolerance tests look at IgA and IgG antibody reactions to the foods you are eating.
Food Allergy
Food allergies trigger an immediate immune response, that involves a different immune pathway than food intolerances. In this pathway, the immune system hyper-responds to a food and mounts an IgE antibody response to the food. IgE binds to mast cells, which are immune cells that contain histamine, and they trigger the mast cells to dump histamine.
Mast cells are all over the body, including the lungs, skin, nose and throat. Symptoms can include rash, redness, swelling, tingling, and hives and they can also include, or develop into, a life-threatening event, where the throat swells up.
Food allergies should be painstakingly avoided.
Food Intolerance and Allergen Testing
Food Intolerance
Our Food Intolerance test is run on a microchip platform and has great reproducibility (the highest in the industry).
These tests measure IgA and IgG antibody reactions at the protein-based level.
Test up to 209 different foods with Food Intolerance Complete (includes Panel 1, Panel 2 and the Additives Panel).
Food Allergy
The test panel measures IgE antibodies response to 96 of the most common allergens that are consumed.
Common allergens include: peanut, dairy, egg, shellfish, tree nuts, fish, corn, soy, lectin, wheat, fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, and nightshades.
As well as more alternative foods, like seeds, fruits, vegetables, coffee, cocoa, and yeast (to view the complete list, click on the test kit below and review 'Markers Measured').
Food Zoomers
While our Food Intolerance tests are a PROTEIN level antibody test, our Zoomer tests measure PEPTIDE levels.
Zoomer tests are a magnified look at how your immune system can react to wheat, grains or lectins. There’s no way looking at a single “wheat” protein antigen can offer that same view.
Wheat Zoomer also tests for Celiac, intestinal permeability (leaky gut), wheat allergy and non-gluten wheat proteins.
