People have concerned regarding food intolerance. At the same time, they also have not quite sure what does that mean? Food intolerance happens when human bodies cannot tolerate consuming food. Your body reacts as you eat certain sensitive food. For instance, a lactose intolerant person cannot eat dairy products comfortably as their bodies respond with an adverse physical reaction every time they eat such food. The effect might not appear right away, but the symptoms can be acute when they consume significant amounts of such foods. That’s why people with food intolerance have to be careful with their food. It is also recommendable for them to take a medical evaluation, such as Lyon tests, to ensure their condition.
Food intolerance can be mistaken for symptoms of food allergy. Food allergies directly activate a person’s immune system to make them feel and notice it, while food intolerance do not affect the immune system. Both are not related to contaminated food or sweets, although they can cause food intoxication and not intolerance. Food intolerance is rather about the reaction associated with a digestive system toward certain food.
The Causes
Food poisoning usually occurs due to inadequate amounts of the chemicals or enzymes needed to digest a particular food. The most common case is lactose intolerance. Their body cannot break down lactose, milk or other dairy products, causing gas bloating, bowel irregularities, or intestinal distress when eating such food. Other examples are alcohol intolerance since they have insufficient alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme, causing them sick even from a single alcoholic drink. Other common causes can be from additives flavour enhancers in processed food. MSG, caffeine, benzoates and aspartame can cause pain and exhaustion to some sensitive individuals.
The Sufferer
Food intolerance is not limited to any person, but some factors play a role in the possibility of how a person has this digestive problem. Food intolerance can be hereditary from your parents. Ethnicity can also be a factor as ten percents of Northern and Western Europeans are lactose intolerant, while African, Greek, Asian origin are susceptible, reaching seventy-ninety percents.
Infants tend to produce more lactase so that they can digest it more easily than adults and older children. The sufferers might able to start developing the symptoms of lactose intolerance when they are two years old or later than that. In this matter, the gastroenteritis causes a decrease in the amount of lactose, and children are at greater risk for this matter.
The Symptoms
Those affected may suffer from digestive problems, such as abdominal discomfort, nausea, swelling, bloating, fullness, loose stools and constipation, that disturb them daily. However, these symptoms appear a few hours a day or two after eating, making it difficult to determine what is the exact problematic foods. Meanwhile, alcohol intolerance might cause the sufferer’s redness face, nausea, headaches, dizziness, irregular heartbeat, runny nose or sore throat. However, those symptoms can be quite acute if a large amount of food has been consumed.
The Diagnosis
The easy way to test is going through trial and error by removing particular food from diet plan for a while and controlling the progression of the symptoms. When the symptoms subside, the food is reintroduced. The recurrence of symptoms indicates whether this food has become the problems. This diagnosis method works well for those with one or two food problems. Meanwhile, the sufferers with several foods intolerance, the elimination method might need a longer period and still not finding the answer. Other ways would be using a home test sold in the market or a specific test from doctors. For instance, your doctor may suggest a blood glucose test or a stool acid test to determine the amount of hydrogen in your breath to find out how well your ability to digest lactose.
The Treatment
Food intolerance is usually managed simply by taking foods that disturb a person’s diet away. When the condition is mild to moderate, the person can try to eat only very small amounts of problematic food. Mild lactose intolerance can also be treated by taking lactase enzyme supplements. If the food is eliminated from the diet, it should be replaced with healthy alternatives to avoid malnutrition, especially for children.…