Gluten Intolerance and Other Food Sensitivities
By Steven Horne, RH (AHG)

There�s an old saying that �one man�s meat is another man�s poison", which is especially true in the case of food allergies and food sensitivities. Normal foods can be nourishing to some people while causing illness and discomfort to others. Food sensitivities, also known as food intolerances, are especially important to understand because they can be hard to identify.

Many people are becoming aware of food intolerances, especially to gluten. The phrase gluten free is appearing on more and more food products, as many people find they feel better when they avoid it. Of course, people can have problems with other foods as well, such as lactose intolerance or sensitivity to salicylates. Because food allergies and food sensitivities are different it�s important to understand the difference between them.

Food Allergies
Food allergies are immune reactions involving mast cells. Mast cells, which are found in the mucus membranes of the lungs and intestines, trigger inflammatory reactions to certain substances via the release of histamine. This happens when a particular protein structure binds to IgE antibodies on the surface of the mast cell. This initiates an immune reaction, which treats the substance as an invader and seeks to flush it from the body.
Food allergies can cause extremely severe reactions to certain foods. The most common foods causing serious allergic reactions are cow milk, eggs, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, fish and shellfish. Reactions to these foods can occur within a few minutes and be severe enough to be life threatening.

If you have a true food allergy, even a tiny amount of the allergy-causing food can trigger a reaction. Food allergies often affect young children and require parents and guardians to carefully monitor the child�s diet. People with severe food allergies can get injectable epinephrine to use if they accidentally ingest an allergy-causing food.

Food Intolerances
Food intolerances are much more subtle problems. First the negative reactions to the food are typically more delayed, starting an hour or so after eating or perhaps even a day or more later. Tests for food allergies do not detect food sensitivities because there are no immune factors (antibodies) to detect. Food intolerance can produce allergy-like symptoms; it�s just not an immune reaction.

Symptoms of food intolerances may show up as problems with the skin, respiratory tract and/or the gastrointestinal tract.
Skin reactions can include hives and rashes, dermatitis, eczema and itchy skin.
Respiratory symptoms can include congestion, sinusitis, asthma and an unproductive cough.
Digestive symptoms can include irritable bowel syndrome, mouth ulcers or canker sores, gas, bloating, nausea, constipation, occasional diarrhea and intestinal cramping.
Inside this issue you�ll learn how to figure out if your health issues are being caused by food intolerances, what causes them and strategies for either dealing with them or overcoming them.

 

Assessing and Correcting Food Intolerances
How do you know if foods you are eating are contributing to your health problems? Although there are some medical tests that claim they can identify food intolerances, there is no objectively agreed upon standard for determining most food sensitivities. The best way to tell is with an elimination diet. This simply means eliminating suspect foods from your diet to see if you feel better.

Identifying Food Intolerances
There are several ways to identify suspect foods. First, look at the most common allergy-causing foods, as these are also some of the more common food intolerances. These include grains containing gluten (wheat, barley and rye), corn, milk and dairy products. soy and nuts.
You can also create a food journal. Each day, write down everything you eat and the time you eat it. Also write down any symptoms you feel throughout the day (digestive upset, moodiness, low energy) and note the time you started experiencing them. After a week or two you should start to see correlations between eating various foods and symptoms you may be experiencing.

If you know someone that does muscle response testing, you can have them test you on various foods. This can help you identify suspected food intolerances, but you will still need to do an elimination diet and a challenge test to determine if these foods are actually contributing to your health problems. Once you create your list of suspect foods, eliminate ALL of them for a week. If you can�t go a full week, then eliminate them for at least three days. If your health problems are linked to food sensitivities, you should notice an improvement in your energy, mental clarity, mood and symptoms.
If you do notice an improvement, you can determine which foods are causing you problems by doing a challenge test. Add just one of the suspect foods back into your diet and notice how you feel during the next 24-48 hours. If symptoms return, that food is probably causing your problems. You can optionally repeat the challenge test more than once to verify that the food is actually a problem.

What�s the Cause?
Before we get into a discussion of how to deal with food intolerances, we need to look at what�s causing them. We�ve already pointed out that many people are finding that eliminating gluten from their diet is improving their health. But, why would grains like wheat, that have been staples of the human diet for thousands of years suddenly be causing so many health problems?
If one looks at the list of common allergy causing foods, one gets a clue. Most of these foods have been altered a lot over the past century. Shellfish and fish now contain more heavy metals and toxins. Cows and chickens are no longer raised in pastures, but are confined in feedlots and cages. Milk is pasteurized, not raw. Grains have been hybridized and genetically modified. You�re also exposed to many chemicals that were never in the human diet.
Could these changes explain why some foods that were once safe and nutritious cause food sensitivities?
One possible factor to gluten intolerance may be bromine. At one time iodine was used in flour to condition the dough, but this has been replaced with bromine. Iodine is very important for maintaining gut health and bromine displaces iodine.

GMO's
Another major suspect in this growing problem of food intolerance is genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). Very few safety studies have been done on GMOs, and many of the studies which have been done suggest that consumption of GMO soy and corn can cause many of the symptoms associated with food intolerances. This, of course, does not directly explain the number of people having issues with gluten. because corn and soy do not contain gluten, but it does suggest a possible link.
The most common GMO crops are those designed to allow farmers to spray higher concentrations of weed killers containing glyphosate. These crops are modified to withstand higher doses of these chemicals, which means that higher concentrations make their way into the food supply. The biggest problem with glyphosate is not its toxicity to us, but to intestinal bacteria or friendly flora.
Another GMO alteration in food is one that causes the food to produce its own pesticide. This gene may get into certain bacteria in the gut, causing them to start producing foreign proteins, which further disrupts the balance of the gut microflora.

Damage to the GI Tract

What all these factors have in common is that they irritate the gastrointestinal system and cause dysbiosis, a disruption of the normal balance of gut bacteria. And these are not the only things that create dysbiosis. Other harmful influences include antibiotics, NSAIDs, birth control pills and chlorine.
Dysbiosis can cause a widening of the gap between intestinal cells. This causes excessive intestinal permeability, a condition known as leaky gut. These influences can also directly irritate mucus membranes causing intestinal inflammation, which also causes leaky gut.
Leaky gut allows substances that would normally be rejected by intestinal membranes to be absorbed, causing irritation to the body as a whole. The bottom line is this. Alterations in the food supply are probably irritating people�s digestive systems and throwing gut microbes out of balance. The evidence seems to suggest that problems like leaky gut, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and chemical toxins in the food may be the real reason for these intolerances.

Healing our Digestive Tract
The best way to solve the problem of food intolerances is to adopt a diet that eliminates most problematic foods, while taking supplements to help heal the gut and restore balance to intestinal microbes. In many instances this will heal the body sufficiently to allow foods that were formerly not tolerated to be consumed again (provided they are healthier versions of these foods).
There are four main diets one can follow. They are the Specific Carbohydrate diet, the Gut and Psychology Syndrome diet (GAPS), the FODMAP Diet and the Paleo diet. Each of these diets is a little different, but all are well known for their GI healing abilities. There are some commonalities between these diets, which should be a basic starring point for anyone with food intolerances.
For starters, all simple sugars and refined carbohydrates should be eliminated, This includes refined sugars of all kinds, white flour and white rice.
All gluten-hearing grains should also be eliminated, which include wheat, spelt, kamut, rye and barley. In fact, it is a good idea to eliminate all grains from the diet in the beginning.
After the gut heals, you will probably find that most organic, non GMO grains won�t cause problems.

Dairy can also be problematic for many people because they are lactose intolerant. In fact, most people who are not of European descent do not produce sufficient amounts of the enzyme lactase to digest the milk sugar, lactose.
Taking Lactase Plus with non-fermented dairy foods (milk, ice cream) will solve this problem.
Fermented dairy foods like yogurt and cheese are fine for people who are lactose intolerant. However, there is another problem with dairy, a milk protein called casein. Just as many people have an intolerance of the protein gluten in certain grains, other people have intolerance to this milk protein. Goat milk contains a different form of casein than cow milk and is tolerated by some, even when cow milk is not. It is often helpful, at least in the beginning, to simply eliminate all dairy foods until the gut heals, then experiment with what dairy foods may be tolerated.

It is absolutely essential to eliminate all processed foods, food additives and other chemicals. The diet should consist of fresh, nutrient dense vegetables, fruits, and proteins (fish, eggs and meat).
Cultured foods, especially cultured vegetables. are very beneficial.
It�s also very helpful to make bone broth or stock and drink at least two cups per day.

General Supplements
The following supplements can be used to help heal the gut:
Add about 1/4-1/2 of a capsule of goldenseal to a teaspoon of Digestive Bitters and take about 15-20 minutes prior to meals with a large glass of water. The bitter flavor is essential to making the formula work, as the bitterness
stimulates digestive secretions.
Take 1-2 capsules of PDA with meals. This will supplement digestive secretions.
If you have problems with bloating from carbohydrates take Proactazyme with meals.
If you have problems with dairy foods take Lactase Plus, eat cultured foods and/or take probiotic supplements like Probiotic Eleven with every meal.
Take 4 gel caps of Super Omega-3 EPA daily. Tip: If you burp up a fishy taste, freeze them and swallow them frozen.
If not using bone broth consider taking 4-6 capsules of L-Glutamine daily.

In addition to the above, there are other supplements that may be helpful in overcoming food intolerances. Ii you have a lot of gas, bloating and a sour stomach about one hour after meals, it may be helpful to take some supplements to reduce bacterial populations in the small intestines. Berberine IR and goldenseal are two good options. it is also helpful to make sure that you go for at least 12-14 hours every day without eating. So, if your last meal was at 7:00 in the evening, the next meal should be between 7 and 9:00 the next morning.

Taking a supplement like Bowel Detox or Proactazyme on an empty stomach before bedtime is also helpful.

While on an elimination diet, it may also be helpful to do a colon cleanse, such as the Tiao He Cleanse or CleanStart. Supplements that tone the intestinal membranes to reduce leaky gut will often reduce food sensitivities. These include U�a de Gato.

If intestinal inflammation is a problem consider Intestinal Soothe and Build.
In considering what diet to follow and what supplements to take, it is wise to seek some professional help.