Food intolerances

What are food intolerances?

The foods that are source of life and pleasure, can become some people in the cause of why they lose health. This occurs when adverse reactions to food occur and more commonly but inaccurately called food intolerances.

Speaking of food intolerances is very general, so we must know with a minimum of precision what is the mechanism of this adverse reaction. The most popular ones are commented, which are not the most important:

Food intolerance

It is suffered by people who lack certain enzymes and therefore can not digest certain foods. It is due to the formation of antibodies against proteins of certain foods, but not of type E (typical of allergies), but in a first stage of the IgA type and after multiple stimuli of the type to the formation of IgG. For this reason, in many cases the food intolerance test is used, which is based on a blood extraction that allows analyzing the reaction of the patient’s antibodies to more than 200 foods and identify those that cause rejection to eliminate them from the patient’s diet .

It is a test too extensive and little discriminative, to obtain good results in the quality of the diet of the patient and are usually restricted food producers of intolerance “for life.”

Food allergy

It is a reaction that occurs almost immediately to the intake of food although in some cases it may take minutes or hours. They tend to be reactions that are sometimes violent and go from being a mild urticaria to instant death. Normally the affected diner knows and has to warn, simply make sure that no component of the plate carries the product. You have to be especially careful with nuts, eggs and milk.

Las intolerancias alimenticias son muy comunes, hasta el 40% de la población puede estar afectada de alguna manera.
Dr. Ángel García

Celiac

They are people who can not tolerate gluten and gluten is present in almost all flours. As a rule they lead a normal life if they do not take gluten or it can happen that they are celiacs in a mild form and they are not diagnosed. You can cook them with a flour without gluten without major problem.

Lactose intolerance

Lactose is the most abundant sugar in milk and is composed of a molecule of glucose linked to another molecule of galactose. To be able to be digested, lactose must be separated into its two components that can be absorbed by the body. This hydrolysis takes place in the intestine by an enzyme called lactase. In humans, lactase production is highest after birth and decreases with age.

In some people, lactase is maintained at sufficient levels to be able to continue digesting lactose, while in others lactase disappears completely leading to the onset of lactose intolerance or hypolactasia. It is estimated that 30% of adults are lactose intolerant.

In the FEHV clinic, a highly advanced genetic test is carried out, which makes it possible to diagnose lactose intolerance with 100% accuracy.

In people with this condition, since lactose can not be absorbed by the cells of the intestine, it is captured and digested by the intestinal bacterial flora, and the result of this is the appearance of symptoms such as stomach pain, swelling sensation , gas, nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, sleep disorders, etc. These symptoms are not exclusive to lactose intolerance, so it is very important to know if it is really due to hypolactasia, which is a disease that is genetically determined. There is also another type of lactose intolerance, called secondary, which is not of genetic origin and may be due to having an infectious gastroenteritis, other intestinal diseases, certain medications, etc. In these cases the intolerance disappears when the cause that induces it is resolved.

For these reasons, when there are symptoms of lactose intolerance, it is very important to know if it is of genetic origin (permanent intolerance) or not (temporary intolerance) in order to take the appropriate measures in each case.

Allergic Non-Allergic Histaminosis (ANAH)

It is a more frequent problem than is usually thought, affecting up to forty percent of the population. It is characterized by two aspects:

It is a silent reaction, that is, the diner does not lose health immediately, but is detecting, for example, that restaurants are not his place to eat and ends up moving away from social commitments. Except when he knows he can eat safely.
It produces chronic diseases such as: migraines, any type of migraine, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, constipation and diarrhea, intervertebral dehydration, swelling, joint pains, dry mouth or nocturnal drooling, as well as many other symptoms that lead to a progressive deterioration of health to such an extent that thirty percent of patients require psychiatric treatment for depression.

The mechanism is a slow release of histamine contained in the cells of the affected person and that this histamine is impregnated all tissues and causing symptoms.

In principle, any food can cause the problem, but in our experience, eighty percent are dairy proteins and forty percent are wheat flour. It seems to be more related to the frequency of consumption than for any other reason.

To diagnose it, the histamine release test (TLH) is used, which is based on an extraction of blood that allows to analyze the endogenous histamine concentration produced by the patient before the staple foods most commonly used in the diet, which are usually nine, in order to be able to elaborate a suitable therapeutic diet and personalized to the needs of the patient. It gives good results in terms of clinical improvement and subsequently allows to evaluate the reintroduction of restricted foods by means of a new blood test.