Nutrition is the ability of a person to take and use the elements necessary for growth, development, healthy and productive life for a long time. Sufficient and stable eating habits acquired during childhood are very valuable for maintaining a high quality and long life.
Food allergies and intolerances affect human life starting from infancy. Attention should be paid to the nutrition of individuals with food allergies from a very young age, and it should be ensured that the foods that individuals remove from their diets due to food allergies do not lead to inadequate and unstable nutrition.
Everything we eat can produce a positive or negative reaction in the body. If you have an intolerance to a reasonable food and continue to eat it, your body will cause an inflammatory response that can occur in a variety of conditions that affect your lifestyle, including headaches, chronic pain, digestive system disorders.
FOOD ALLERGY AND INTOLERANCE SHOULD NOT BE MIXED
We can call the immunological or non-immunological picture created in the body by the food we take into our body or by other factors that can be taken with food as ‘food reactions’.
We can divide food responses into two.
The first cluster is ‘food intolerance’, in which no random allergic symptoms appear in your body and the extraordinary result of other systems, where the immune system is not overreacted.
Food intolerance can be seen as a result of metabolic disorder in the body, toxic elements in the food, pharmacological properties of the food or infectious causes. According to the assumption of the British Allergy Foundation, 45% of the population in Europe and the USA have health problems due to food sensitivities.
The second cluster is the very sensitive reactions of the immunological system to foods. These hypersensitivity reactions may occur as a result of reactions in which immunoglobulin E (IgE) molecules, a valuable module of the defense system, play the leading role, as well as reactions in which the Ig E molecule is absent. This cluster is defined as ‘Food allergies’.
Inflammation (inflammation) caused by the immune system’s reaction to foods that vary according to the individual, different diseases (obesity, metabolic syndrome, chronic iron deficiency, gas, bloating, indigestion, diarrhea, celiac disease, chron disease, hypertension, dermatitis, eczema, acne, hyperthyroidism, autism) can cause. The common cause of these diseases is chronic inflammation.
According to researches, food allergies affect approximately 1 percent of adults and 8 percent of children. Food intolerances are much more common. Lactose intolerance is the most common specific food intolerance and its incidence is high in our country.
WHAT ARE THE TESTS APPLIED IN FOOD ALLERGIES?
1.Diet elimination; As a result of the story taken from the patient, some foods are eliminated. The success of these diets depends on the true determination of allergens and the elimination of all allergy-containing foods responsible for the diet. Particular attention should be paid to dietary elimination in children. In order not to affect the growth and development of the child, it is valuable to replace the removed food with a suitable glutton. In addition, it is another valuable point not to cause vitamin and mineral deficiency in the child.
2.Skin tests (prick,seratch,intradermal,saft)
3.Total and Specific IgE measurement (RAST )
4.Double-Blind Placebo Controlled Food Provocation Test : It is considered the gold standard in the diagnosis of food allergy. If there is a suspected food before the loading tests, it is removed from the diet for 15 days and if the symptom disappears, direct RAST or provocation tests are applied. If there is no suspected food, the most allergenic foods (milk, egg, peanut, strawberry, tomato, etc.) seafood) are discontinued. The observation period after the test is 2 hours for IgE-mediated reactions.
5.Lymphocyte Proliferation test
6.Basophil Histamine Release Test
7.Food Intolerance Test
Food intolerance test to identify food issues that can cause chronic inflammatory responses It is a diagnostic test used to determine Although there are different types of the test, but due to the accuracy and variety, the most ideal is the test performed on blood taken from the arm. With this allergy test, all subgroups of Ig antibodies formed in the body against various foods are detected. Food-specific Ig panels are used as diagnostic tools in food sensitivity.
The body’s defense system produces antibodies against the foods that touch us. If there is a problem in the body’s immune system against a food, it starts to form Ig-type globulins called antibodies. These antibodies combine with the proteins of the undigested food. In food intolerance tests, these foods are determined and it is revealed exactly which food has touched the individual.
Some of the tests that are popularly applied today are York test, Pinner test and Cambridge tests, and with these tests, foods that increase the levels of IgG antibodies are identified.
Also, another test formula that has become popular again recently, LTT (Lymphocyte Transformation Test), is a kind of laboratory test used in the diagnosis of Type IV allergy (hypersensitivity) against foods, metals and various allergens.
Patients with food intolerance should be advised to avoid dietary triggers as soon as possible for 3-4 weeks for symptom relief. At the same time, patients should be informed about suitable alternative foods with a comparable nutritional profile to maintain nutritional adequacy during dietary exclusion. In this process, dietary diversity should be increased, nutritional adequacy should be ensured, and the food intake with the least negative effect on the gastrointestinal microbiota should be followed gradually.
