Is the (healthy) food you eat actually making you sick?
Well, allergy season in Charlotte is certainly upon us. The trees and flowers are blooming, and yellow seems to be the predominant color on cars these days. Hopefully you listened to our podcast on how to naturally treat your allergies, safely and without drowsiness. This week, I want to tell you about a different kind of allergy that might be making you sick, without you even knowing it.
It may just be your favorite food!
That’s right, the food we eat can actually cause a reaction in our bodies that can spark a whole array of issues. Foggy thinking, irritable bowel, stuffy nose, fatigue, headaches, dry/itchy skin and stomach pain are just some of the symptoms you can have that could possibly be caused by an immune response to some of the foods you commonly eat, like chicken or carrots!
It is called an IGG food sensitivity reaction, and it’s very common.
IGG food sensitivity reactions are not the type of major food allergy reactions you might be thinking of (like peanuts). These reactions do not cause your throat to swell and stop breathing or cause massive skin rashes. These IGG reactions often manifest themselves without you realizing it. However, the consequences can be problematic and lead to a chronic condition or symptom.
Here’s what happens…
When you eat food, in a perfect environment, your gut breaks down the food (with digestive enzymes and acid) and absorbs these broken down parts (like amino acids) though the lining of the gut and into the bloodstream where these nutrients can be transported and utilized throughout the body. The problem is we do not live in a perfect environment! Our gut is essentially a one cell layer barrier, and can become compromised very easily. The things we ingest everyday like chemicals, toxins, alcohol, bacteria, viruses, and even stress can affect this gut barrier and channels can open up which makes our guts “leaky” to our environment. The more damage we do or ingest down there, the leakier or gut becomes.
A leaky gut can cause food sensitivities.
When your gut becomes permeable, or “leaky”, food passes through your gut and is absorbed partially undigested. This undigested food looks foreign to your immune-defense system because it sees hamburger or carrot, not amino acids, simple sugars, or fatty acids. These “foreign” invaders cause your body to mount a response (IGG antibodies) and attack and destroy them. This defense mechanism, when unchecked can cause a building of low level inflammation that then causes all those unwanted symptoms
Now we can test these IGG sensitivities.
With just 5 drops of blood, we can test for 90 different foods that could be causing you to be sick! By testing AND eliminating these foods in a systematic manner, can help relieve inflammation, pain, foggy brain, fatigue, and other unexplained ailments. I have done this myself and have had great results with other patients.
Want to take an IGG food sensitivity test? Schedule your appointment HERE.
P.S. All of our functional labs receive a one on one consultation with me. We believe it is important that you understand the lab, more than just the value and reference range.