food intolerance testing
what is food intolerance testing?
Food intolerance can cause many unpleasant symptoms including anxiety, arthritis, asthma, attention deficit, bloating, chronic fatigue, constipation, depression, diarrhoea, headaches, hyperactivity, insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome, migraine, water retention and weight control issues. By testing for specific foods, intolerance(s) can be detected and through careful diet management your symptoms minimised.
how long does food intolerance testing take?
A food intolerance test for 59 commonly eaten foods takes just a few minutes and your result can be picked up less than one hour later.
is food intolerance testing accurate and safe?
When a food that you are intolerant to is eaten, your body produces a certain type of antibody, called immunoglobulin-G, or IgG for short. Our test is an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, which is scientifically proven to provide rapid, accurate results. Independent testing has shown that when people have made dietary changes following a positive food intolerance test, more than 70% of them have reported a significant reduction in their symptoms. As with all screening tests, we advise you seek professional medical advice before drastically changing your diet or lifestyle.
what is involved in food intolerance testing?
Your test starts by having a quick chat with our nutritionist Emma to see that the food intolerance test is right for you. She will take a pinprick sample of your blood, normally from your index finger. That's all you are needed for, unless you would like to talk with her about your diet. Your blood sample is added to various different chemical reagents over a forty minute period, after which, you can pick up your results and discuss them with Emma.
what foods are detected in the food intolerance test?
- Cereals - corn, durum wheat, gluten, oats, rice, rye, wheat
- Nuts and beans - almond, brazil nut, cashew, cocoa bean, olive, peanut, soya bean, walnut
- Meats - beef, chicken, lamb, pork
- Fish - freshwater fish mix (salmon, trout), shellfish mix (shrimp, prawn, crab, lobster, mussel), tuna, white fish mix (haddock, cod, plaice)
- Vegetables - broccoli, cabbage, carrot, celery, cucumber, leek, legume mix (pea, lentil, haricot), peppers (red, green, yellow), potato
- Fruits - apple, blackcurrant, grapefruit, melon mix (cantaloupe, watermelon), orange and lemon, strawberry, tomato
- Other - whole egg, cows milk, garlic, ginger, mushroom, yeast
what do I need to do before my food intolerance testing?
If you have not eaten the food that you believe you are intolerant to, for more than three months, your result may come back negative as there will be too few IgG antibodies in your blood sample to detect. If you want to test for a specific foodstuff, you should introduce a portion of these foods into your diet for at least 7 days before having the test. However, if you experience severe symptoms you should immediately stop eating them, and assume that you are still intolerant to them.
what do I need to do after my food intolerance testing?
If you show a positive result to a particular foodstuff, you should seek professional medical advice before cutting it out of your diet. Cutting out a foodstuff without proper guidance can lead to more dietary problems than it solves in some cases and many people successfully continue to eat an adapted rather than restricted diet.
when can't I have food intolerance testing?
If you have avoided the suspect food for more than three months, you will need to introduce it back into your diet for at least seven days before having the intolerance test, but only if it doesn't cause you severe symptoms.
Additionally, immunosuppressants and strong steroid doses can prevent positive results from showing.
If your symptoms are caused by enzyme deficiency or chemical sensitivities e.g. sulphites, the food intolerance test will not show a positive result, or will show positive results when it is not necessarily that food which causes the problem.
