It can be difficult to find out whether food provokes intolerance. First, food allergy and reactions to additives or specific preparations of the food must be excluded as the cause of the hypersensitivity. Then, you will often have to go through troublesome experiments. This is in part caused by the fact that intolerance symptoms usually do not appear until 48 - 72 hours after having consumed the provoking food or drink.
Food intolerance is not a real allergy, but a hypersensitivity reaction, which is very common in both children and adults. It can involve G type antibodies of and eosinophilic white blood cells are often in the majority. Intolerance does not react to skin tests. It typically involves 3 - 10 different foods, but twice this number has been observed. It almost always involves foods that you like and therefore eat often.
It is still not clear why we develop food intolerance. In contrast to allergy, it is probably not hereditary. A theory states that the transition from milk to solid food has been too early and too abrupt and the intestine may not have been ready for it. Also see the article on allergy.
Food intolerance is involved in a variety of diseases - e.g. multiple chemical sensitivity - and several hundred symptoms. Most often, larger amounts of the provoking food is needed in order to provoke symptoms than is the case in real food allergy. It is also often possible to be able to re-introduce the foodstuffs in a limited amount after having avoided them for about 4 months. The amount to which the foodstuffs can be re-introduced depends on how violent symptoms they caused.
The foodstuffs which most often cause hypersensitivity problems are:
Dairy products, wheat, eggs, and members of the Solanacea (aubergine, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, and tobacco.
Lactose intolerance
People with lactose intolerance cannot tolerate milk because they cannot digest milk sugar, lactose. This is due to a lack of the enzyme lactase, which normally breaks lactose down into digestible sugars. If people lacking this enzyme drink milk they suffer stomach pain, bloating, and possibly nausea and cramps within 15 – 30 minutes.
Symptoms from food intolerance in children can be e.g.:
Re-orccuring sinusitis, cold, otitis media, bronchitis, eczema, and other skin problems. If you remove a foodstuff which causes a chronic, albeit small suffering because you eat it often, the symptoms can flare up after a while just like withdrawal symptoms in an alcoholic from which you remove the alcohol.
If left untreated, the symptoms will gradually change during the years causing:
Tiredness, headache, worsened skin problems, asthmatic symptoms, digestive problems, abdominal disorders, joint pain, rheumatic problems, weight problems, oedema, and not least depression and mental sufferings to dominate your daily life.
Histamine Intolerance
Not all food intolerance involves IgG-antibodies. Many food products contain histamine in large amounts, and if the body cannot break down this histamine sufficiently, it crosses the intestinal wall and enters the blood stream. Here it can cause symptoms which are comparable to allergy. This is because histamine acts as a hormone, and is responsible for the allergy symptoms associated with “true allergy.” In allergic reactions, histamine is given off by certain white blood cells, which overreact to the presence of certain harmless substances in the bloodstream.
The body normally produces an enzyme called diaminoxidase (DAO), which breaks down histamine. If the production of this enzyme is, for one reason or another, insufficient, the intake of histamine containing food and drink can cause an increased histamine level in the blood, which causes allergy-like symptoms. Foods which contain histamine can also cause symptoms if they contain substances which cause the body’s white blood cells to release histamine.
Many medicines inhibit DAO, and therefore lead to histamine build up in the body. This is also true of alcohol, which both increases the intestine’s histamine absorption and inhibits its breakdown. Alcohol together with histamine rich food therefore causes worsened symptoms. Histamine in food is not broken down by cooking of freezing.
Examples of food and drink with high histamine content: Red wine, champagne cheese, yeast / baking powder, salami, fish (especially conserves), spinach, and sauerkraut. A rule of thumb is that the older, more mature, or more prepared food is, the higher the histamine content. For example, fresh fish contains very little histamine. The content of histamine in red wine can also vary greatly; some wines cause symptoms while others do not. Symptoms from red wine are due to its tyramine content.
Examples of food with little histamine, but with the ability of stimulating the body’s release of histamine: Cocoa / chocolate, tomatoes, strawberries, citrus fruits, pineapple, kiwi, mango, buckwheat, crabs and shellfish, nuts, sunflower seeds, vinegar, and mustard.
Examples of additives which can stimulate the white blood cells to release histamine: Glutamate (E620-623), benzoate (E210-213), sulphites (E220-228), nitrates (249-252), as well as some food colourings.
Symptoms
The symptoms of histamine intolerance can be: Stomach pain, diarrhoea or constipation, intestinal gas, headache / migraine, runny nose, itchy eyes, various rashes, itchiness, tiredness, nausea, dizziness, concentration problems, and low blood pressure. They can start after a few minutes or after a few hours and there can come in varying degrees. Their frequency and severity varies from day to day, from person to person.
