Food Intolerance

Due to rapid globalization, changes in lifestyle, dietary habits, fusion of cuisines from all across the world, people in one corner of the world are now consuming food that is made with ingredients from another corner of the world. As a result of this change, food intolerance is on the rise globally with incidences peaking around 20-30% depending on the country.

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Food Intolerance Basics

Food intolerance is a complex reaction on exposure to certain types of food, where the immune system may be involved or may not be involved.

Certain types of food intolerance are a result of a lack of digestive enzymes or deficiency in specific enzymes which leads to undigested/partially digested food material passing through the gastrointestinal tract, which end up causing the typical symptoms of food intolerance.

In the case of immune system mediated food intolerance, different food components on crossing the damaged intestinal barrier (leaky gut) result in the production of IgG antibodies that bind to their respective food antigens. The immune complexes that are formed as a result of these food specific IgG antibodies and food antigens are deposited across different tissues, leading to inflammatory responses which are responsible for the classical symptoms of food intolerance. Symptoms include bloating, abdominal pain, flatulence, diarrhoea, vomiting along with non-specific symptoms like fatigue, weakness, mental fog, headaches/migraines, sleep disorders, skin issues etc.