Food Intolerance - Some Information About It
By food intolerance, we mean unpleasant reactions to foodstuff or food additives. Food allergies are strong and usually imediate reactions to foods where the body's immune or the defense system is involved in a direct manner.
There are lots of doctors who decide to make use of the expression food bigotry just for unwanted reactions to food where the human body's resistant device is not involved. Generally allergy tests are recommended to see whether a human being is pain from this. Exhaustion also sets in when people pain from food bigotry.
There are many different kinds of non-immune responses to food items. One of the most evident cases is plain toxicity. You know that there are various contaminants present in our environment. Contaminants are things which get into your food at the time of growing or harvesting or processing or wrapping or while storing.
This can result in a number of health risks. Indeed, in the worst case, one can grow ill or even die due to ingested impurities. A second group is those who carry mutations for specific digestive enzymes. The problems they regularly encounter are less apparent than those who have more violent food allergies.
Lactose intolerance is a familiar instance. There are those people whose bodies cannot digest milk because they lack the enzyme called lactose, which is needed to absorb the sugar lactose in milk. Most of us have levels high in this enzyme so we can tolerate milk and not have unpleasant side effects.
Another example of non-allergic food intolerance is the reaction caused by naturally occurring chemicals in food, or by additives which cause a chemical reaction. These reactions are similar to allergic reactions, so there is a possibility that these may be incorrectly identified as responses to a food allergy.
There are various things which come under the food additives category. They include substances like preservatives, flavoring agents, coloring agents etc. Some familiar examples include tartrazine, MSG or monosodium glutamate, sulphur dioxide as well as benzoates. When chemical reactions are involved with respect to food or food additives, they are not actually allergic reactions since here the body's immune system is not involved.
Naturally occurring substances can occur in such high concentrations that they make food unsafe to eat. Another category of food intolerance involves people who lack certain enzymes which are required to digest certain foods, such as lactose intolerance. These conditions are less dangerous but still serious. Common symptoms include dry eyes, breathing difficulties or fatigue. Type tired, or "fatique" into a search engine to learn more details. Lactose intolerance is a familiar instance. Such situations can often be discovered through an allergy test. An alternative situation comes from a negative reaction to chemicals found in food. These substances may be of natural or artificial origin.
Published January 20th, 2009
Filed in Health
