Baby Suzie had allergies\ndiagnosed and was given help to manage her diet. But Suzie still had reflux.\nShe was still waking often through the night, had tummy pain, constipation, was\nirritable, and was not gaining weight. When the Low Chemical diet was added to\nher diet all of these symptoms reduced and she looked like a different girl\nwith more colour in her now-happy face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food chemical sensitivity\n\u201caggravates the underlying disorder in susceptible people\u201d. The important idea here is that one of the underlying disorders\nit aggravates is allergy<\/em>. <\/a>This\nidea has developed from gradually accumulating outcomes of research into food\nchemical sensitivity, separate to findings in allergy. I have often seen small\nchildren known to be allergic, often to milk, have less symptoms on a low\nchemical diet and have been able to begin tolerating more milk than they could\nbefore implementing the low chemical diet. Initially information came from families\nwho sought help primarily for migraine, ADHD or IBS. Then those with eczema\nalso found that the low chemical diet helped more than just attention to foods\nthat were positive on allergy tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cFigures show that up to six million\nAustralians claim to be allergic to foods but only one in eight had had the\ncondition diagnosed\u201d. What is happening? Other clinical research that seems unrelated\nmay provide the answer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

World-wide and Australian\ndietitian clinical research (including my \nwork) has reported that food additives do cause reactions in children. Not\njust in ADHD children but also in a susceptible group in the general population.\nEarlier research showed that where children react to additives, and other\nsuspect natural chemicals in food, they not only report behavioural changes,\nbut also worsening of sleep problems, eczema, diarrhoea, wheezing, headaches\nand tummy aches. When people report reactions to foods they use the word\n\u201callergy\u201d when it is more likely that food chemical intolerance is the cause. Food\nsensitivity<\/em> is a better word as it\ncan cover both true allergy and food chemical intolerance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One important indicator of food\nchemical susceptibility is a family history of allergy. Another is sensitivity\nto aspirin [salicylate]. Another is sensitivity to environmental factors such as\nperfumes. Chemicals excluded during investigation of food sensitivity include\nmedicinal and natural salicylates [present in such foods as tomato, acidic\nfruits and spices], additive colour, flavour and benzoates [which have a\nsimilar chemical structure to salicylates], other preservatives, additive and\nnatural MSG, amines [In chocolate and rich foods] and strong smells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why has food chemical sensitivity\nnot been recognised as relevant when thinking about allergy? The first reason\nis because sensitivity to food chemicals is dependant on whether you are\nsusceptible or not, and not on whether you have a diagnosis of a particular\ncondition such as ADHD or eczema. It is recognised that different allergic\npeople are allergic to different whole foods because this can be shown with\nskin prick testing [SPT]. It is also recognised that there is delayed onset\nreactions which do not usually show with SPT. Yet somehow the idea of chemical\nsensitivity, also with individual variation in which chemicals cause symptoms,\nis not recognised. Like delayed onset allergic reactions there is no clarifying\ntest. Similarly the only way chemical intolerance can be clarified is by\ndietary elimination and challenge. So when you want to report some diet-related\nsymptom with your doctor, explain it as a reaction rather than an allergy so\nyou don\u2019t end up in a discussion about what allergy is. And your doctor can\nattend to the medical aspects. It will be great when more allergists and\nimmunologists acknowledge that allergy and food chemical sensitivity can happen\ntogether. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another reason that food\nchemical sensitivity is not recognised in some with allergy is that reactions\noccur when the sum of several suspect chemicals reaches a threshold, so the person\nis rarely able to pinpoint all the suspect foods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While food sensitive patients\ndo sometimes report feeling faint when having a reaction they rarely have an anaphylaxis\nreaction. Another interesting finding is that those who have food sensitivity\nalso have a family history of another group of symptoms which are not allergy<\/em>. These include headaches,\nmigraine, irritable bowel syndrome [IBS], mouth ulcers and car sickness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is possible to see a\nfamily where one member is seeing a neurologist re migraine, another an\nallergist re hay fever or eczema, another a gastroenterologist re IBS, an\ninfant with diarrhoea seeing a paediatrician, and another child presenting for\ndietary investigation of ADHD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food chemical sensitivity is\na complex condition, but much has been learned over the last forty-four years. You\ncan read the many interesting Articles via https:\/\/foodintolerancepro.com\/articles\/<\/a>   and see\nthe books on how to do the diet investigation. If possible do add on help from\nan accredited practicing dietitian so that you do not exclude more than you\nneed to, and so any ill effects on your social life, or nutritional intake are\navoided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baby Suzie had allergies diagnosed and was given help to manage her diet. But Suzie still had reflux. She was still waking often through the night, had tummy pain, constipation, was irritable, and was not gaining weight. When the Low Chemical diet was added to her diet all of these symptoms reduced and she looked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4195,20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-allergy-can-happen-with-food-sensitivity","7":"category-food-intolerance","8":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodintolerancepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodintolerancepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodintolerancepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodintolerancepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodintolerancepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2743"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/foodintolerancepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2745,"href":"https:\/\/foodintolerancepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2743\/revisions\/2745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodintolerancepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodintolerancepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodintolerancepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}