Food intolerance (also known as food sensitivity) can be a challenging problem to solve. Unlike classical food allergy, food intolerance does not involve IgE antibodies and thus standard allergy antibody blood tests are not helpful. Add to this fact that there are also no reliable tests to detect food intolerance and the problem becomes very difficult to detect and fathom out. To make matters worse, trips to the physician may prove futile as food sensitivity still presently remains largely unrecognised by the many in the medical establishment. If you have food intolerance, the chances are that your gastrointestinal examinations will come back negative and your doctor will fail to take the matter seriously. Even if you are lucky and your doctor is sympathetic, the chances that are he or she will have little idea how to treat the problem.
However, panic not - there are measures you can take to help yourself.
Firstly it's important to understand that food intolerance arises when the balance of the intestinal flora becomes disturbed. You may find that you suddenly become food sensitive after a course of antibiotics or a bout of gastroenteritis. Symptoms primarily involve the gut (abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, gas, bloating). However, you may find that your food intolerance symptoms also involve other parts of the body (headache, muscle pain, mood swings, food cravings, aversions to foods and general malaise). These are caused by the production of and absorption into the bloodstream of unhelpful chemicals produced by the malfermenting gut.
The key therefore, is to direct treatment towards re-balancing the digestive flora. There are various ways to do this; treatment with probiotic supplements being an important part of the jigsaw.
Probiotic organisms can help redress the balance of your digestive flora in favor of the good or helpful bacteria. Be aware though that probiotics can never permanently replace the good flora that you have lost. Your own specific flora is tailored to you, acquired during and/or soon after birth, it is a perfect fit! This, together with the fact that most probiotic bacteria are transient (i.e. they do not permanently reside in the gut) means that the beneficial effect of taking probiotics for food intolerance is only experienced as long you take probiotics. In order to experience the long-term benefits of taking probiotics, you therefore have to take them on a long-term basis. For some this means for life!
The most effective probiotics for food intolerance are those, which contain a mixture of different beneficial organisms. Choose high potency probiotics (i.e. those that contain over 50 billion (1 x 509) colony-forming units (CFUs) of beneficial bacteria. If your digestive flora has become so unbalanced that you have developed symptoms of food intolerance, you need a good deal of probiotic bacteria to remedy the problem. Select only those probiotics, which are free from prebiotics (inulin or fructooligosaccharides (FOS)) as these can promote the growth of "bad" bacteria in susceptible individuals. Finally choose a supplement that is as free from additives, binders and fillers as possible. If you are intolerant to food, the likelihood is that you will experience difficulty with some of these additional ingredients.
A word of warning, start small and build up slowly. Probiotics may initially flare your symptoms. However this reaction should dissipate once the "bad" bacteria has died off.
If you would like to learn more about probiotics for food intolerance and probiotics in general, have a look at:
http://www.probiotics-help.com/.
Karen Huntley
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