How Do Food Sensitivities Contribute to Digestive Disorders?

According to studies done by the Food Standards Agency on 1056 individuals, an average of 31% of people have food hypersensitivity. The study covered Adults with Food Hypersensitivities in the UK. This affects the way you react to food. 

It’s important to understand food sensitivities and how they differ from allergies and intolerance. This helps improve the quality of life and prevent long-term gut issues. 

This article will offer some insight into how to identify and treat this condition. 

What Are Food Sensitivities?

Food sensitivities are diffuse reactions to certain food ingredients. They differ from allergies and intolerance in their speed of reaction. 

Allergies generally appear within minutes. Intolerances can take a couple of hours to show symptoms. Sensitivity causes a delayed response, which is missed most of the time. 

According to studies at the Third Military Medical University on Associations between Food-Specific IgG and Health Outcome, food sensitivities involve higher IgG levels. Certain foods trigger these antibodies, which can include dairy, gluten, soy, and others. It’s important to remember that everyone can present with different sensitivities upon testing. 

The immune system reacts and leads to vague symptoms such as headaches, bloating, or diarrhea. These are inconvenient and can affect your quality of life, but not life-threatening. 

How Are Food Sensitivities Different from Allergies or Intolerances?

Food sensitivities are different from allergies and intolerances in their onset, cause, and severity. 

Here are the main differences:

• Food Allergies: An abnormal immune response to food that leads to higher IgE antibodies. Think of it as your security system going off when a harmless person comes over. The body overreacts in its attempt to protect itself. 
• Food Intolerance: The body lacks certain enzymes to break down specific food components (e.g., lactase for lactose). It’s like a missing tool that keeps the body from doing its job. 
• Food Sensitivity: A delayed immune response that leads to higher production of IgG and IgA. It’s like a slow-burning fuse that leads to immune dysfunction, without an obvious trigger. These foods can cause reactions up to 24 to 72 hours after eating a food, which is why figuring them out without testing can be tricky. 

Their symptoms often overlap and cause diagnostic confusion. For example, allergens provoke hives, but so can food sensitivity. Also, food sensitivity disrupts digestion, but so can intolerances. Food sensitivities are immune-mediated, which makes them easily confused with allergies.

What Digestive Symptoms Can Food Sensitivities Cause?

Food sensitivities can cause digestive discomfort and symptoms related to immune inflammation. Common symptoms include: 

• Bloating
• Cramps
• Diarrhea
• Constipation
• Gas
• Skin rashes including eczema and psoriasis
• Acne
• Fatigue
• Headaches and migraines 
• Abdominal pain

Symptoms vary from one person to another. These sensitivities disrupt motility and microbiome balance. The resulting inflammation impairs the absorption of key nutrients, leading to deficiencies. This mimics symptoms such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), causing misdiagnosis. 

Studies done on Food Intolerance, Food Allergies, and IBS at the University of Genoa show that food sensitivities worsen IBS symptoms. This causes patients to be mistreated when the route would have been much simpler.

How Do Food Sensitivities Contribute to Inflammation in the Gut?

Food sensitivities activate the immune system, which releases cytokines and other antibodies. The inflammation damages the mucosal lining in the gut, leading to digestive discomfort. This persists frequently long after the body has finished digesting the food. 

This low-grade inflammation keeps the gut in a state of chronic irritation. It alters gut mobility, disrupts digestion, and favors the production of Zonulin. When these antibody levels are higher, it loosens the light junctions in the gut. 

This leads to higher gut permeability, where the body sends undigested food particles into the bloodstream. The condition is referred to as “leaky gut syndrome.” The immune system reacts to “intruders” in the blood by creating even more inflammation. In our experience, it has been helpful to run comprehensive stool analysis on patients which does detect zonulin, which helps us discover if they do in fact have leaky gut. 

What Is the Link Between Leaky Gut and Food Sensitivities?

Leaky gut and intestinal permeability increase sensitivity because antigens enter the bloodstream. This triggers an immune response and worsens the digestive symptoms.

Your gut’s role is to act like a selective barrier. It should let the nutrients through while keeping the toxins out. When the gut junctions loosen, they become compromised and start to “leak.” This leads to a leaky gut, which starts a vicious sensitivity circle.

This is what happens when consuming food sensitivities:

1. The foods enter the gut, where they trigger inflammation. 
2. The inflammation loosens the tight junctions, making them more permeable.
3. Antigens enter the bloodstream, where they do not belong. The blood should be sterile and should not have toxins or undigested food particles in it. 
4. The immune system responds to foreign particles by sending antibodies.

In time, permeability increases sensitivity to more foods if left untreated. So, it goes both ways. When your gut lining becomes heavily compromised, it leads to even more antibodies entering the bloodstream. This increases the number of foods you may normally react to. 

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How Do Naturopathic Doctors Identify and Treat Food Sensitivities?

Naturopathic doctors identify triggers with food sensitivity testing and symptom tracking. 

One way to do so is with elimination diets. These are the standard and free option, where patients remove common trigger foods (e.g., soy, corn, dairy, or gluten) for a few weeks up to 1 month at least. Higher allergenic foods are usually eliminated first since those are the ones causing more reactions. 

Studies done at Foshan University in China suggest that 22% of patients are hypersensitive to lactose. Another 27%, especially children, are sensitive to eggs. 

These elimination diets remove irritants allowing less inflammation in the gut for the removal and elimination period. They will then reintroduce the foods one at a time, monitoring the symptoms. 

Blood tests can also be used to measure the IgG and IgA antibodies, which detect delayed immune reactions. We use easy at home finger prick testing to test for over 96 foods. 

Aside from removing the sensitive foods, naturopaths will follow gut-healing protocols. This includes the following treatments to restore gut balance:

• L-glutamine to support cell regeneration
• Probiotics to reduce inflammation and restore gut microbiome balance
• Enzyme treatments to improve food breakdown and optimize digestion
• Anti-inflammatory nutrients to reduce mucosal inflammation

Common holistic anti-inflammatory treatments include omega-3 fatty acids and curcumin. A study published by Thad Wilkins, MD, and Jaquelin Sequoia, MD, on 1,763 patients showed that probiotics decrease the risk of digestive discomfort by 15%. 

Can Food Sensitivities Lead to Long-Term Digestive Disorders?

Unresolved sensitivities can lead to long-term digestive issues because of persistent inflammation. 

Chronic exposure to trigger foods leads to gut dysfunction. This disrupts the microbiome balance and leads to conditions such as: 

• IBS: Food sensitivities can worsen the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.
• IBD: Chronic exposure worsens ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.
• Acid Reflux: Gut inflammation weakens the lower esophageal sphincter.

Continued consumption of problematic foods leads to mucosal damage, which affects nutrient absorption and food digestion. The gut-brain axis becomes compromised, which leads to hypersensitivity and motility issues. 

Once the antibodies and inflammatory cytokines enter the body, they trigger systemic inflammation. This can affect other organs, promoting a state of poor well-being. Food sensitivities cause more than just digestive concerns. Since they cause systemic inflammation, they can cause joint pain, headaches or migraines, anxiety, and more. 

The conditions are managed through long-term naturopathic treatments to prevent relapses. It’s recommended to avoid trigger foods in the long term, as inflammation progresses with repeated exposure.

What Role Does the Microbiome Play in Food Sensitivities?

A healthy microbiome level in the gut regulates the immune system. It teaches it how to distinguish between harmless and harmful proteins, including those from food.

Microbiome levels remain stable during the first 10 to 12 years of one’s life. However, studies on The Role of the Microbiome in Food Allergy show that adults have levels that are only 60% to 70% stable. This happens because microbiome levels change after exposure to factors such as stress, pregnancy, or poor diets.

This microbial imbalance increases food reactivity, leading to conditions such as:

• Dysbiosis: This happens when there’s a loss of beneficial bacteria or an excess of the harmful kind. This causes excess fermentation, gas, and inflammation when you eat certain foods. 
• Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO): The bacteria ferment the carbohydrates too early in the digestive process, leading to symptoms such as pain, bloating, gas and diarrhea.
• Low Microbial Diversity: This affects the production of short-chain fatty acids and affects the gut lining. 

When bacteria ferment food in the wrong section of your gut, it leads to high concentrations of toxins and gas. This affects the gut lining and triggers inflammatory responses. In return, this makes the immune system more reactive. With time, patients experience reactions to foods they never had a problem with before.

Healing the gut microbiome reduces food sensitivity. Prebiotics, probiotics, and anti-inflammatory diets restore microbial balance, improving food tolerance. Long-term treatments and lifestyle changes prevent a relapse.

Why Are Some Sensitivities Temporary While Others Persist?

Some sensitivities persist because of environmental triggers such as stress, infection, and other issues. 

Food sensitivities are only temporary in some people because the immune system adapts. It enters a state of “oral tolerance,” where it learns to recognize harmless food proteins.

Oral tolerance rebuilds with the following techniques:

• Elimination of trigger foods and reintroduction diets.
• Gut restoration techniques, including probiotics and holistic anti-inflammatory treatments.
• Stress reduction techniques such as meditation.

Without these techniques, it can lead to ongoing dysbiosis or a leaky gut. Some patients fail to recover, as they repeatedly expose themselves to trigger foods. 

Since food sensitivities are part of an immune-adaptive system, patients have to follow a thorough plan. Otherwise, they have to deal with deep autoimmune dysregulation and chronic damage to the gut. 

In our Experience:

If we see a large number of foods showing up on a patient’s IgG/IgA food sensitivity panel, we often feel it is because of a leaky gut. If the gut is leaky, it is common for the patient to have a higher number of foods present, including ones that are not necessarily cause for concern. 

For example, when we see normally low allergenic foods coming up like certain vegetables or spices, we are not super concerned with those since we know that once we heal the gut lining, they would normally not react to those. It is the higher allergenic foods we usually remove during the elimination and if they can, favor other vegetables or spices during the elimination period if possible, but it is not critical. 

Working on the elimination, gut restoration and then re-introduction is imperative to heal the leaky gut, making them less reactive to these foods, including preventing new food reactions. 

We can’t eliminate everything all the time because that would leave our patients with a very limited diet, which can cause food anxiety and or contribute to disordered eating. We will find the foods that seem the most reactive and find ways to introduce healthy alternatives so the patient is not having extreme calorie restriction and getting enough nutrients in. 

We do see patients have less food reactions with this approach and really find their triggers and while some patients realize that they may need to stay away from that particular food for life, some clear the sensitivities completely and some are able to eat them a few times a week or a month.