You can detect your own food sensitivities.

Healthy by Nature radio show this week: Our topic will be Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses which is also the title of a book by our guest, Sally Pacholok, RN. Sally has gathered some powerful information about the signs of B12 deficiency and how routine testing misleads us. (I suspect I’ll be taking notes.) Call with questions during the show at 1-800-281-8255. Click here to find podcasts, show archives and ways to listen nationwide.

SIGNS OF FOOD SENSITIVITY

There are many ways we can experience negative reactions to foods.

Food intolerances such “lactose intolerance” are common. That is when someone lacks the enzymes to digest the sugar in milk and experiences various kinds of digestive distress.

True food allergies are when our immune systems perceive something like peanuts, strawberries or shellfish as a serious threat and creates symptoms that you can’t possibly miss, such as difficulty breathing or instantly breaking out in hives head to toe. You are likely born with those allergies.

Acquired food sensitivities are usually the result of “leaky gut”. Sensitivities can affect various systems but often are delayed so that we don’t make the connection or they are so subtle that we overlook them. If the reaction is in the nervous system, we might feel tired or moody or get a headache the next day. Who knows, maybe the particular food you are eating when you bite your cheek or start to choke is one that caused the nerves to send an incorrect message to a muscle. When the circulatory system is affected, capillaries might dilate making ears turn red or the face flush. Or, your heart rate might increase and that is something you can measure. In the 1950's Dr. Arthur Coca discovered and publicized the connection. Basically, you establish a base line pulse before you eat. At little while after a meal you check your pulse again. If it has jumped let’s say from 65 beats a minute to 85, that is a sign you are reacting to something in that meal. You may have to eat the meal’s components separately at a later time to identify the exact ingredient that caused the reaction and it can turn out to be quite specific. For example, I react to white sugar from sugarcane, but not white sugar from beets. There are no false positives. If every time you eat a certain food your pulse jumps, you know that you have a problem. However, the converse is not true because there are false negatives. By that I mean even without an increase in your pulse you may be reacting to a food but just with another sign. By Friday there should be a link on this page to more complete instructions.

Here is where the smart phone comes in. There are a couple of free apps that use the camera light to measure your pulse. (Hmm, what will they think of next? I reckon the phone is too bulky to use for doing a colonoscopy…) To get such an app, go to your phone's app store and search for “heart rate”. (Sometimes I wonder how “smart” my phone is when its autocorrect substitutes something lewd, insulting or just plain wacky for the text I've typed.)

Delayed sensitivity. The best way to catch one of these is with paper and pencil—a food diary. Patterns will become apparent over time.

Overcoming food sensitivities is possible. It requires avoiding the offending food for a while and fixing a “leaky gut”. That’s a condition where the cells lining the gut aren’t properly doing what we need them to—absorb nutrients and keep bad stuff from being absorbed. The lining of the small intestine is kind of like a shag rug with tiny projections (villi ) that promote absorption. If the beneficial intestinal bacteria are insufficient, bad bacteria and yeasts can flatten those villi and loosen the junctions between cells allowing bad bugs and fragments of food to get into circulation where they annoy the immune system. Probiotics are an important part of the solution. Another nutrient I mention in my book on digestion is Zinc Carnosine. Studies show that this special form of the mineral helps heal damage to the gastro-intestinal tract. Because it seems to work mainly in the gut, I don’t consider it as a zinc nutritional supplement. One of our sponsors, Doctor’s Best, makes it as a supplement. One of our other sponsors sells it. LINK.