Are Undiagnosed Food Allergies Causing Your Weight Gain?

Food allergies can be scary. They can lead to hives, difficulty breathing and anaphylactic shock. Whether a food allergy is mild or severe, it can still leave you feeling uneasy. While a severe food allergy is rare, there is a much more common low-grade food allergy, gluten, that is causing problems for adults around the world. Undiagnosed food allergies may even be causing your weight gain. Gluten allergies with symptoms including bloating, constipation and weight gain can go on for years without a diagnosis.

Undiagnosed Food Allergies and Inflammation:

Inflammation is one the biggest causes of weight gain as well as disease in America. While celiac disease only affects one percent of the population, roughly 30 percent may have a non-celiac gluten intolerance. The difference? In people with celiac’s disease, the body actually attacks the small intestine. For people with non-celiac gluten intolerance, the immune system attacks the gluten. An article found in The New England Journal of Medicine listed 55 different disease and conditions that can be traced to consumption of gluten. Regardless of what causes an individual’s gluten intolerance, inflammation in the stomach can lead to a wide-variety of unwanted health concerns.

When the lining of stomach becomes inflamed, small fissures open between tightly woven cells that make up the wall of the gut. This is known as leaky gut syndrome. These openings within the gut allow bacteria as well as food molecules that are not entirely digested to sneak into the bloodstream. While in the bloodstream, these food molecules and bacterias are considered to be foreign invaders.

It does not take the body long to spot a potential enemy within the body. The immune system begins attacking the invader to the best of it’s ability. White blood cells surround the unwanted food molecules and bacterias. This leads to a lot of inflammation. This inflammation is not a sore throat or a minor infection, it just may be the result of an undiagnosed food allergy creating havoc in the body.

Individuals, with undiagnosed food allergies, often consume foods that they are allergic to each day. In fact, many individuals consume foods that they are allergic to several times per day. As a result, the immune system is constantly acting to fight off these unwanted foods creating a lot of inflammation in body. Most of the time, it takes nearly three days for symptoms to make themselves known. As a result, undiagnosed food allergies are left at just that — undiagnosed food allergies. These low-grade food allergies can be extremely difficult to detect.

With a low-grade food allergy being hard to diagnosis, individuals are often harming their bodies by consuming the same damaging foods over and over again. Eventually this leads to inflammation that is present in the entire body; creating an environment that is unfortunately perfect for weight gain as well as chronic disease. For this reason, it is important to identify and treat unknown food allergies and sensitivities.

Ways to Help Identify Unidentified Food Allergies:

1. Ask your doctor for a blood test. A blood test for igG food allergens can be helpful in detecting unidentified food allergies. However, it is important to remember that these tests can have limitations and your doctor should also interpret this test as it relates to the rest of your health. A blood test can serve as guidelines for what is bothering you in particular. It is also a good idea to work with a nutritionist when it comes to dealing with food allergies in addition to your doctor.

2. Try going dairy and gluten-free for six weeks. Since dairy and gluten are the most common triggers for food allergies, going dairy and gluten-free can be a big indicator in what is bothering you. For individuals struggling with weight gain, dairy (butter,cheese, milk and yogurt) as well as gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats and kamut) are linked to insulin resistance; which also makes them related to weight gain. By temporarily cutting these foods from your diet, this allows inflammation to heal. Allowing inflammation to heal can be one of the most important things you can do to lose weight.

3. Avoid the top food allergens. If you do not experience relief from removing gluten and dairy from your diet, you may want to consider taking things one step further. You can do this by cutting out top food allergens. These top food allergens can include corn, eggs, nuts, soy, tomatoes, bell peppers, citrus, eggplants, potatoes and yeast. Try this for six weeks. Six weeks is enough time to determine if you are going to feel better and begin losing weight from eliminating these foods from your diet. When you begin to reintroduce these goods, eat it at least 2-3 times per day for three days. This will allow you to notice if you are having a reaction or not. If you do experience a reaction, eliminate this food from your diet for at least 90 days.

 

Are Undiagnosed Food Allergies Causing Your Weight Gain?