Food
food print
sensitivity
test
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Enjoy life without symptoms of food sensitivity
Ask your health care professional about FoodPrint, a laboratory test designed to identify IgG-mediated food sensitivities
What is food sensitivity?
Food sensitivity can result from your body reacting badly to certain foods. Often the foods we include regularly in our diet or the foods we crave may be the ones causing us a problem.
Research has shown that food sensitivities can be linked to IgG antibodies produced when these ‘problem’ foods are eaten.
Normally these antibodies do not have any ill-effects, but if the immune or digestive system are not working optimally, their presence may provoke a wide range of symptoms
Ask yourself if you have any of the following chronic unpleasant symptoms:
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Bloating
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Constipation
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Diarrhoea
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Flatulence
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Headaches
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Irritable bowel syndrome
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Lethargy
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Migraine
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Nausea
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Stomach
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cramps / abdominal pain
How do I know if I have a food sensitivity?
What can I do about it?
Talk to your health care professional about doing a FoodPrint® laboratory test.
Many people experience an improvement in symptoms and health after changing their diet based on their FoodPrint results.
Like any diagnostic test, FoodPrint will only produce meaningful results if you are experiencing IgGmediated food sensitivity symptoms.
Some symptoms of food sensitivity may be due to other health issues and it is important to see your doctor to rule these out
Why should I do a test?
Help reduce symptoms quickly. The efficacy of a diet based upon the measurement of IgG antibodies specific for food components has been demonstrated in a number of conditions, both in independent studies and clinical practice.
Excellent results have been obtained particularly in patients with migraine, IBS and obesity.
FoodPrint helps to identify potential "problem" foods by detecting food-specific IgG antibodies in your blood. Using these results as a guide, you and your health care professional can adjust and plan appropriate dietary and lifestyle interventions
Differences between food allergy and intolerance
What is FoodPrint?
FoodPrint is a comprehensive and highly sensitive laboratory test for food-specific IgG antibodies, which can be associated with food sensitivity.
A finger prick sample is all that is required to be sent to the lab, with results returned quickly, empowering you to take control of your health.
There are a number of different FoodPrint panels available, thus enabling individuals to choose one that contains the foods most commonly consumed within their diet.
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40+
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120+
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200+
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Vegetarian 160+
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Vegan 150+
Foods panels
What should I do after the test?
As part of the FoodPrint service, complementary nutritional support, based upon your results, is provided to guide you with making appropriate dietary adjustments.
If you are currently consulting with a health care professional such as a registered nutritionist, they will work with you to create a diet which eliminates your “problem” foods, offers healthy alternatives and guides you on how to successfully re-introduce foods after an elimination period.
Typically, a customised diet will be followed for around 3 months to allow the symptoms to subside and give the body time to recover.
Understanding Food Sensitivity
Terminology The terms ‘food allergy’, ‘food intolerance’ and ‘food sensitivity/hypersensitivity’ are often used interchangeably and this can be quite confusing. In simple terms, they all mean that an individual has reacted to a food that has been consumed and this then manifests as symptoms.
The reactions they trigger can also vary greatly. This includes the symptoms experienced and how quickly the symptoms manifest after the food has been consumed, as well as the severity of the symptoms and how long they last, and if they are life threatening.
Some of these reactions are immune-mediated and involve the immune system, including the production of IgE and IgG antibodies.
Other reactions do not involve the immune system and are non-immune mediated
To help us understand these varying reactions, it can be helpful to have some basic knowledge of the immune system and how it works.
The immune system is made up of various organs, cells and proteins and its role is to protect the body from harmful substances, germs, pathogens, fungi, and cell alterations that can result in illness.
Essentially, the main functions of the immune system are:
✓ To fight pathogens, e.g., viruses, bacteria, or parasites and remove them from the body.
✓ To identify and neutralise harmful substances from the environment.
✓ To fight disease-causing alterations in the body, e.g., cancer cells The immune system can be activated by substances that it doesn’t recognise as being a part of the body.
Common examples include proteins found on the surfaces of microbes, such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses and these are referred to as antigens.
Receptors on the immune cells attach to these antigens and this then triggers an immune reaction, which includes the production of antibodies. Antibodies can then help to neutralise the microbes so they can’t multiply and cause illness.
What is the immune system?
Frequent Questions
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Is it possible to be affected by foods that are not detected by the Food Detective® test?Some foods may cause a classic allergic reaction involving the production of IgE antibodies (type I allergy) to food antigens or proteins in food. These will not be detected by the Food Detective® test as it detects IgG antibodies. There are many foods that can cause a reaction in the body without involving the immune system, these are known as food intolerances and can produce symptoms similar to IgG reactions: amines found in chocolate, cheese and red wine may cause migraines; some food additives, such as tartrazine, can trigger hives, rashes, and asthma; monosodium glutamate (MSG) found in restaurant/take-away food can provoke sweating and dizziness; ‘Nightshade’ alkaloids in potatoes, tomatoes and peppers may affect the joints. Food intolerance may be due to a deficiency of a particular enzyme, such as lactase in lactose intolerance. Avoid foods if you suspect they are causing adverse effects
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I have been avoiding a food for several months/years. Will this affect my test results?The Food Detective® IgG antibody test is based on the immune system’s ability to produce antibodies in response to certain foods. If a food has been avoided for more than 3 months, it is possible that IgG antibody levels will be insufficient to be detected by the test and may give a negative result. To test sensitivity to a certain food, it should be included in the daily diet for five days before testing, or at least every other day, for 4-6 weeks before testing. However, if the food concerned is known to cause extreme symptoms/discomfort or you have a diagnosed allergy to it, do not reintroduce it
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If cow’s milk is positive, does this mean that I am lactose intolerant?No. Lactose intolerance is the inability to digest lactose, the major sugar found in milk, and is caused by a deficiency in the enzyme lactase. The Food Detective® test detects an IgGmediated food sensitivity caused by the specific proteins found in milk, but does not detect the lactase enzyme and, therefore, cannot diagnose lactose intolerance.
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Why do you not test for sugars?The Food Detective® test detects level of food proteins in the blood. Sugars contain no proteins to which the IgG antibodies can combine.
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Is the Food Detective® test suitable for testing children?Yes, but we recommend a minimum age limit of 2 years to allow for the child’s immune system to mature.
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If my test shows reactivity towards wheat, does that mean I have coeliac disease?No, coeliac disease is an immune disease that causes a severe reaction to the protein gluten, which is just one of the proteins found in wheat, barley, and rye. We remove gluten from our wheat extract so if wheat is positive this means you are reacting to the other wheat proteins found in this grain, and not gluten. Coeliac disease cannot be determined in a Food Detective® test, it requires a different test, should be done under medical supervision and will involve a confirmation biopsy and a positive transglutaminase response.
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Is gluten-free the same as wheat-free?No. A product can be wheat-free but not gluten-free, and vice versa. Products are available that are both gluten-free and wheat-free. It is important to read the ingredients label to be certain. The Food Detective® test uses wheat and rye food extracts that do not contain gluten. Gluten is extracted from the grains and tested separately. If your test results show a positive reaction to gluten, it is important to eliminate any foods that contain the gluten-based grains wheat, rye and barley and substitute with naturally gluten-free foods, such as quinoa, buckwheat, corn, oats, and wild rice. If your test results show a positive result for wheat, or rye, but NOT for gluten, the reaction may be due to one of the other proteins found in the grains
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Do I need to be cautious when removing a food group from my diet?Yes, you should be careful when introducing a new dietary regime and removing foods. We recommend seeking professional advice from registered qualified nutritionists or a dietician to help support you make these changes to ensure that nutrients are adequately replaced.
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Do I need to have a re-test after a few months?Most people do not need to re-test if symptoms have resolved, but if you would like to take another test we advise a period of 9-12 months between tests
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What if I don’t experience any improvement at all?If, after changing your diet according to the test results, improvements have not been achieved after 3 months, food sensitivity may not be the only cause of your symptoms and other investigations should be undertaken by your healthcare practitioner.
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Why do we not test for IgA?IgA is the principal isotype in secretions (especially mucus epithelium of the intestinal and respiratory tracts). It is a neutralising “first line of defence” antibody against bacteria and toxins, binding foreign antigens into complexes which are then removed by macrophages, but with little or no resultant inflammation. IgA antibodies are characterised by less specific antigen binding sites than IgG antibodies, resulting in higher cross reactivity and false positive potentials
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Why do we test for total IgG and not just IgG4?IgG4 is an anti-inflammatory antibody triggered by IL-10. IgG4 antibodies are involved in the desensitisation of type I allergies (IgE). The guideline of the EAACI (European Academy of Allergy and Immunology) states that testing for IgG4 is not recommended for the detection of delayed food allergies (www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/pubmed/18489614) as it is biochemically difficult to measure. IgG4 indicates tolerance, not hypersensitivity, as it is not able to induce inflammation.
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Why do we not test for anti-C3 antibody/complement?The complement cascade is an important part of the immune system that enhances the ability of antibodies and phagocytic cells to clear microbes and damaged cells from an organism. This is, in part, driven by an inflammatory response and is beneficial to the body when fighting pathogens. Although the complement system is a component of the innate immune system, which is non-specific, it can also be recruited and brought into action by IgG antibodies generated by the adaptive immune system, which make it specific. Some companies claim that incorporating an anti-C3d antibody improves the reliability of the food sensitivity test by establishing which foods are triggering complement and, therefore, inflammation. However, the main issue with this hypothesis is this reaction cannot take place in-vitro. Apart from technical validity of the concept issues, when writing, there were no independent published studies using this methodology.
The largest range of food specific IgG antibody testing panels
200+ foods tested in duplicate from 5µL sample
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