There are many people out there who suffer from a variety of symptoms related to the food they consume. This can include fatigue, nausea, bloating after meals, irritability, headaches, insomnia, weight retention, sinus issues…and the list goes on. But what are food sensitivities and how do you know if you have one?
Let’s start with this: The gut mucosa’s role is to discern benign antigens (friends) from pathogens (enemies) and respond accordingly. Friends are tolerated (allowed to be absorbed, or to pass through without a fuss). Enemies are met with an immune-mediated (inflammatory) reaction and an attempt at exclusion. Normally, this is a good thing. The reaction kills the enemies, then quits while it’s ahead. When something goes wrong with your gut’s ability to discern friend from foe, you can lose the ability to tolerate benign (friendly) foods. Also, sometimes things can go wrong with your body’s ability to limit the immune response after it has got started. It is still unclear how these normal processes go wrong, but some of the possibilities include defects in the gut barrier allowing inappropriate food molecules to pass through, genetic predisposition, or the overall load to the trigger food or food chemical.
Recognizing exposure to foods and food chemicals in real life is complicated by the fact that we don’t always know what ingredients are in our food, and that we don’t understand how long our cells “remember” past exposure to foods and food chemicals. The direct cause of symptoms (mentioned above and many more) are the chemical mediators (messengers) such as histamines, cytokines and prostoglandins, which are released by immune cells in our blood in response to a (rightly or wrongly) identified foe (the food sensitivity). If enough of these chemical mediators (messengers) are released, and/or the inflammation response gets out of control, inflammation throughout the body can result.
MRT (Mediator Release Testing) by Signet Diagnostics gives an idea of the range of mediator release when your blood samples are exposed to each of the different food and food chemicals (antigens) on the test panel.
MRT measures the range of mediator release of your circulating immune cells, the last line of defense, in response to each of the foods or chemicals tested. From this the results are analyzed to determine what is the normal range of response for you personally, and then show those foods or chemicals which are outside that basic range. The further outside the range that appears normal for you, the more likely eating the food or the chemical is to cause symptoms you can perceive and the lower the amount needed to cause symptoms is likely to be.
LEAP-MRT is the program that helps to identify your food sensitivities and then combines dietary counseling with an immuno-calm diet plan based on individualized test results to help alleviate chronic health conditions.
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