Food Sensitivity – What Causes It And How You Can Fix It Part One

Symptoms can be so broad in food sensitivities that if two people were compared with a sensitivity to milk, one person could experience joint pain in their fingers where the other one may have a rash on their body all year round. It’s also not uncommon to have more than one symptom occurring from one food sensitivity either.

Not Feeling Like Your Normal Self?

If you are experiencing a bunch of strange symptoms and you can’t figure out what is causing it, then you may possibly have a food sensitivity. But before you start eliminating every single food from your diet you may want to read what has caused your food sensitivity in the first place, and how you can rectify this problem!

Even though avoiding the foods you might be sensitive to is a pretty good option, if the cause of the problem is not solved you may find you will have to avoid more and more foods each year – and trust me this isn’t fun!

Living on water and a limited amount food is not only unhealthy but it will also make you go crazy.

There Is More To It Than Just Avoiding Food

Your digestive system plays a massive part in modulating a healthy immune system! Without these two important systems working efficiently, you will become very prone to the production of food sensitivities and other allergies.

In this four part series I will help you understand the importance of a healthy digestive system in relation to food sensitivities, as well as the steps you can take to heal your body and minimize food sensitivities.

The Digestive System & Immune System Connection

The largest part of your immune system is surprisingly located in the mucosal lining of your small intestine. Here your immune cells work very hard at constantly sampling the environment of your small intestine, trying to detect foreign invaders that have entered your body. Viruses, bacteria and a number of undesirable substances are picked up by your immune cells which are then escorted out of the body before they can do any harm.

When your digestive system is running smoothly, your immune system is able to differ between foreign invaders such as viruses and harmless substances like food. But if you are like many Australians with food sensitivities and allergies, it is most likely that your digestive system is not functioning at it’s complete capacity producing a huge burden on your immune system.

Symptoms of Poor Digestive System Function

Poor functioning of your digestive system is probably not something you enjoy sharing with your friends at a dinner party. It can be embarrassing to talk about especially if things just aren’t functioning like they should be, and it’s definitely not something you want to keep ignoring.

So many diseases have been shown to stem from a poor diet and poor digestive function especially food sensitivities.

A good functioning digestive system should be a priority on everyone’s list including yours, so let’s take a look at what symptoms could be hinting that you have trouble in this area and how it can be contributing to your food sensitivities.

Symptoms

• Bloating after meals
• Reflux
• Excessive gas production after meals
• Burping after meals
• Constipation (Not having regular bowel movements everyday)
• Ongoing diarrhoea or loose bowel movements
• Undigested food in your bowel movements
• Stomach pain or cramping not associated with the menstrual cycle
• Feeling nauseous after eating

If you have any of the above symptoms on a regular basis, it means your digestion is not working at it’s very best which could be confusing your immune system! This can create a number of food sensitivities.

How Poor Digestion Can Lead to Food Sensitivities

When you have poor digestion, it means that you aren’t breaking down the food in your stomach like you should be. This can be caused by many things like not chewing your food properly, eating on the run, drinking water with your meals, eating while you are stressed, antibiotics, excess alcohol intake, high sugar and junk food diet, low stomach acid and insufficient digestive enzyme production.

Your food must be digested into small food particles that are small enough to allow for the small intestine to absorb the nutrients it needs through the mucosal wall. If you are unsuccessfully digesting your food like you should be, over time this can create havoc in your digestive system.

Leaky Gut Syndrome

Instead of small particles entering the small intestine, large particles are because your digestion is not working properly to be able to break the food down into smaller particles. Over time this can really irritate the mucosal wall lining of the small intestine creating inflammation, causing holes to open up in the lining (commonly called Leaky Gut Syndrome).

In an ideal environment, your mucosal lining is supposed to be impermeable and should only allow the nutrients it needs to pass through, whilst stopping undesirable substances like large food particles, viruses, bacteria and toxins from passing.

But in this scenario, the holes that open up are now large enough to allow undigested food particles to pass. This puts your immune system on high alert, as it suspects the large food particle to be a foreign invader. Antibodies are produced by your immune system to begin the immune reaction, releasing substances such as histamine to initiate the attack to bring down the invader.

A Food Sensitivity is Created

Every time you eat that particular food that has been identified as foreign by your immune system, it will be able to recognize that food faster and will respond quicker often with worser symptoms each time you eat that food.

If the permeability of your gut lining continues to worsen, you can become sensitive to more and more foods that you regularly eat. For example if you eat tomatoes every day, because your immune system is constantly seeing the undigested large food particles of a tomato in your blood stream it will produce antibodies against them creating an immune reaction to them.

It is very important to not get into the habit of eating the same foods every single day, having a wide variety of foods in your diet is essential to prevent more and more food sensitivities from occurring.

Healing your digestive system

To give your digestive system the chance to heal itself, there are lifestyle factors you will have to consider as well as supplements that you can take to speed up the recovery.

In the following articles I will discuss what you can do to optimise your poor digestion, and what tools you can use to heal the permeability in your digestive system lining.

Healing your digestive system is imperative to prevent further food sensitivities from occurring and to have a chance of getting rid of the ones you already have.

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