How Food Sensitivity Testing Can Improve Chronic Inflammation

Chronic inflammation is increasingly being linked to a wide range of health conditions including autoimmune disorders, heart disease, cancer, dementia, and accelerated aging. This persistent low-grade inflammation stresses cells, damages tissues, and disrupts normal physiological functioning over time. Identifying and addressing sources of inflammation is crucial for both alleviating current symptoms and reducing future disease risks. One overlooked trigger of chronic inflammation for many people is food sensitivities, so getting tested and removing reactive foods from your diet can significantly decrease inflammation and improve health.

What is Chronic Inflammation and What Are the Associated Health Risks?

Inflammation is a normal immune response triggered by injury or harmful stimuli like pathogens. In the case of inflammation, white blood cells rush to the site to remove damaged cells, start tissue repair, and fight infection. This acute inflammation is protective and usually subsides once the threat is gone. Chronic inflammation occurs when inflammatory pathways remain constantly ramped up even without an ongoing threat or injury. This can happen for a variety of reasons, including autoimmune diseases, obesity, chronic stress, poor diet, and food sensitivities. Levels of inflammatory cytokines and proteins remain elevated throughout the body, creating low-grade systemic inflammation that damages tissues over months and years.

The risks associated with chronic inflammation are far-reaching. It has been strongly implicated in the development of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia, depression, arthritis, fibromyalgia, and autoimmune diseases. Chronic inflammation speeds up the aging process and progression of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. It also underlies many painful inflammatory conditions such as interstitial cystitis, inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn's and ulcerative colitis, and chronic prostatitis.

Causes of Chronic Inflammation

Chronic inflammation stems from both internal and external factors. One major internal cause is obesity, which prompts fat cells to produce pro-inflammatory chemicals like interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha. Chronic stress triggers sustained cortisol release and inflammatory responses in a continuous feedback loop. External factors like smoking, chronic infections, and a nutrient-poor diet full of processed foods also drive systemic inflammation over time.

One hidden culprit behind inflammation for many people is food sensitivities. Eating foods that an individual is reactive to can cause immune activation and inflammatory cytokine release. This reaction is not the same as a classic food allergy, which typically comes on quickly and severely after eating a food. Food sensitivities instead trigger delayed, low-grade inflammation that builds up over hours or days after eating the trigger food. Common food sensitivity triggers include gluten, dairy, corn, soy, eggs, nuts, nightshades, and shellfish. Food dye, preservatives, pesticides, and mold toxins can also prompt sensitivity reactions. The inflammatory response to these substances accumulates over time, leading to systemic inflammation and associated health risks if you continually consume them.

Symptoms of Food Sensitivities

Food sensitivities produce diverse symptoms that often develop gradually, so people fail to connect them to their diet. Different systems in the body can be impacted, including:

Because symptoms manifest in so many ways, getting tested for food sensitivities is the only reliable method to identify problem foods that prompt inflammatory responses. Allergy skin prick tests only look for immediate allergic reactions, so they often miss delayed food sensitivities.

Overview of Food Sensitivity Testing Methods and Process

Food sensitivity testing analyzes how IgG antibodies react to different foods and chemicals in the blood. IgG is an immune system antibody that reacts to substances it perceives as harmful, triggering inflammation. An advanced food sensitivity test measures delayed IgG reactions to up to 300 foods, chemicals, and food components. In the testing process, a blood sample is collected and analyzed to detect which substances prompt an IgG response. Levels and patterns can indicate foods likely provoking inflammation.

After identifying reactive foods, they are eliminated from the diet for 3-6 months to allow inflammation to resolve and the gut lining to heal. This elimination diet removes the sources persistently driving chronic inflammation. People often experience significant improvement in diverse symptoms and conditions once triggering foods are removed. Reintroducing eliminated foods one a time while monitoring symptoms helps assess tolerance and determine if some reactive foods can eventually be added back into the diet.

Benefits of Lowering Inflammation with Elimination Diet

Eliminating foods that test as sensitivities provides immense benefits in reducing chronic inflammation. This allows the body to halt the inflammatory cascade, resolve symptoms, and decrease related health risks. Digestive symptoms like pain, bloating, and bowel issues often improve quickly once trigger foods are removed. Headaches, body aches, brain fog, and fatigue lift as inflammation is lowered and skin conditions like eczema, rashes, and acne may clear. Joint stiffness and pain can also diminish.

Lowering systemic inflammation also helps treat and prevent inflammation-driven diseases. For individuals with autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto’s and rheumatoid arthritis, food sensitivities are a major factor continually triggering flare-ups. Removing triggers can induce disease remission and reduce reliance on medications.

It also helps prevent chronic diseases down the road. Persistent inflammation damages blood vessels and promotes atherosclerosis, raising risks for heart attack and stroke. The oxidative stress caused by chronic inflammation also mutates DNA, instigates cancer development, and speeds neurological decline. Additionally, eliminating reactive foods facilitates weight loss in those who have struggled with stubborn extra pounds due to inflammation. When chronic inflammation is reduced, metabolic function improves, often leading to easier fat loss.

Getting Tested for Food Sensitivities to Improve Overall Health and Well-Being

If you suffer from inflammatory symptoms or related autoimmune, digestive, neurological, or metabolic conditions, getting tested for food sensitivities is crucial. It can provide answers where other tests have failed to pinpoint an underlying cause. Removing your unique food triggers provides immense benefits in calming inflammation, resolving symptoms, improving gut health, and reducing future disease risks.

We use advanced testing methods that are more accurate than standard approaches to identify IgG-reactive foods unique to you. This enables personalized elimination diets and treatment plans that get results. Contact our clinic to learn more and get tested for food sensitivities today. Discover which foods may be silently provoking chronic inflammation so you can take back your health.

Get Tested at Internal Health & Wellness MD Today

At Internal Health & Wellness MD, we utilize advanced food sensitivity testing to identify inflammatory triggers unique to each patient. We take a functional medicine approach to craft personalized elimination diets and treatment plans that calm systemic inflammation by removing reactive foods. Patients often experience significant improvements in diverse symptoms and conditions once food sensitivities are identified and triggering items are removed from the diet. We also carefully reintroduce eliminated foods one at a time to determine if some can be tolerated again.

Getting tested for IgG food sensitivities and following an individualized anti-inflammatory diet facilitates weight loss, resolves digestive issues, improves neurological and metabolic function, induces autoimmune disease remission, and decreases risks for heart disease, cancer, dementia, and accelerated aging. Our cutting-edge testing and personalized protocols can successfully identify your unique food triggers, allowing you to take control of chronic inflammation and improve overall health and wellbeing. We encourage those suffering from chronic inflammatory symptoms and related conditions to schedule a consultation with us.