“Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food.”
Nutrition plays a major role in health and wellbeing. Eating a balanced diet is crucial in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Many people feel tired, sluggish, want to lose those extra inches or pounds, or may suffer with headaches, skin rashes, constipation or IBS related symptoms.
Many of the ailments and symptoms we suffer with may be lessened if we correct our nutrition. After all, ‘Our Health is our Wealth’.
What takes place in the consultation?
A full medical history is taken and a break down of the types of foods eaten are noted and suggestions on improving diet, health and lifestyle are given.
A review appointment is usually arranged in order to measure the improvements.
What is a Food Intolerance?
What is the difference between allergy and intolerance?
A food intolerance can occur when the body has difficulty digesting certain foods. When this occurs over time, large food particles (proteins) may enter the bloodstream and this can cause inflammation.
When foods and drinks are digested, the proteins within them are broken down into smaller fragments for easy absorption into the body. Larger fragments can pass through without breaking down, and sometimes the body reacts by attacking them using antibodies called Immunoglobulin G’s (IgG).
Food intolerance can cause a wide range of disruptive symptoms such as digestive problems, eczema, migraines and headaches, fatigue, depression and low mood, joint pains and sinusitis.
It is always recommended that any concerns are discussed with a doctor first, before taking a food intolerance test. This is to fully investigate the potential causes which may include investigations for coeliac disease and/or lactose intolerance and provide the medical follow up required. It is a fact of life, however, that in many cases there is no medical explanation for symptoms such as these.
For example, research has shown that medically unexplained symptoms or ‘functional symptoms’ where doctors can’t find a problem with the body that might be the cause, account for up to a fifth of all GP consultations in the UK. These include symptoms such as tiredness, chronic fatigue (ME), depression, anxiety, IBS, fibromyalgia, headaches and migraines, skin rashes and joint pains, runny nose and sinusitis.
Many people with these problems will be given the all clear by their doctor and strongly suspect that food is the root cause of their problems. So what options do they have?
Do nothing
Choose to remove foods from their diet by second guessing
Seek support from a dietician or nutritional therapist and try an elimination diet and challenge method; a method which can be long and laborious (it is difficult to determine the exact combination of relevant trigger foods using this method)
Take a food intolerance test to identify their food triggers and fast-track their elimination diet