With a majority of the population reporting food intolerances it pays to ask why this is the case far, far more so than it was previously.
The function of the immune system is to detect and respond against perceived harmful agents. The fact that our immune systems are more and more classifying various foods as harmful is cause for concern.
Immune tolerance is the term used to describe how reactive an immune system is to non-pathogenic elements. A person with optimal immune tolerance does not have food intolerances. Someone who has lost immune tolerance is, to a greater or lesser extent, intolerant to various foods.
The immune system does not react to fats and carbs, it reacts to proteins. More specifically to a specific sequence of amino acids. The amino acid sequence for a food can change with cooking and can also be matched across different foods.
This explains why a person with food sensitivities who never eats shrimp may test sensitive to shrimp – because the amino acid sequence in shrimp is similar to those foods to which they are sensitive.
And, interestingly enough, this similar amino acid profile explains why I have a similar reaction to non-dairy milk alternatives to the one I have to cow’s milk and sometimes to non-gluten containing breads to wheat breads.
A class of immune cells called T cells are vital to our health. They are severely compromised by a lack of Vitamin A and D and a lack of adequate movement. Stress devastates regulatory T cells.
Dendritic cells are on the surface of the gut. They are the samplers that test whether or not a protein is potentially harmful.
When they return a false positive, reporting a normal food as potentially harmful, this is lowered immune tolerance.
Another class of immune cells are called Secretary IgA. They are called an aminoglobulin. They surround and coat the incoming food via saliva so the dendritic cells in the gut do not have to sample everything.
(From a presentation given as part of the Food Sensitivity Summit.)