Kresser Institute

Tools, Training & Community for Functional Health Professionals

  1. Home
  2. Knowledge Base
  3. Food Allergies
  4. Can food allergies or intolerances manifest like seasonal allergies with symptoms such as itchy eyes, sneezing, and/or runny nose?

Can food allergies or intolerances manifest like seasonal allergies with symptoms such as itchy eyes, sneezing, and/or runny nose?

Dr. Amy Nett: Yes, they can. In particular here, I’m going to be thinking about histamine intolerance in particular. A couple things, one, when you think about histamine intolerances, you want to think about your high histamine foods, which could be—I think Chris has an article on his blog looking at histamine intolerance, and he has a list there of some of the high histamine foods. I think even spinach and tomatoes are on that. Leftovers can be another common trigger if people are eating leftover foods, and they get some of these symptoms. Then you want to think about histamine intolerance. I’ve also seen that some foods are actually cross reactive with certain pollens. I think something like stone fruit are cross reactive with birch. I think sometimes certain foods will also have that, probably, manifestation. The other thing is food allergies. Remember allergies is generally an IgE-mediated response. We’ll talk about food allergies, intolerances, and sensitivities. Food sensitivities are what we’re testing for on the Cyrex panel. Food sensitivities are IgG and IgA responses. Food intolerances I think of more as like enzyme insufficiency, so like lactose intolerance is when you have a deficiency in lactase, the enzyme, to break down lactose. Then food allergies I think about as the E-mediated responses, so that’s your allergies, sensitivities, and intolerances. It’s slightly nuanced how much that distinction matters when you’re talking with patients, I don’t know, but just to clarify that allergic response is going to be different. I think it matters from a clinical perspective. I do always like to distinguish allergies because I’m always a lot more cautious with allergies, especially if anybody has a history of anaphylaxis. You need to be thinking about that because you’re going to be a lot more conservative in avoiding tinctures or compounds for patients who actually have, for example, like food allergies to nuts or walnuts. For example, I might not use GI Synergy because it contains some black walnuts, so these are just things to think about in terms of some of the nuanced differences there, but a food allergy is sometimes going to have— it could have more of the histamine response that you’re mentioning because it is that IgE-mediated response. Great question, though.

Was this article helpful?

Related Articles

0 Comments

Leave Comment

Leave a Reply

Need Support?

Can't find the answer you're looking for?
Contact Support
Kresser Institute Icon ADAPT Health Coach Training Program Icon ADAPT Practitioner Training Program Icon ADAPT Courses Icon