Are you aware that nutrition is the driving force behind good health? One of the most effective ways to ruin this balance starts with inflammation in your intestines, leading to disease. Food allergies are known for promoting inflammation in the gut and robbing you of essential nutrients. To help you maintain a healthy gut and find the source of any problems, consider the following tests:
Measure Important Nutrients
Have your blood tested for key nutrients like omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Maintaining a balanced ratio between these essential fatty acids (ideally 1:1) can have an anti-inflammatory effect on your gut. Companies like Quest lab can conduct this test and measure EPA, DHA, and arachidonic acid levels.
Testing for vitamins, minerals, and iron may also prove helpful. Tests for serum folate (Vitamin B9), cobalamin (Vitamin B12), red blood cell magnesium, ferritin (iron storage), and total iron can be conducted by your healthcare provider or a lab like Quest lab. You can also consider more comprehensive analyses provided by Spectracell Laboratories.
Organic Amino Acids
By testing your urine for key amino acid metabolites, you can gain insights into your nutritional status and overall gut health. Companies like Genova Diagnostics can test specific organic acids that are related to several factors, including GI function, cell and mitochondria energy, neurotransmitter levels, and deficiencies of key vitamins, minerals, and amino acids.
Food Sensitivity
While you may already be familiar with food allergies, there is a more subtle yet prevalent condition called delayed-type food allergy. Delayed-type reactions, caused by IgG antibodies formed to specific food proteins, can occur hours to days after consuming the offending food. Foods that commonly cause these reactions include milk, corn, wheat, eggs, and certain mold-processed foods.
Symptoms of delayed-type food allergy can range from rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and eczema to migraines, sinusitis, and gastrointestinal disorders like colitis and irritable bowel syndrome.
Candida Albicans
Taking medications like antibiotics, oral contraceptives, anti-inflammatory corticosteroids, and chemotherapy can greatly increase your susceptibility to yeast overgrowth in your gut, leading to leaky gut syndrome and inflammation. Candida overgrowth has been linked to illnesses like depression, chronic fatigue, multiple sclerosis, and autism. Testing for IgG Candida antibodies can indicate whether you have Candida yeast overgrowth.
Asian Food Allergy
If you consume a lot of Asian foods, consider IgG testing for common ingredients like miso, Shiitake mushrooms, and specific spices and seafood. Some symptoms caused by these food sensitivities include headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, fatigue, abdominal pain, skin rash, hair loss, and vitamin deficiencies.
Digestive Enzyme Function
Measuring levels of Pancreatic Elastase 1 (PE-1) in your blood or stool can give insights into the function of the pancreas, the organ responsible for producing digestive enzymes. Low PE-1 levels can indicate pancreatic enzyme insufficiency, which is associated with gut-related illnesses.
Gut Inflammation
Fecal calprotectin is a marker of gut inflammation and can be used to differentiate between irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.
Gut Bacteria Health
Your gut health can be determined by the diversity and abundance of your gut bacteria. Balanced gut health can help you handle infections and dietary changes more easily, and is associated with several conditions like Asperger’s syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), ulcerative colitis, and Crohn’s disease. Genova Diagnostics offers a Microbial Ecology Profile that indicates gut bacteria health.
Treatment to Improve Gut Health
A combination of consuming nutrient-rich food, maintaining gut lining health with probiotics, and intestinal cleansing can help improve your gut health. However, sometimes a prescription antibiotic like Rifaximin or Metronidazole is needed to remove unhealthy gut bacteria overgrowth.
