There is no need to fast prior to testing. • If you have not eaten a certain food for a period of time, we recommend eating a serving prior to testing, only if you know you will not have a severe reaction. If you have Celiac, we do not recommend adding in gluten prior to testing. • Do not take histamine or steroid medications for 72 hours.
Gluten is in whole wheat; however, wheat has other proteins that you could react to. It is possible
for someone to come back positive to wheat and not gluten, and that would mean you are
reactive to other proteins in the wheat instead of the gluten. If your patient comes back positive to
gluten, but not to wheat, it is because the other proteins in wheat can obscure a bit of the binding
to gluten, so it is also isolated, and run separately. We do this is to catch smaller gluten reactions
that did not show up because of other proteins obscuring re-actions and because you will capture
lower level reactions that are only seen when gluten is isolated. Because it is such an antigenic
molecule, it is important to see if even minimal amounts will trigger reactivity.
The Total Allergy and Sensitivity Panel tells you that there is a response to mold, but it doesn’t tell
you where exposure is coming from. Exposure can come from foods or the environment. To get a
better picture of how mold is shifting immune function, markers such as TGF-Beta can be measured
to see how immunoreactive a patient is to the exposure to gauge how much change must be done.
MOLD TESTING INCLUDEs: Aspergillus (A. oryzae, A. niger, A repent, A. terries). You may also
consider testing environmental antigens.
Key foods to avoid for elevated mold reaction are moldy cheeses, peanuts, melons and sake. For
patients with severe reactions and active symptoms, and more restrictive mold diet may be needed.
Consider using Konjac Fiber, which binds to mold aflatoxin.Ensure all probiotics are not processed
using a mold substrate.
Elevated candida markers are indicative of a current or recent intestinal overgrowth of yeast.
Some symptoms of a candida overgrowth within the body are:
Other Considerations:
Consider further testing, such as our Comprehensive Stool and Parasitology Testing, to confirm
yeast overgrowth and strain susceptibility. Diet recommendations for yeast overgrowth are a
low-carb, low- sugar diet. Restrict sugar, refined grains, alcohol and vinegar. Treatment
recommendations to kill yeast may include garlic, caprylic acid, berberine, and grapefruit seed
extract.
Other factors can cause reactions to foods besides allergies. For example, gluten can interfere
with ability to convert amino acids into neurotransmitters. This can make us feel depressed and
achy. However, this is not an allergy or sensitivity. Other examples of this are reactions that are
secondary to things like platelet activating factor which may cause an adverse response but is not
an allergy or sensitivity.
Other reasons may be certain characteristic of foods such as being high in histamine, lectins, or
oxalates. These can all cause discomfort but are not an allergic reaction
The elimination diet is the best way to calm the inflammation and over activity of the immune
system to those reactive foods.
All treatments designed to decrease leaky gut can be useful, such as fiber, Vitamin A, fish oils,
aloe, licorice, glutamine, probiotics, demulcents, immunoglobulins and functional foods.
Other Treatments for HIGH IgE and High IgG Reactivity Include:
*Check with your healthcare practitioner for supplement specifics
Complement plays a role in how inflammatory an IgG antibody is. Complement binds to IgG and
creates a synergistic effect in terms of increasing inflammation. The combination of complement
and IgG together can increase inflammation 1000 to 10,000-fold.
See: The Comprehensive Assessment in Food Allergy and Sensitivity Screening
IgE and IgG should be measured together because they each independently play a role in symptoms to foods. You can either have an allergy/IgE response, or a sensitivity IgG response and both
are independent of the other and create inflammation in the body.
Only testing IgG, is a bit like knowing total cholesterol, but not knowing how much HDL/good or
LDL/bad cholesterol you have. The reason for this is that different IgG antibodies do different
things depending on their subtype. IgG4 decreases IgE or allergic reactions. IgGI-III increase
inflammation 3-72 hours after exposure. Also, different subtypes are increased in certain
pathologies. For example, while IgG4 is generally good, there are a handful of pathologies where
it is of concern, such as auto-immune hypothyroidism and eosinophilic esophagitis.
See: The Comprehensive Assessment in Food Allergy and Sensitivity Screening
IgG4 is by and large good, as it blunts an IgE response and reduces anaphylactic shock. In fact,
desensitization injections and drops work by this mechanism of increasing Ig4 to induce tolerance. However, there are a handful of conditions that increase IgG4 reactions, and if the patient
has one of these conditions it may be helpful to remove foods that are provoking an IgG4 reaction. In non-responsive patients it is also reasonable to do a clinical trial of removal of IgG4, especially if removal of other foods did not create the improvement anticipated. IgG4 plays multiple
roles in immune function and must be carefully evaluated with each patient.
IG4-related disease is an immune-mediated condition, meaning that it involves the occurrence of
disease in organs as the result of a dysregulated immune system. Increasing evidence suggests
that IgG4-RD is an autoimmune condition, much like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. IgG4, can
blunt an IgE response, but if it becomes confused, and upregulated by exposure to antigens or
foods, it can begin to precipitate out into tissue creating damage. There are IgG4-related diseases
which are a subset of autoimmune conditions.
An allergy is mediated by IgE antibodies and creates an immediate reaction with symptoms
presenting within 1-3 hours. A sensitivity is created by IgG antibodies and creates a delayed
response. Symptoms occur 3 – 72 hours after exposure. While these general traits hold true,
there are also times when IgG can amplify IgE reactions, and also some examples of if there is a
very high level of IgG, it can have more of an immediate reaction too. They create independent
reac-tions but can also influence each other. IgG is most typically a delayed reaction, but if high
enough titers are present, it too can react within a few hours.
IgG reactions are both the cause and the result of gut-based permeability. One way we develop
IgG reactions is when the gut becomes more compromised or permeable. This allows for larger
molecules than normal to “leak” through the gut. These larger molecules look antigenic to the
immune system. T cells become sensitized and begin to make an immune response or produce
antibodies. However, this is not the only way one can become sensitive to foods. Improper
immune queuing in the GI tract, specifically in cells called the Peyer’s patches, can also cause this
too.
Once an IgG reaction begins, it increases production of histamine and inflammation. This
inflammation continues to damage the gut, thereby contributing to permeability. The best way
to reduce gut-based inflammation, is to remove offending foods and heal the gut.
The FAST serum test was designed to report antibodies in high numbers currently in the blood.
This would identify the culprit of existing symptoms the patient is having in response to foods
currently or recently eaten. Our test does not expose the patient to a known or potential antigen
to induce a response, instead it tests for existing antibodies circulating in the patient’s system.
IgE has a short half-life, so recent exposure and response would be needed for the results to
display a reaction. This is true for all antibodies being tested, recent exposure would be needed
to drive a reactive response.
If there is a particular food that is of concern your patient may ingest a serving of this food
within a week of testing. If your patient cannot safely perform a challenge with the offending
food because there is a risk of anaphylaxis, we would recommend requesting a skin prick test in
an office under the supervision of medical staff.
Reactions to gluten could be because of allergies or sensitivities, but there are also a number of
other reasons you may be symptomatic from gluten outside of sensitivities. For example,
gluten more than other grains decreases the tryptophan to serotonin ratio, making production
of this neu-rotransmitter more difficult. Also, gluten can often be contaminated with bromides
that decreases other important nutrients like Iodine and contain pesticides like glyphosate.
Gluten can often be moldy, as commercial grains are measured for ppm of aflatoxin and are
generally positive for this contaminate.
Food sensitivities can be related to weight gain in that they will create more inflammation in the
body. Inflammation will cause an increase in the hormone leptin, which in turn tells adipose
tissue to store more fat. Inflammatory foods create and irritation that leads to weight gain.
Yes! While the beginning of the reaction to foods start in the gut, it does not have to necessarily
create gut pain, or be contained in the GI tract. The inflammatory process that starts in the gut
can spread and even be more symptomatic in places outside of the gut. Many conditions such as
headaches, pain and even depression have a gut-based cause but manifest in other areas of the
body.
The FAST serum test was designed to report concentrated antibodies in the blood. This would
identify the culprit of existing symptoms the patient is having in response to foods currently or
recently eaten. Our test does not expose the patient to a known or potential antigen to induce a
response, our test picks up existing antibodies circulating in the patient’s system.
A skin prick test will only pick up IgE mediated responses, this can be very beneficial for a patient
that has had a severe reaction (particularly dermatological) to a food allergen in the past but has
not currently been exposed. However, if your patient is having current symptoms from recent
exposure to an unknown allergen, the FAST serum test will identify the offending food and which
immune marker is responsible for that response, across 4 different immune pathways (IgE, IgG4,
IgG and C3b/d).
