Food sensitivity testing is quite popular these days (and for good reason!) and I’ve seen a huge uptick in companies offering them direct to consumers and an uptick in questions about these tests from my clients. Unfortunately, most of the at-home food sensitivity tests on the market are not worth the money.
Food sensitivities can play a role in many common health conditions especially relating to digestive problems such as irritable bowel syndrome, acid reflux, headaches and migraines, joint and muscle pain, brain fog, skin issues and fatigue. These symptoms may be caused by our immune system’s reaction to foods, additives, and other substances we are consuming in our diets. Any food or food additive can be reactive and food sensitivities can come and go. Usually, they are not permanent. When we work to remove the sensitivities (stressors) and heal the gut with nutrients, lifestyle changes, and supplements, oftentimes you can re-introduce the foods you are sensitive to and continue to consume them.
I also want to point out that there are two types of adverse food reactions – those that involve the immune system, and those that don’t. Reactions that don’t involve the immune system are due to an inability to digest food or a food component, such as lactose (in milk) or fructose. In these cases, the body lacks the appropriate enzymes to fully break down a given food or family of foods. These are actually considered to be food intolerances and are generally more permanent in nature.
Immune-based sensitivities are a type of inflammatory reaction that is entirely different than food allergies or food intolerances and most doctors are unaware they are different. Food sensitivity reactions may be delayed by hours or even days after ingestion which is why it is hard to even know if you have them. Food sensitivities are dose-related. This means a small or moderate amount of a reactive food may not cause any noticeable symptoms, but a larger amount can. The reactive foods can vary widely from person to person and there are usually at least a few reactive foods and chemicals and often times many when we test.
As a Restorative Wellness Practitioner, I have the training and expertise to interpret the MRT Food Sensitivity Test from Oxford Medical for my clients. MRT stands for Mediator Release Test and is MUCH more comprehensive and accurate than the at-home food sensitivity tests.
Most of the at-home kits tests for your Immunoglobulin G (“IgG”) reaction. While IgG is the most abundant type of antibody, there are actually a number of other types of reactions that you may be having to your food. To test for only ONE of the types of immunoglobulin reactions won’t give you the complete picture of the foods that are inflammatory to your body.
The MRT test is the most accurate test available to identify the foods, additives, and chemicals that are causing sensitivity reactions in the body. The test is a patented blood test that quantifies how strongly your immune cells react to 170 foods and chemicals and provides clinically relevant information that no other sensitivity blood test can provide. It is the only blood test that quantifies the inflammatory response, letting you know not just which foods you should stay away from, but more importantly which foods are the best foods for you to be eating (those with the lowest level of reactivity).
Without getting in the weeds too much, there are a lot of complexities associated with food sensitivities, but the single common feature and the most clinically important component of all diet-induced inflammatory reactions are that they ultimately cause mediator release (cytokines, leukotrienes, prostaglandins, etc.) from various white blood cells (neutrophils, monocytes, eosinophils, lymphocytes). Mediator release is the key event that leads to the symptoms you feel and the inflammation in the body. This is what the MRT measures. The test simplifies a highly complex reaction and translates that into the most useable clinical information you can get – quantifying the inflammatory response to foods and food chemicals.
I am proud to offer the test in my practice and I find that it pares extremely well with the GI-Map stool test and/or MFT muscle response testing in getting to the bottom of your dysfunction and your symptoms and finding an effective protocol. Once we know your sensitivities we will have you eliminate them for a time while we work in other ways (nutrients, supplements, lifestyle factors) to optimize your gut health.
I do want to note that the MRT is designed to identify sensitivity reactions only. It is not intended to identify or diagnose food allergies or celiac disease.
Feel free to book a 30-minute discovery call with me to learn more about how we can work together and where the MRT food sensitivity test can fit in. If you have any of the symptoms I described above or just suspect that you have food sensitivities then you probably do.