Allergy guide

Christchurch food allergy expert Dr Rodney Ford offers this guide to common food-related disorders. He says they can be confusing because people often get similar symptoms from different food-reactive immune responses and can have more than one type of reaction simultaneously to different foods.

Immediate food allergy: Usually driven by allergy-causing IgE antibodies to specific foods (only skin-prick testing or blood tests help with identifying this reaction). Delayed food intolerance: Often driven by the body’s immune response to foods through IgG antibodies. Gluten-related disorders: Glutenintolerance and coeliac disease. Oral food allergy syndrome: Driven by IgE antibodies to specific pollens, cross-reactive to foods. Histamine intolerance: Caused by histamine-releasing foods. Food additive reactions: Symptoms caused by preservative, and colouring (E colour chemicals 102, 104, 110, 122, 124, 129). Natural chemical reactions: Caused by naturally occurring salicylates, amines, MSG in foods. Enzyme deficiencies: Lactose intolerance, congenital sucraseisomaltase deficiency (CSID) Fructose intolerance: Inability to absorb because of deficient fructose carriers. FODMAP intolerance: FODMAPs are short-chain carbohydrates that aren’t well absorbed in the small intestine. The term is derived from fermentable oligo-, di-, monosaccharides and polyols.