Define Nutritional Management of Food Allergies and Food Intolerance?
The term "hypersensitivity" is general and may include true allergies, reactions that do not affect the immune system (food intolerance), and reactions for which the cause has yet to be determined. This unit focused on the immune-mediated and the non immune-mediated adverse food reactions, namely food allergy and food intolerance. Food allergy is a condition which is rarely curable in which specific foods cause an immediate and often dramatic physical reaction such as vomiting, diarrhoea, cramps, wheezing, swelling of the airways, a severe drop in blood pressure etc.
In food allergy, food sets off what is known as an IgE mediated reaction in the body. - Eggs, cow's milk, peanuts, wheat, soya and fish cause most of the allergic reactions in children. Peanuts, walnuts or almonds, fish, and shellfish (such as shrimps, crayfish, lobsters, crab) cause most of the allergic reactions in adults. Food intolerance, on the other hand, is often linked to other health problems, when the body has difficulty in digesting a particular food and therefore reacts against it, and its symptoms too are somewhat similar to food allergies, but far less defined. Examples of well-understood intolerances are lactose intolerance and phenylketonuria.