Some reactions to food are caused by false food allergy and by reactions to chemicals, such as histamine and tyramine, that occur naturally in food.
The main symptoms caused by the principal types of food intolerance are shown in Diagram 3. You may find you suffer from one or more of these symptoms. Symptoms can come and go, or you may only react to a food if you eat large amounts of it, or if you eat it regularly.
Another characteristic of the symptoms of food intolerance is that if you leave out a food that you eat regularly for a while, and then reintroduce it, you can experience different, often intense, symptoms. This is the result of a phenomenon known as ‘masking’. People who are intolerant of a food they eat regularly, even several times a day, often complain of constant, background symptoms, such as exhaustion, muscle aches, indigestion and headaches, that they have learned to live with. These symptoms disappear when they leave out the food causing the trouble. On reintroduction of the food, some people, not all, find they experience symptoms that are not the same as the background, masked symptoms they were used to, but which are quite clearly linked to the reintroduced food. These unmasked reactions can be very strong. Conversely, it is also common that, if people with food intolerance of this kind leave the offending food out of their diet for some time, they can then eat it again without problems. Masking is also common in people with multiple sensitivities
Withdrawal symptoms can result if you stop eating a food that you eat regularly, or the day after you eat a food that you only have every so often.
Hyperventilation is common in some people with food intolerance, and their stools are pale and smelly; the babies usually fail to grow. If the disease develops in adulthood, the symptoms are diarrhoea, gut pain, bloating, weakness and weight loss.
Hyperactivity in children has been linked to food intolerance and to chemical sensitivity.
People with food intolerance who have sorted out their diets often report that a number of symptoms other than the main ones clear up once they exclude their problem foods. These are not formally recognised as symptoms of food intolerance, but they are so commonly reported by people that they are taken seriously as indicators of food intolerance. These can include excessive weight swings (more than 0.5 kg/1 lb gain or loss per day); irritability and mood swings; body odour; flushing and excessive sweating; difficulty in controlling body temperature; feeling too cold or too hot; food cravings; excessive thirst; insomnia.
So-called ‘allergy shiners’, big black rings under the eyes, are often typical of the allergy or intolerance sufferer. These often disappear once problem foods are removed from the diet.
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