Diagnosis of<unk>  can include hydrogen breath testing for lactose<unk>  and fructose malabsorption, professionally supervised elimination diets, and ELISA testing for IgG-mediated immune responses to specific foods. It is important to be able to distinguish between food allergy,<unk> , and autoimmune disease in the management of these disorders. Non-IgE-mediated<unk>  is more chronic, less acute, less obvious in its clinical presentation, and often more difficult to diagnose than allergy, as skin tests and standard immunological studies are not helpful. Elimination diets must remove all poorly tolerated foods, or all foods containing offending compounds. Clinical investigation is generally undertaken only for more serious cases, as for minor complaints which do not significantly limit the person's lifestyle the cure may be more inconvenient than the problem. Immunoglobulin (IgG) tests measure the types of food-specific antibodies present. There are four types of IgG, IgG1 makes up 60-70% of the total IgG, followed by IgG2 (20-30%), IgG3 (5-8%), and IgG4 (1-4%). Most commercially available tests only test for IgG4 antibodies, however some companies such as YorkTest Laboratories test for all four types. IgG4 only tests are debatably invalid; IgG4 presence indicates that the person has been repeatedly exposed to food proteins recognized as foreign by the immune system which is a normal physiological response of the immune system after exposure to food components. Although elimination of foods based on IgG-4 testing in IBS patients resulted in an improvement in symptoms, the positive effects of food elimination were more likely due to wheat and milk elimination than IgG-4 test-determined factors. The IgG-4 test specificity is questionable as healthy individuals with no symptoms of<unk>  also test positive for IgG-4 to several foods. Diagnosis is made using medical history and cutaneous and serological tests to exclude other causes, but to obtain<unk> nal confirmation a double blind controlled food challenge must be performed. Treatment can involve long-term avoidance, or if possible re-establishing a level of tolerance. Today there are many methods available such as cytotoxic testing, mediator release testing (MRT), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) testing, microarray ELISA testing, and ELISA/ACT. Allergy US reviewed these methods and microarray technology appears to be the most reliable.
Food intolerance
Food allergy
Dysphagia
Allergy
Aphagia
Allergies in children
Steatorrhea
Food addiction