Combinations and food allergies

Edited by Dr. Giovanni Chetta

Food combinations

The digestion of the three nutritional principles that provide energy takes place in different and sequential phases: carbohydrates in the mouth, stomach and small intestine, proteins in the stomach and small intestine, lipids in the small intestine.
All foods, with very rare exceptions, are made up of a combination of nutritional principles: this does not mean that we can eat anything but that our organs have certainly adapted to natural combinations, much less to human food manipulations.

The enzymes of the digestive system function correctly in certain ranges of conditions beyond which digestive disorders are triggered. Each enzyme is specific in its action, even within the same food category.
By carefully combining foods, digestion and absorption are improved.
To this end, it is good, and easily feasible, to avoid combining several protein foods together (especially meat, eggs, cheese), to avoid sugars at the end of the meal (eg fruit and sweets) and to avoid acidic drinks at the meal.
Poor digestion leads to less assimilation and greater waste of energy, fermentations and putrefactions with the production of toxic gases and substances such as: indole, phenol, ammonia (NH3), acetic acid and lactic acid. Once absorbed, the latter cause lowering of the immune defenses, humoral acidity, increase in the internal temperature of the intestine, alteration of the intestinal microflora; a favorable environment is created for the development of pathogenic and sub-pathogenic microflora capable of causing local and distant inflammatory diseases such as bronchitis, pharyngitis, cystitis, otitis, etc.

Food allergies and intolerances

Food allergies and intolerances fall into the broad group of disorders defined as adverse reactions to food. The first observations on disorders related to the ingestion of food are very old: Hippocrates, for example, had already noted the negative effects due to the ingestion of cow's milk. If the immune system intervenes in these reactions it is a question of food allergies, otherwise of food intolerances (the most common). However, adverse reactions to food still constitute one of the most controversial areas of medicine today as the physiological mechanisms, clinical symptoms and diagnosis are not always clear.

Food allergy

Due to hypersensitivity to allergens or to glycoproteins present in foods (especially in milk, eggs, fish, crustaceans, peanuts, soy, tomatoes, wheat, nuts) and additives (egg lysozyme used as bactericide, fungal alpha-amylase used as a leavening agent , proteins used as thickeners) Handling of foods can increase allergenicity (storage for apple and cod, cooking for peanuts, fish and soybean oil).
The clinical symptomatology consists mainly of gastrointestinal manifestations (oral-allergic syndrome with papules or vesicles in the mucosa, suckling colic), cutaneous (eczema or topical dermatitis, urticaria, angioedema), respiratory (asthma 5.7% in children, recurrent serous otitis media), anaphylactic shock (the most serious, in some cases fatal).
Regarding the diagnosis, laboratory tests are often insufficient, so it is essentially based on the "anamnesis and the clinic but also" it cannot always be certain. Allergy tests often give unreliable information as the available allergens are not purified (except for some foods such as cod).
The most reliable diagnosis is obtained through the elimination diet (diagnosis by exclusion) and consists of:

identification of the suspect food (or a small number of suspect foods);
its elimination from the diet for 2-3 weeks;
its reintroduction into the diet for another 2-3 weeks.

If the symptoms disappear during the period in which food is abolished from the diet and reappear once reintroduced, it is very likely that it is an adverse reaction to food. In this case, a differential diagnosis of allergy / intolerance must be performed, verifying, through appropriate tests, the involvement or not of the immune system.
The treatment for food allergies, as for intolerances, consists in eliminating from the diet or consuming in small quantities the foods that cause the reaction.

Pseudo-allergies or food intolerances

According to some authors only less than 20% are true food allergies, the others are food intolerances (reactions not mediated by IgE). Generally they are due to drugs and food additives (tartrazine which is the yellow dye of many drinks; sodium benzoate in soft drinks and sweets, bisulfite in wine and beer, salicylate prohibited by law but often present in fruit and vegetables, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid from from the processing of pasta and bread, vanillin in desserts, etc.). Some foods can also cause these syndromes if they are rich in histamine (some types of fish and meat, fermented drinks and fermented cheeses) or substances capable of releasing it by non-immunological mechanism (shellfish, beans, chocolate, tomatoes, egg whites, etc.). ). Poisoning can also derive from unripe fruit, vegetables and vegetables; the "poisoning" power of solanine, a glycosidic alkaloid present, as protection against fungi and insects, in tomatoes and peppers that are still green, in eggplants and potatoes is well known. in sprout, (cooking reduces the initial concentration by 40-50%).

Food intolerance symptoms are varied and are generally dose-dependent; the most evident symptoms are bloating and abdominal pain, nausea, flatulence, diarrhea, burning in the throat but also fatigue, headache, greater tendency to contract inflammation, colds, flu, etc.
The most common form of wheat intolerance is the celiac disease, while speaking of lactose intolerance is, as we have seen previously, an error as it is a physiological interruption of production of the lactase enzyme, post-weaning, which occurs in the majority of the population. In this regard it may be useful to report some cheeses low in lactose: parmesan, emmental, cheddar, edam. Finally, it is important to read food labels as lactose is used as a sweetener (sweetener) and excipient (thickener, it retains sodium and water with obvious economic advantages for the " food company producer thanks to the "weight gain of the product) in many foods (sausages, cooked ham, preserved meat, wurstel, ready meals, snacks, chips, etc.) and drugs (makes them more acceptable to the patient and facilitates their industrial preparation ).
The "alternative tests" for the diagnosis of food intolerances are without scientific reliability and have not yet demonstrated clinical efficacy.

N.B .: the powders in the air hypersensitize the immune system, facilitating the onset of allergies and intolerances.

Defend yourself

Good quality of raw materials, fruit, vegetables and ripe and seasonal vegetables, maximum cleanliness and environmental and personal hygiene, avoid marble and wood (bacteria lurk in their holes) and use steel and ants, non-chapped hands or wounds (receptacles of staffilococchi), cooked food put back in the fridge immediately (bacterial proliferation restarts as soon as the temperature of the food is below 60 °), avoid raw meat (responsible for 70% food infections). In some cases, cooking helps: a few minutes at 85 ° C are enough to deactivate the active ingredient of antibiotics.

Among the pesticides the most resistant to heat are organochlorines (they accumulate in the adipose tissue that protects them during cooking), the pollutants remain unchanged. Finally, follow a correct dietary education (which eventually includes the elimination of foods that have been proven intolerant (allergy) and lifestyle habits as healthy as possible (avoiding continuous stress, doing moderate physical activity, sleeping a sufficient number of hours etc.).