“LTolerance is a necessary consequence of our human condition »wrote Voltaire, starting a battle of civilization. “We are all children of fragility: fallible and prone to error.” The considerations of the Treatise on tolerance they don’t change much if we try to apply them to our body.
When the belly fails and does not recognize certain substances as food, it reacts in a disordered way. They are food intolerances: sometimes the causes are traceable and sometimes not, they always create damage. Swelling, itching, or abdominal cramps.
In the philosophical debate it is debated whether to be tolerant with the intolerant. In the medical field, gastroenterologists advise not to endure the body’s excesses for long: if neglected, they can lead to esophagitis, gastritis, irritable bowel syndrome and colitis.
The last half century has seen a surge in food intolerances. The most common involve lactose and gluten, but they are not the only ones. And it must be said that alongside the real sensitivity to certain molecules, the conviction of having some is exponentially growing.
There would be matter for a text by Molière, with intolerant imaginaries who discard fruit or pasta for a form of hypochondria, prisoners of a food phobia, otherwise very certain to gain weight and feel worse. Just as the imaginary patient of the French playwright surrounded himself with inept doctors, so it happens that certain white coats or nutritionists or naturopaths propose questionable diagnostic tests in their private practices, claiming to condemn yeast or fructose after the observation of the irises or the application of electrodes. on the feet.
Since the argument lends itself to misunderstandings, below eight theses, rascals or shared by the scientific community. With two premises.
The first: intolerances are not allergieswhich trigger violent and immediate reactions of the immune system to the ingestion of an allergen.
The second: celiac disease is a separate storyautoimmune disease with chronic gluten intolerance.
Tomatoes contain serotonin, a molecule that can trigger exaggerated reactions (photo Getty Images).
1) With age it may happen that milk is indigestible: TRUE
Man hand the body may become less efficient at making lactase, which is needed to break down milk sugar, lactose.
But it also happens that the enzyme deficiency is of genetic origin: while most Europeans retain the ability to produce lactase even as adults, 90 percent of people in East Asia are born with some degree of lactose intolerance. .
When milk sugar is not digested well, it passes into the colon, where bacteria ferment it, producing hydrogen and consequently causing pain, diarrhea or flatulence. (30 minutes to two hours after a meal). The only reference test is the Breath test, or breath testwhich analyzes samples of exhaled air.
2) Intolerances and allergies lead to overweight: FALSE
A food intolerance can cause temporary bloating, not weight gain, much less obesity.
3) You can be sensitive to tomatoes and bananas: TRUE
Some intolerances seem to be due not to an enzymatic deficiency but to an exaggerated biochemical reactivity of the organism to some molecules. These include histamine, present in spinach or preserved fish, tyramine, typical of aged cheeses and beer, serotonin, found in bananas and tomatoes, phenylethylamine in chocolate, tryptamine in plums, solanine in potatoes and capsaicin from chilli.
Yet: sulphites from wine and dried fruit or monosodium glutamate contained in the grain and used to flavor food products. In intolerant people they can cause headache, hives or nausea.
4) Preservatives can create problems: TRUE
It is not yet clear why, but additives such as dyes, thickeners, preservatives or antioxidants used in the food industry can trigger adverse reactions, which do not appear immediately but 24 or 48 hours after taking.
5) Among the reliable tests, Vega, Dria and antibody dosage: FALSE
Food sensitivity tests are popular because they promise to provide quick remedies for stomach aches or extra pounds. Those who produce them do not lack imagination: they range from the analysis of the hair to the measurement in the blood of some antibodies, IgG.
But the Italian Society of Allergology, the Federation of the Order of Doctors and the Ministry of Health, in a joint document, invite to “be wary of anyone proposing food intolerance diagnostic tests for which there is no scientific evidence of reliability“.
We read that those not validated are: IgG4 dosage, cytotoxic test, Alcat test, electrical tests (vega-test, Voll electroacupuncture, bioscreening, biostrenght test, sarm test, moratest), kinesiological test, dria test, hair analysis, iridology , bioresonance, pulse test, auricular heart reflex.
6) When you are intolerant, the offending food must be completely excluded: TRUE AND FALSE
A good way to understand what’s wrong is to keep a food diary. Write down what you are taking, including the individual ingredients and quantities (by eye), then rate any symptoms on an intensity scale from 1 to 10.
After a few weeks there is usually a connection between food and ailments: it is then time to take the test and eliminate the suspects from the diet. After a few days, only one food is reinserted at a time and the reaction is checked.
You don’t have to be a Manichean, all or nothing, and often you just need to reduce the quantities. For example, if you develop an intolerance to excess fructose, you may find that eating half an apple or a tangerine actually causes no problems.
In most people, if lactose intolerance is mild, just eliminate the milk so that there are no more disturbances, by continuing to eat fermented products, such as yogurt and kefir, and cheeses such as Parmesan or Emmental.
Intolerance could also arise from the combination of elements, like the tomato together with the cheese in the Margherita pizza. The advice that a gastroenterologist can give is to experiment on yourself.
7) There is gluten sensitivity: TRUE
Why this happens is not clear: there are non-celiac people who, by banning foods with gluten, stop suffering from tiredness, headaches, muscle aches and swollen abdomen. Diagnosis is reached by trial and errorafter having avoided the presence of celiac disease, and the gluten free diet should be followed for one or two years.
8) There is also yeast intolerance: FALSE
The British Nutrition Foundation experts, in an article entitled “Does bread cause bloating?” they explain that the yeast does not survive cooking and therefore cannot produce gas in the belly. Instead, there could be an intestinal bacterial population sensitive to the oligosaccharides from which starches are composed.
Eliana Liotta (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
Eliana Liotta is a journalist, writer and science popularizer. On iodonna.it and on the main platforms (Spreaker, Spotify, Apple Podcast and Google Podcast) you will find his podcast series The good that I want.
Scientific advice is of Silvio Danesedirector of the division of Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan.
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