Most people – whether younger or older, ill or well – benefit from knowing which foods their bodies react negatively to.
Here’s the kicker: the food you think is healthy, may not be healthy for you.
If you’re healthy and want to stay that way, the focus is on prevention; since food is central to any wellness plan, to eat in a precise and personalized way is best.
Dealing with health challenges?
Maybe you’ve given up some of the ‘big 8’ offenders (e.g. wheat, gluten, dairy, eggs) but are still having some symptoms. Perhaps you’ve done (ineffective) skin testing or IgG food sensitivity testing. In either case, you know you need to drill down further and find out if your everyday “healthy” foods (e.g. blueberry, turkey, or tumeric) are actually inflaming you. This has been the case for many of our clients, some visual examples of food sensitivity testing results are below.
Conditions associated with food sensitivities are:
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Crohn’s Disease
- Heartburn / GERD
- Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)
- Arthritis and fibromyalgia
- Autism and ADD/ADHD
Symptoms associated with food sensitivities are:
- Anxiety and depression
- Constipation / diarrhea
- Bloating and gas
- Eczema, psoriasis, and acne
- Fatigue and general malaise
- Insomnia and poor sleep
- Brain fog
- Stomach and abdominal pain
- Irritability and restlessness
- Nasal and sinus congestion or post nasal drip
- Food cravings
- Muscle and joint pain or stiffness
- Water retention and difficulty losing weight
Additionally, this is a test worth doing if you plan on having children (to help lower inflammation in the body and improve fertility) or if you have children who are ‘picky eaters’ (oftentimes, kids intuitively know that a certain food is ‘hurting’ them and they try to avoid it).
If you want to lose weight or improve performance, this test provides you with the foundation for your personal diet strategy and may provide the missing link necessary to achieve your goals.
What makes MRT different? How does it work?
Some of the other tests you may have done, such as a skin prick or a food sensitivity test ONLY measuring IgG levels, often lack the accuracy in determining actual food sensitivities you may have.
Figuring out what our sensitivities are can be difficult; here’s why – the reactions can be delayed or dose-dependent. This means we may not immediately feel the effect of a food reaction; it may take many hours or days to appear. If it’s dose-dependent, we might feel okay with a little bit of the offending food, but stacking it gives us a reaction.
Mediator Release Testing (MRT) is a patented blood test that shows how strongly your immune cells react to the 170 foods and chemicals tested by measuring chemical mediators released from the cell. When released from immune cells, chemical mediators such as histamines, cytokines, and prostaglandins produce damaging effects on the body’s tissues, leading to the development of symptoms. Fortunately, MRT takes the guesswork out of identifying food sensitivities!
Here are some examples of ‘healthy’ foods that were showing up as inflammatory for clients, including: bananas, turkey, blueberries, coffee and more!
Test results are only part of the equation. With your functional medicine dietitian-nutritionist, you’ll put into play the LEAP (Lifestyle Eating and Performance) protocol to help get you the results you desire. Curious about finding out the foods and food chemicals causing inflammation and symptoms in YOUR body? Contact us and see if MRT testing is right for you.
onebitewellness 