Hidden Food Allergies: Science or Marketing?

Episode Intro

Welcome to the Immune Edit. I’m Dr. Doug Jones, and today we are gonna talk about a topic of hidden food allergies. Is this real or not? I’m here to tell you the term hidden food allergy is a marketing term, so the edit that we’re gonna make is anytime somebody goes to you or you hear.

The Marketing Hook to Watch For

The phrase, do you think you have hidden food allergies? Should you get some testing done? Just have it go through your head. You are getting marketed to. This is not scientific based. What they’re gonna try and do is sell you a bunch of tests that actually aren’t valid. Okay? So even though the tests claim.

What These Tests Promise

They can offer people insight into which foods may be causing some digestive symptoms or their brain fog or their fatigue or their joint pain. There’s no scientific evidence that shows they’re effective or accurate. All major societies agree on this allergy societies, and it’s unique when you can get allergy and world societies to agree on something, and this is one of the things they agree with.

What Major Societies Say

They do not recommend these food sensitivity or intolerance tests for allergies. Okay? So anytime you, and, and a lot of times what people will do is they’ll try and get into this topic by scaring you a little bit. They’ll say, Ooh, do you have to have that hidden food allergy? And then you start thinking, oh, well maybe that’s why I’m having all my symptoms because I have this hidden food allergy.

Food Allergies Aren’t “Hidden”

Food allergies aren’t hidden. First of all, they’re pretty obvious, at least to an expert. They’re obvious. So if that person is trying to sell you on something about a hidden food allergy, I would kind of question their expertise on that. Maybe check their credentials, see what’s going on. Um, and next they’ll launch into some of these tests.

IgG vs. IgE (Alphabet Matters)

And a lot of these tests are something called IGG tests, not to be confused with IgE E. So let’s get our letters of the alphabet, correct, IgG. Are usually the tests that are looking at food sensitivity and what’ll happen and, and they get really creative with the marketing. So I’ve actually pulled, uh, what’s on some of the websites of some of these companies and what it’ll, I’m gonna read this directly and it says, lemme look here.

Example of IgG Marketing Language

IgG tests. It measures current levels of IgG antibodies for a variety of foods to you that may sound concerning. And next it’ll say intended use to identify foods in your current diet that might be connected to food sensitivity symptoms that might be connected. Or they might not be connected. That’s the part they left out because there’s actually no evidence to connect IgG with your food allergy symptoms.

What IgG Really Reflects

Or your digestive symptoms. In fact, IgG tests are more a reflection of what your exposure is and what’s in your diet, not necessarily any kind of sensitivity. Just because your body makes antibodies or has that immune response does not mean it’s bad, and there is yet, to my knowledge, to be a study that will show or correlate that these tests actually correlate with.

Why Results Skew “Positive”

Your symptoms, most of them are gonna show pos, um, pretty good positivity to dairy, gluten, corn. Guess what? All the things that are in your diet. Um, and when you get some of those things out, yeah, you may feel better. Why? Because they can be inflammatory, not because of the IgG antibodies, but some people are sensitive to those things.

You Don’t Need a Test to Try an Elimination

Getting them out may, you know, might help you, but. You can do that without that test. Actually. Um, let’s look at another one.

Another Website Claim

This test, this is off a different website. This test measures current levels of IgG antibodies for a variety of foods intended use to identify foods in your current diet that might be connected to food sensitivity symptoms. So very similar to the other one. Yeah, it’s gonna detect what’s in your current diet diet, but again, if you look at the scientific evidence, it’s, it cannot connect the dots between that and your actual symptoms.

Definition ≠ Validation

The other thing is it will say, food sensitivities are a non-life threatening condition with delayed symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating, headache, or indigestion. Yes, that is the definition of food sensitivities. However, what they’re doing here is they’re saying this test measures antibodies. It is then saying it might be connected, and then they just define food sensitivity.

Where the Evidence Should Be (But Isn’t)

What they just don’t ever do is show you the evidence to prove that this actually makes a difference in your life. That’s what they don’t show. Then what they’ll do is they’ll go into. Well, we are backed by science. This test is backed by science and reviewed by doctors. What science and what doctors, again, rarely, rarely disclosed.

CLIA-Certified Lab ≠ Clinically Useful Test

What they will say though is, well, this is a CLIA certified lab. All that means is that the lab itself is certified. It does not mean that just because a test is certified or can be done that it’s clinically relevant to you. This is all marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing. This is not science. I mean, you can say, oh, our lab is CLIA certified.

Don’t Confuse Lab Quality with Clinical Relevance

Great, good for you. Glad your lab is CLIA certified. But does that, but just because it’s certified again, doesn’t mean that that test is clinically relevant. Those are two different questions. I don’t want you to get confused by that. Then it says physician reviewed results. All tests are reviewed by an independent board certified physician.

“Reviewed by Doctors” (But Which Doctors?)

Okay, great. What does that review really entail? Does, again, nothing that’s really stated board certified. They could be board certified in anything. They may not even have expertise in this area does not say, and so this is what happens. There’s one guy in particular. Very popular, uh, has an obvious financial relationship with a specific lab because he recommends this specific lab.

The “Better Lab” Pitch

And he’ll go into all of this explanation about how these types of tests are not accurate, how they don’t correlate, which he’s right. He’s absolutely right on those. But then here’s the even trickier part. What he’ll say next is he is like, well, I want you to basically use this specific lab because they’ll not just test one type of food, but they will differentiate raw forms versus cooked forms.

Why That Still Doesn’t Solve It

And so therefore, you know it’s a better test. But when you take a deep dive into that, it’s still this, it’s still this. Now granted, there are differences between. How a cooked food is, especially fruits and vegetables may interact with your body versus, you know, whether it’s raw versus cooked. That’s true, but these tests aren’t going to help you discern that.

Bottom Line on Marketing Terms

Okay? So when you hear the terms food sensitivity testing, broad panels of food sensitivity testing, uh, hidden food, allergies, all of those are terms. That are used in marketing are not science-based, and that’s the immune edit that I want you to make. And I would suggest keep listening to this podcast because I’m gonna help you avoid a lot of the pitfalls that come with some of these tests and how specifically you are marketed to and how they’ll use certain phrases in a certain way to get you to think this is valid.

Real-World Impact on Patients

But at the end of the day, they don’t draw, they don’t connect the dots to how that actually is clinically relevant to you. Um, there’s a lot of people that spend a lot of money on these types of tests. And then they’ll come into our clinic frustrated because, yeah, they started to avoid the gluten in the dairy and they felt good for a while and then they didn’t, and then they’re kind of back to it, but they’ve spent, you know, hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a lot of these tests, and they’re like, or they’ll come in and the other thing that’ll happen is because there’s so much positivity on these tests, they’ll then come in and say, you know, this is like my diet.

The Confusion These Panels Create

If I’m allergic to these things, what do I even eat? And then I have to have this discussion about what valid tests are and what they aren’t. And I always feel bad that they’ve spent so much money on a lot of these tests that aren’t gonna give ‘em the answers that they’re hoping for. Um, so hopefully this helps you understand some of what you, what’s happening when you’re being marketed to, with the hidden food allergies or the sensitivity tests or the broad panels.

See Beyond the Headline

And let’s get down to the root cause, like all of those are just catchphrases to hook you, to get you to buy that test. Um, and what I want you to do is to see beyond the headline. See deeper, understand better, ask more questions, ask to actually see the research and the science behind it. And I’m not talking about made up references either.

What the Evidence Actually Says

I’m talking about real, legitimate, uh, evidence and every major allergy Society, academy, college, all of it. Do not recommend getting IgG tests. So that’s the immune edit for today. Hope this helps you understand a little bit more, why perhaps you weren’t quite getting the answers that you wanted with those test results.

Closing

Take care.

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