Many people experience symptoms after consuming certain foods. These symptoms vary from person to person. For example, one person may suffer from severe migraines, another may experience gastrointestinal discomfort, while another may experience a rash or itchy skin. If these symptoms occur repeatedly when consuming certain foods, the symptoms can be classified as a food intolerance. It is estimated that around 20 percent of the population in industrialized countries is affected by such intolerance, but only a fraction of these symptoms are actual allergic reactions.

The difference lies in the involvement of the immune system: A true food allergy is a rapidly occurring, immunologic ally mediated reaction to otherwise harmless substances in food. This overreaction of the immune system to certain food components particularly affects peanuts, eggs, milk, fish, and wheat in childhood, while adults are particularly allergic to wheat, shrimp, hazelnuts, soy, celery, and peanuts. Even tiny amounts of the affected food can trigger severe reactions, including respiratory distress, in the case of an allergy.

If the immune system is not involved in these reactions, it is a non-allergic food intolerance, medically known as an intolerance (including, for example, intolerance to the sugars fructose or lactose). This can occur, among other things, when the intestine is unable to properly process or utilize certain food components, or when an abnormal intestinal flora uses the food for its own purposes. If these reactions occur late, it is no longer a food allergy, but a food intolerance. In this case, too, the immune system can be involved; typical examples are celeriac disease, gluten intolerance, or histamine intolerance.

In our everyday life as specialized clinic for allergies we also encounter numerous allergic reactions and food intolerance, but non-immunological reactions to food are also much more common. One of the best-known non-allergic food intolerance is lactose intolerance – here, a missing, defective, or regulated enzyme leads to the absorption of lactose. In other cases, the intestinal flora ferments the lactose to generate energy from it. The resulting substances lead to the typical associated digestive disorders. Fructose absorption, which is accompanied by unpleasant gastrointestinal reactions to fructose, is also one of these intolerance. In addition, foods with a high histamine content, such as long-aged cheeses or smoked fish, as well as red wine and sparkling wine, can trigger pseudo-allergic reactions in people with histamine intolerance, for example, rashes, diarrhea, or migraines.

As there are no two patients with the same spectrum of allergies and sensitivities against foods its easy to understand that only a personalized diet taking into acount the above mentioned reactions can insure a long term symptom freedom by strongly reducing inflammatory reactions in the gut, lungs or on the skin.

In this respect our German team developed for more than 30 years a personalized hypoallergenic rotation diet which eliminates the incriminated food allergens and offers the tolerated foods in a 4 day rotation system.