Several labs perform tests for sensitivities to foods, chemicals, dyes and other compounds. You can also test yourself at home for food sensitivities.
Lab Tests
The Alcat Test is a lab based immune stimulation test. White blood cells are challenged with various substances including: foods, additives, colorings, chemicals, medicinal herbs, functional foods, molds and pharmaceutical compounds. The patient’s unique set of responses help to identify substances that may trigger potentially harmful immune system reactions.
The Alcat Test classifies a patient’s response to each test substance as reactive, borderline, or non-reactive. Based on these classifications, a customized elimination/rotation diet may be designed to eliminate the specific triggers of chronic immune system activation. By reducing this ongoing burden – and in particular, by reversing the sustained and destructive inflammation it produces – normal body functions and immune system balance can be improved.
Alcat also provides daily menus plans and instructions for reintroducing foods into the diet based on the results of your food sensitivity tests.
Source: Alcat
Some doctors now provide Alcat testing in the office along with nutrition and lifestyle coaching.
Blood for Alcat food sensitivity tests can also be drawn at a local ANY LAB TEST NOW® location. ANY LAB TEST NOW is a direct access lab testing services company. There are over 150 locations across the United States.
Food Sensitivity Tests at Home
A version of the Coca Pulse Test can be easily done at home and requires no special equipment, although a pulse meter can be helpful.
- Obtain a small piece of the food that you want to check and sit at a table.
- Rest for a few minutes to allow your pulse rate to drop.
- Check your pulse at your wrist for a full minute (time it with the second hand of a clock or watch, use the minutes on a digital clock, or use a pulse meter) and count how many beats you feel. This is your resting pulse rate.
- Put the piece of food on your tongue (test only one type of food at a time) and hold it there for at least 30 seconds. Then check your pulse rate again for a full minute, with the food staying on your tongue the entire time.
If your pulse increases 4 or more beats per minute (3 if you have type O blood), the food is causing a stress response because it is an irritant to you. Do not swallow that food. Spit it out.
You can repeat this test with another food once your pulse has returned to its resting rate.
NOTE: If testing eggs, test the egg yolk and the egg white separately. Egg yolks are often better tolerated than egg whites.
From: Dr. Jay Cullinane
Elimination Diets
Elimination diets are both tests and treatments for food sensitivities. A food is eliminated for a period of time and then later reintroduced. View Treating Food Sensitivities for more information.