What is the difference between Food Allergies and Food Intolerance?
Commonly people can't make any differences in between food allergy and food intolerance, because sometimes the symptoms of both are almost same. So it's really very tricky to understand the difference and people often confuse in between the two.
Food intolerance is much more common, whereas food allergy is only 1 or 2% of the population or maybe 3%.
Food intolerance is miserable but food allergy is dangerous, sometimes it's life threatening. So it's good to know the difference in between the two.
Adverse reactions to certain foods, most are caused by food intolerance and not a food allergy.
Here are some differences between Food Allergy and Food Intolerance:
Food Allergy:
A food allergy is a situation when our immune system mistakenly identifies a food, as a harmful substance and produces some chemicals as antibodies into the blood stream to fight against the accused food.These chemicals react in the body as allergy symptoms.
Normally our immune system protects us by producing antibodies in the blood from the attack of bacteria and viruses and they do their job without let us know that they are there. But when the immune system produces a type of antibody that in response does the certain visible reaction in the body, is called Allergy.
The symptoms of allergy are hives, itching sensation in mouth, swelling of the lips, face, tongue, and throat, skin rashes, difficulty in breathing and swallowing and dizziness or fainting etc.
In severe cases the sufferer's tissues swell up to two or three times than their normal size and require emergency response.
It can also cause nausea, vomiting, cramping and diarrhoea.
Food intolerance:
Unlike a food allergy, food intolerance generally doesn't involve the immune system. Food intolerance is the absence of an enzyme, needed to fully digest or to properly process of certain foods, which causes gas, diarrhoea, bloating, cramping, irritable bowel syndrome, vomiting, migraine, sensitivity to certain foods.
As a result the common consequence which happens is damage to intestine and chronic illness.
An Allergy, triggers a reaction often immediately and dramatically, where on the other hand food intolerance is a slow onset reaction, can be delayed hours, days or even weeks.
If you have food intolerance, you can probably eat small amounts of the food without a reaction but in contrast, in a food allergy, eating even the tiniest amount of the food may trigger a serious threatening reaction.
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allergy
,intolerance
,immune system
,symptoms of allergy
,antibodies
,gas
,diarrhoea
,bloating
,cramping
,irritable bowel syndrome
,vomiting
,migraine
,sensitivity to certain foods
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