Posted: March 22nd, 2012 - 12:03pm
Source: Canadian Press

Commercial tests that claim to determine whether a person has food allergies, sensitivities or an inability to tolerate certain foods are a waste of money, warns a Toronto allergy specialist, who wrote about the issue in this week’s Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Elana Lavine said she’s seeing a stream of people who have undergone the testing or have had it done on their children in the belief that a food allergy might explain other complaints or ailments. The tests are sometimes done in consultation with complementary medicine practitioners (such as naturopaths), she said.
Dr. Lavine said she hasn’t been keeping records, but probably sees a couple of patients a month who want help interpreting the findings of the tests.
“I no longer have any preconceptions about the ‘type of person’ who would fall for this testing because of what I’ve seen in my community practice,” said Dr. Lavine, an allergist who splits her time between a private practice and the pediatrics department of Humber River Regional Hospital.
“I have seen well-intentioned, educated, aware people from all walks of life, all levels of education somehow be brought to a mindset where they feel like this test might be the answer.”
“For whatever reason, they’re drawn to do a test that seems to promise to unlock secrets and to reveal to them what secret food allergies they have. So I think it’s a very appealing concept – but a totally incorrect one,” she said.
The tests, which can cost hundreds of dollars, look for an antibody reaction to a whole range of foods. And when they find a response with an antibody known as immunoglobulin G, or IgG, they characterize that result as unhealthy, suggesting the existence of either a food allergy, an intolerance or a food “sensitivity.”
But Dr. Lavine said that is a misreading of what an IgG reaction means. Science isn’t 100 per cent sure what an IgG response actually signifies, she said, but it is thought to mean that a person has already encountered the proteins in that particular food and may even have developed a tolerance for them.
Recent position papers from European and U.S. allergy and immunology societies have also emphasized that tests looking at IgG or IgG4 antibodies are not appropriate for making a diagnosis of food allergy, she wrote in the journal.