Diet Issues

Food Sensitivity At-Home Tests Are Ever More Popular. But Do They Work?

- Linda Geddes

The list of foods that I should consider cutting out is long and daunting.

Meat, mushrooms, most nuts and seeds, milk products, soya beans and potatoes - cutting out all of this would no doubt lead to weight loss, but that is not what I'm investigating. These are the combined results of three commercial food sensitivity tests sold online that have surged in popularity in recent years.

There's just one problem: I experience no discernible symptoms with any of these foods in my daily life, and among all of these items there is no single food that all three tests agreed on.

The popularity of commercial food sensitivity tests has exploded in recent years. Dietitians and allergists attribute this to a general increased interest in gut health, and the difficulty of getting a diagnosis for troublesome gut symptoms via the NHS.

Many people buy the tests in the hope of diagnosing intolerances such as lactose and histamine sensitivity, which are often caused by people not producing enough of certain enzymes that break down those substances. But the promise of a diagnosis from a quick and easy test collides with the reality of how intolerances are actually identified.

Prof Adam Fox, a specialist in paediatric allergy at King's College London and a spokesperson for the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology, said: "The reality is that the only way to really find out if you've got a food intolerance is exclusion and reintroduction of specific items from your diet, which is hard work.

"It is such an attractive idea that you can just book a test, and it will tell you. But the dangers are over and underdiagnosis, and both of those have potential risks."