Differences of Food Allergy and Food Intolerance

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Some people may think they have a food allergy because the body shows symptoms such as diarrhea, stomach pain, or bloated stomach after consuming food contained gluten or dairy product. While in fact, such symptoms may occur to those who have a food intolerance.

Food allergy may cause such symptoms due to an immune system reaction that affects numerous organs in the body, while food intolerance is due to enzyme deficiencies that has a function to digest certain foods in the body.

Sensitivity to food has not been defined in clear yet, but people commonly suffer stomach pain after consuming a certain food. Meanwhile, food allergy is not only affecting the stomach, but also your whole body.

Julie Upton, a co-founder of a website Appetite Health, explains when someone has a food allergy, the body’s immune system overreacts when certain foods, which likely trigger an allergy, enter the body.

“The body's immune system overreacts to proteins that [their bodies perceive as] unhealthy and attacks them as a threat to the body. The reaction to this faulty immune response leads to symptoms like itching, welts on your skin, breakouts, tightening of your throat, or shortness of breath,” Upton noted as quoted from health.com.

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