Enterolab results - update on 11 antigenic foods

[sarkin]

I've been meaning to call Enterolab and ask about this result since May. It turns out, there was a glitch, and they did not send me the complete info on my results - I'm guessing it was because this was when those new tests had just been rolled out, along with a restructuring of all their test panels, and a certain amount of chaos was in play. The exceptionally helpful Phyllis immediately re-sent my results on that panel - it's quite long, including both details about specific foods and dietary recommendations for how to 'parse' the news, and so very much more worthwhile than I thought at the time. My response to the info below is - 1) Walnuts, even as a kid I always knew you were out to get me. It's over between us. 2) Almonds - I had a bad feeling about this. As I interpret these results, the jury is out - but you can no longer hang out on the menu quite so much - maybe we need to take some months off and reconsider. 3) Oats - you look like wheat from here, and have been about last on my list to ever re-try (right before gluten)...

Also, great news that I can use potatoes as a fallback food in case of flare. Nice to know that the occasional corn and rice are OK. That makes eating out and socializing a little easier, though I'm still on a pretty Paleo kind of path. Also nice to know there's no significant reactivity to chicken, beef, tuna or pork... at least on these tests, and MRT may show some differences. I have used cashews, but don't adore them. I just crossed out 'almonds' on my shopping list and wrote 'cashews' instead, so perhaps I'll be loving them soon ;)

I hope browsing this might help someone who's on the fence about these tests decide whether they're worth it. I would have said NO, based on my initial results, which were incomplete and unhelpful. (It's still a lot of money - I think there are many reasons to do MRT instead of adding this panel - but at least this is some guidance for me for now.)

Here are the complete results:

***********
*/Interpretation of Mean Value 11 Antigenic Foods: /*A mean value of 8 Units indicates that overall, on average, your food sensitivity reactions are mild. However, there was some detectable evidence of immunologic sensitivity to one or more of these antigenic foods.

Many foods besides gluten, cow’s milk, eggs, and soy are antigenic in their own right; the main classes of which include other grains, meats, nuts, and nightshades (potatoes being the primary food eaten from this latter class). Minimizing exposure to antigenic foods is an important component of an anti-inflammatory lifestyle to optimize immune system health. This is especially important for those with chronic abdominal symptoms and/or chronic immune/autoimmune syndromes, or for those who want to prevent them.

For immunologic food sensitivity testing, the actual numeric value (in Units) for any given test or for the overall average of a group of foods is important mainly for determining: 1) if the immune reaction is present or absent, and 2) in relative terms, the immune reaction to different foods tested in a given individual at a given point in time. It is not a score, per se, to be interpreted as a measure of clinical or immunological severity for that individual or between individuals. This is because the amount of IgA antibody made by a given person is particular for the immune function of that person. Furthermore, sometimes a person can display what can be viewed as immunological and nutritional “exhaustion,” whereby a more significant and symptomatic immunologic food sensitivity is accompanied by a lower positive measured anti-food antibody value (rather than a higher positive). In such an instance, following clinical improvement and improved nutritional status (while the suspect antigenic foods are withdrawn), values can actually be higher for a time before finally falling into the negative range after several years.

Thus, the overall average food sensitivity antibody value for this panel is an assessment of your overall humoral immunologic food reactivity, which can help determine if dietary elimination trials may help you. If the mean value is less than 10 Units, the humoral immune reactions can be considered absent (negative); if greater than or equal to 10 Units, they can be considered present. Rather than reporting the absolute value of a positive result for each individual food, since it cannot be considered as an assessment of severity, the results are reported in relative terms between the foods tested. This provides you with the knowledge of which foods are stimulating the most immune response which, in turn, is indeed the most practically applied information to dietary elimination trials. The report information that follows is based on these facts.

*While all of the foods tested can be immune-stimulating, the hierarchy of reactions detected were as follows:*

Food toward which you displayed most immunologic reactivity: Walnut, Almond, Oat
Food for which there was no significant immunologic reactivity: Chicken, Beef, Tuna, Cashew, White potato, Pork, Corn, Rice

*Within each class of foods to which you displayed multiple reactions, the hierarchy of those reactions detected were as follows:*

*Grains:*
Grain toward which you displayed the most immunologic reactivity: Oat

*Nuts:*
Nut toward which you displayed the most immunologic reactivity: Walnut
Nut toward which you displayed intermediate immunologic reactivity: Almond

*Dietary Recommendation Based on Test Results to Individual Foods: *This test panel was designed to guide your choices when building a new more healthful, less antigenic dietary plan. The results are delivered in such a way that you are not left with “nothing to eat,” but instead they guide you in avoiding the foods in each group that are most stimulating to your immune system. We discourage dietary changes that involve removing too many foods at once. This can lead you to feel too hungry too often, especially if adequate healthful replacement foods are not readily available. Dietary elimination (beyond gluten-free, dairy-free, and soy-free) is best approached over a period of weeks to months and sometimes years, removing one or two additional foods at a time, rather than removing many foods at once.

If you are experiencing symptoms possibly attributable to chronic immunological food sensitivity, such as chronic headaches, abdominal symptoms (pain, cramping, bloating, gas, diarrhea and/or constipation), sinus congestion, arthritis, chronic skin problems/rashes, fibromyalgia, and/or chronic fatigue, it may benefit you to avoid the foods for which you are most reactive first, followed, if necessary by those to which you are intermediately and least reactive.

You can use the hierarchal results from each specific class of food, within which you reacted to multiple antigens, to make the wisest dietary decision when choosing which food(s) from that class to keep in your diet. Choose the food(s) to which you were least reactive (or in the case of potato, non-reactive).

Avoiding all grains, most antigenic meats (such as these), and nightshades is an important part of the most optimized anti-inflammatory diet.

As nuts and seeds are a very healthful source of vegetarian protein and heart-protective oils and minerals, rather than avoiding all nuts and seeds, you can render nuts and seeds less antigenic, more digestible, and more easily tolerated by choosing the few that you seem to best tolerate overall, soaking a one-day supply in a glass jar filled with clean water for 4-8 hours (or for ease, overnight), and pouring off the water and rinsing before eating. The resultant soaked nuts or seeds can be eaten as is (alone or with fresh or dried fruit), blended into nut butters (by adding some water), or added to “smoothies.”

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Phew, that's a lot of info. I'm putting my almond flour in the freezer, and pondering some revisions to my 'portable snacks' kit.

Love,
Sara

[Sharaine]

Hi Sara,

Thank you for posting your results from Enterolab. They help give me an idea of what to look for when I can afford the tests. Sorry to hear you have to give up almonds. I like them quite a lot.

Do you know why the nuts like cashews are to be soaked? I don't understand that.

I see my GI tomorrow for my first follow-up appointment. I will mention Enterolab to him.

Hugs, Sharaine

[sarkin]

Sharaine,

You don't have to "spring for" this additional test to get great value from Enterolab testing. You'll know based on how you are feeling, whether you feel as though your progress toward healing has slowed down. The tests for the "biggies" have more straightforward interpretation (basically - with elevated antibodies for gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, and/or yeast, we *are* intolerant, and it's not a matter of which is more or less by the numbers).

I believe soaking nuts lowers the level of phytates, which are among the chemicals that are likely to be implicated in food reactions. When seeds/nuts germinate, enormous chemical and biological changes take place, and when you soak nuts you can really see the some of these changes happening - the little 'radicle' (pre-root) swells and elongates, and the nuts really do start the process that would lead to sprouting.

I have been making nut 'milks' with cashews, almonds and even pistachios, and also 'creams' (same thing, but with less water). It's really just soak the nuts, rinse, and blend with fresh water. The 'cream' texture is useful for dips, or spreads (you could make something like cream-cheese - I made some with cucumber blended in and it was amazing with salmon).

There are some recipes for nut milks, etc., in the Dee's Kitchen forum. To make milk, you strain out a lot of the solids, and that pulp can also be used (for crackers, or again as dip or 'cheese' base).

I love almonds, too, but I can live with this information. It's clearly not "absolutely out" the way gluten, dairy, and eggs are, or I'd be feeling much worse... but my plan of having packets of almond butter in my purse is out, and some new great idea had better occur to me soon!

I have a couple of friends whose patience is a little tried by my growing 'list' (it's my opinion that they don't have to keep track of it, since I do; if they want to know, they may as well just pay attention and follow along; if they have something to say about it, I really don't want to hear it)... anyway, my "snappy comebacks" need some updating along with my menu planning

I still plan to do MRT testing, probably later in the year. So it will be a work in progress (isn't life always a work in progress?). I expect the MRT results to be of broader use than these 11 tests, not only because they look at reactions to many more foods and ingredients than 11, but also because a variety of types of reactions are seen, not just IgA.

Love,
Sara

[tex]

Sara,

That's more like it. I was pretty sure that something was wrong, because without that additional information, the test would be pretty much useless. With the additional info, it appears to be pretty much of a simplified, (or limited), MRT test, and I can see how it might offer some valuable insight into one's treatment program.

Thanks for straightening that out, and posting about it.

Love,
Tex

[tex]

Sharaine,

I believe this only applies to cashew nuts, (and not the others), but in the case of cashews, one reason for soaking might possibly be to remove residual traces of any leftover toxins from the hulls. Cashews have a very unusual growing process, (a nut attached to an apple), and the hulls are quite toxic. From Wikipedia:

The true fruit of the cashew tree is a kidney or boxing-glove shaped drupe that grows at the end of the cashew apple. The drupe develops first on the tree, and then the pedicel expands into the cashew apple. Within the true fruit is a single seed, the cashew nut. Although a nut in the culinary sense, in the botanical sense the nut of the cashew is a seed. The seed is surrounded by a double shell containing an allergenic phenolic resin, anacardic acid, a potent skin irritant chemically related to the more well known allergenic oil urushiol which is also a toxin found in the related poison ivy. Properly roasting cashews destroys the toxin, but it must be done outdoors as the smoke (not unlike that from burning poison ivy) contains urushiol droplets which can cause severe, sometimes life-threatening, reactions by irritating the lungs. People who are allergic to cashew urushiols may also react to mango or pistachio which are also in the Anacardiaceae family. Some people are allergic to cashew nuts, but cashews are a less frequent allergen than nuts or peanuts.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashew

Tex

[sarkin]

Thanks, Tex. The explanation seems too long to merit posting it in the group's Enterolab results, but if you think adding 'oats, walnuts, and sort of almonds' would help clarify, that would of course be OK.

It's interesting - they do recommend removing foods from the diet slowly, which is never my inclination - so maybe I would just now be getting around to almonds, in any case. I had a feeling there was something more to the results than what they had emailed, but it's maybe not so bad that I had almond butter in my bag on that week of travel... I guess it's just taken me till now to wrap my mind around the Big News about eggs, and the genetic test results.

And yes, this does seem to confirm that potato chips are my health food.

For someone having a really hard time stabilizing symptoms, and identifying multiple food intolerances, I think MRT will remain the more powerful tool. But I am glad I did it anyway, and will be interested to see how my MRT results compare to these, when the time comes. Also, since I have been looking at the whole family of grasses/grains with suspicion, it's good to know that I can use corn and rice with reasonable confidence that they're not in league with the enemy...

Re: nuts I am going to hope that, since pistachios are in the same family with cashews, there's a reasonable chance they're OK. (Also our native sumac, which isn't exactly a major of my diet, but makes a nice lemon-y flavoring when you can forage some!)

Love,
Sara

[tex]

Thanks, Tex. The explanation seems too long to merit posting it in the group's Enterolab results, but if you think adding 'oats, walnuts, and sort of almonds' would help clarify, that would of course be OK.

We probably need to study this a while, before we decide how we're going to keep the records organized. How much utilization we see, (of those particular tests), will make a difference, also, in how we can best organize the data.

It's interesting - they do recommend removing foods from the diet slowly, which is never my inclination

I don't understand that either. According to their website, they're IgA andibody-based tests - so why wouldn't it be urgent to remove them from the diet? I'm guessing that they simply aren't sure what the appropriate cutoff points for the respective test results should be. That's the way that the MRT test results are handled, of course. Hopefully, the Enterolab crew will be able to determine some working guidelines, in the future.

Love,
Tex

[Zizzle]

Sara,
Very interesting...I suspect my results would be very similar to yours. I don't tolerate walnuts or almonds well, but I can eat cashews all day long. I always knew they were related to poison ivy and mango, but wasn't sure what properties they share. Luckily I've never had a reaction to poison ivy. In Latin
America, we eat the cashew fruit and make juice from it! It's called maranion. I'm having trouble with other seeds too, especially flax seeds.

I also have no problem with the meats listed, or potatoes in all forms. My fav is garlic mashed potatoes with lots of olive oil (I reserve some of the cooking water to replace the milk). I don't seem to do well with Udi's GF granola (oats) but I love it so! I hate to give it up.

Looking forward to MRT in the fall.

[Gloria]

Sara,

Their response is very interesting and clarifies things a little more.

I'm sorry about the almonds, though they're not as reactive as walnuts for you. I've had a hard time adjusting to going without almond butter because it's such a nutritious and convenient snack. I haven't found anything to replace it. I'm sure you'll miss almond milk, though it sounds like you can still drink coconut milk.

I've also followed your plan of eliminating all suspicious foods at once, then slowly adding them back. I'm not sure I agree with their suggestion, either.

The longer that I study my MRT list, the more I think many of my offending foods stimulate mast cell degranulation. It will be interesting to see what your results reveal.

Thank you for contacting them and updating your information.

Gloria

[sarkin]

Gloria,

I thought of you, in regard to the almonds. I picked up some Sunbutter, but I think I'll be using it in small quantities, and occasionally. I believe if I completely eliminate almonds for some period of time, I might be able to use them from time to time, once I am completely healed and have been in remission for a long period of time. I'm going to be disciplined about not testing that theory too soon, which seems like the surest way to prove it false!

Speculating a bit, my issues with mast cells seem to vary from day to day (that is, I do not respond exactly the same way each time, which is why it's hard to be sure which foods are which), so I believe they will be less 'trigger-happy' if I can get the total body inflammation back down and keep it there reliably. I doubt it will ever be a good idea to eat a very histamine-containing or -provoking meal. I'm going to set up a week of low-histamine menus, to the best of my ability, and see what that leads to. I definitely had an "off morning" after a meal containing mushrooms a couple of weeks ago, having forgotten the histamine connection there. I think unless I stop provoking this reaction, it will continue to be active; maybe it will always be an issue, but as long as it's simmering along, it may be interfering with the larger healing process. I re-tried Claritin, and it didn't make me dizzy, so I am thinking of taking 1/2 per day, or one every other day, for a month, and re-assess. I actually need to sit with a planner to make sure I have all my ducks in a row.

I am reminding myself that this news about almonds isn't "the other shoe" dropping... in a traditional sense. MC is kind of a centipede, so there may yet be another shoe - I'm going to refrain from using coconut daily, just in case that's the next incredibly useful and nutritious food that's teetering on the edge

Z, I had one granola breakfast at a vegan/GF coffee shop - it was raw, sprouted buckwheat (I think - I was so delirious from the novel sensation of eating crunchy granola I was all agog) - they must have roasted or dehydrated it? It was delicious, and they served it with a coconut kanten that was better than yogurt. I must go back there and take notes. I have always loved oatmeal - but have been expecting never to eat oats again since giving up gluten. Yesterday, in response to this update, I took out a box of rice pasta, but I haven't been eating any grains and just couldn't get my mind around it, so had my usual Paleo dinner instead. Today, I was supposed to have a 'play date' with a friend, which was going to involve a food adventure, but - no kidding - she canceled because she's stuck at home with D. (Can you imagine how scary it must be to call up and tell me that, knowing what she knows about what I know?)

Tex,

That's an interesting point - I'm guessing that if someone had an IgA response >10 they would recommend getting that food out of the diet. I bet you're right, these other/secondary foods, they have less experience with, and like us, will be building up some knowledge over time. Perhaps some people react significantly to 3 out of 4 of the meats, or all of the nuts. If I had reacted to a larger number, and more strongly, I'm guessing I'd be feeling worse, and I would cut it all out of my diet and go back to plain broth no matter what they said about gradual elimination. I really do believe that the long hard road *is* the shortcut ;)

Love,
Sara

[dgshelton]

Sara - I'm glad you finally got those results straightened out. I had wondered at the time you originally posted your results why they had only given you one value for all 11 foods. Sorry that you are having to give up almonds. I'm not a big fan of almonds, so that wouldn't bother me, but if you tried to take away my coconut milk, I'd have a problem!

Hugs,

[sarkin]

Thanks, Denise ;) If I'm heading out to steal some coconut milk, I won't be heading to your place!

Love,
Sara