Improve Your Mental Well-Being by Testing for Reactive Foods
The brain is very energy intensive and places a high demand on the body to produce enough of that energy, and from the right sources, to keep it functioning smoothly and to provide the basic needs for mental well-being. This means that the health of your gut is essential to the health of the brain. Without a well-functioning gut, then the needed nutrients for both bodily and mental health can’t be extracted and absorbed efficiently, and toxins and other waste products can’t be eliminated as quickly as desirable.
A critical component of the absorption of nutrients and elimination of waste products is the microbiome. The microbiome is your internal ecosystem of beneficial gut flora that populates your intestines and assists in breaking down food, extracting nutrients, and eliminating waste products. If your microbiome becomes damaged, though, that healthy population of friendly gut bugs can be replaced by nastier strains that can not only cause pain and discomfort in the gut but can even damage it by loosening tight junctions that normally seal your intestinal wall. When this happens, particles of food and other debris can enter into other bodily systems, including the bloodstream, and are attacked by your immune system as intruders, causing inflammation. That inflammation not only attacks your gut further but can cause inflammation in widely dispersed areas of the body. This inflammation can become chronic, and if left untreated long enough, might even trigger autoimmune diseases. Chronic inflammation in the gut worsens the absorption and elimination issues and separately contributes to a decrease in precise thinking, brain fog, memory issues, lack of energy, and a general feeling of malaise. It’s no wonder this affects mental well-being!
One very common, and often overlooked trigger that causes damage to the microbiome is having food allergies or sensitivities. You might be able to pinpoint an allergy because it can happen within minutes of exposure, but food sensitivities are initiated by different immunological pathways and can take from 3-72 hours to cause a reaction, by which point it’s nearly impossible to tell what food caused the problem. Sometimes, your body reacts very strongly to a food and triggers a complement cascade. This cascade spikes C3d in the body and can cause a reaction 1,000 to 10,000 times stronger than a normal food sensitivity. It’s imperative that the foods that cause these “super reactions” are identified as soon as possible through specialized allergy and sensitivity testing to eliminate them as soon as possible.
Precision Point offers the P88-DIY food allergy and sensitivity test that evaluates 352 individual immune reactions using 88 varied foods. We not only test for IgE (allergy) reactions, but also IgG (food sensitivity), IgG4 (allergy-blockers), and C3d. We are the only lab that offers such a comprehensive panel. Even better, the P88-DIY uses a simple and almost painless finger stick and collector that allows the sample to be stable for much longer than traditional tests. This means the test is a great option for the whole family, kids included! Because of its stability and method, it’s easy to collect your specimen at home using our handy kit instead of having to go to a phlebotomist.
You’ll still need a provider to order a test for you and after our presentation at Dr. Talks, we’ve been inundated with calls for where to find a provider that offers the test. Well, we’ve got great news for you! Our friends at Progressive Medical Center have begun to offer this test through their allergy and sensitivity telemedicine program! They offer everything from just the test itself to packages that include diet planning, consultations with nutritionists, and personalized supplement regimens once you’ve been qualified. This means, for the first time, that those of you who don’t have access to a provider of our test now have access through an online provider! Check out how to participate here: https://www.progressivemedicalcenter.com/allergy-and-sensitivity-test/
Don’t just take our word for how great this test is, check out these thoughts and posts from Dr. Kim Tran of Texas:
“I love food allergy testing so you’re sure on what baby is allergic to and you have a “safe foods” list. Babies can get allergy tested as soon as 9 months if severe and better between 12-18 months.
I like the P88 Antigen Test by @precisionpointdiagnostics because it tests for 88 different foods and through 4 different immune pathways. Now it even comes in a finger prick version that can get all this info in one finger prick! So much easier for babies and kids.
I like that it also has an immune index where they take all your results and put them in a list of the most reactive foods to the safest foods. That way you know what not to eat and what’s safe to eat. It’s also good so you know what’s safe to reintroduce if you’ve taken out certain foods already.
We’ve done this test twice now for Emerson and will continue to do it yearly to check his allergy levels. We keep his list on the fridge so that everyone knows what he can and cannot have. This test has been invaluable to us and I pray his allergies look better each time we do them. 🙏🏻 You can see his test results in his story highlights.”