You deserve to take charge of every element of your life. One of the priorities should, therefore, be your health. You might still be trying to determine what components to include in how to live a healthy lifestyle. Realistically, your nutritional health should always be front of the line. Why? Because it determines how every other part of your life will go. Your top health priorities should include staying fit and understanding the importance of mental health, of course. But also practical things like making time for advanced allergy and intolerance testing. Not sure why? It’s all below.
Health is multi-faceted
Best health practice articles focus on working out and eating a healthy, balanced diet. These things are essential, but one missing component to good health is understanding what goes into your good health.
If you’re allergic or intolerant to foods that normally would be used for maintaining a healthy lifestyle, you must adjust your approach to staying healthy. Of course, understanding those intolerances and allergies comes from proper testing.
However, there’s another part to this. Since some don’t pursue proper testing, they just start avoiding anything that causes a negative reaction. While this makes sense in the short term, it’s not a long-term solution. Studies show that avoiding allergenic foods can lead to over-avoidance of “safe foods”. This makes learning how to live a healthy lifestyle difficult since you needlessly avoid many important food ingredients.
Understanding allergies and intolerances
Let’s take a deeper dive into understanding allergies. There are two types of allergies, IgE-mediated and non-IgE mediated. The former causes a more severe, immediate reaction, and the latter causes a milder, delayed reaction.
In some cases, food allergies are most likely if allergies run in the family, but this isn’t always the case. While food allergies in children typically disappear with age, not all do. Recently, more and more adults are getting diagnosed with food allergies, even foods they have eaten before with no reactions. This is a massive part of why making time for advanced allergy and intolerance testing is so important. You can’t know what’s happening in your body unless you check.
Some types of food allergies are more common than others. The most common allergies in the UK include the following:
- Celery
- Cereal
- Crustaceans
- Eggs
- Fish
- Lupin
- Milk
- Molluscs
- Mustard
- Peanut
- Sesame
- Soya
- Sulphite
- Tree nuts
Understanding what is a problem food ingredient will help you successfully create a menu that is just right for your tastes. In this case, it doesn't matter if it is an allergy or intolerance. The more detail you have, the better you can learn how to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
While they can cause severe symptoms, food intolerances are like personalised forms of indigestion. Your body cannot digest a specific food ingredient. They don’t involve the immune system at all and are not dangerous. Common food intolerances include lactose and gluten.
Intolerances can be mild to severe. Some will decide to avoid the problem food ingredients. Others will just manage their portions. Food intolerances can be extremely challenging to self-diagnose, however. Their symptoms tend to be delayed to the point of making it challenging to know what you are reacting to -- even if you are keeping a detailed food journal.
Benefits of allergy and intolerance testing
So, why pursue testing for allergies and intolerances? How does it connect to learning how to live a healthy lifestyle? Simply, you empower yourself to take on life with a complete picture. You’ll know the difference between food intolerances and food allergies. You'll also learn how to identify problem food ingredients and how to maintain your health daily through creating a personalised healthy diet.
This leads to easy meal planning, stress-free traveling, and more. Making time for advanced allergy and intolerance testing gives you the key to embracing your power and creating a healthy, happy, and safe future.
From a more practical point of view, there are also more benefits to think of. Using testing helps people understand the dietary problem areas and learn how to substitute other foods. This can directly improve each person’s quality of life and health for the best of both worlds. Studies show that testing can help improve financial health since proper research can help minimise any gap in nutrition.
Putting your best foot forward, healthwise, involves more than most people think. Regardless of how you look at it, making time to test for allergies and intolerances will support you on your path to empowering yourself and your life.