Can Chronic Illness Cause Food Intolerances?

Living with a chronic illness, such as Lyme or Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, can be an arduous journey, affecting various aspects of our daily lives. One unexpected and often overlooked aspect is the development of food intolerances. While it may seem unrelated at first glance, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting a strong correlation between chronic illnesses and the emergence of food intolerances.

So, what exactly causes it?

At the root of it all is inflammation that causes a cascade of events within your body.

Now, before we dive into the topic a little more, let's clarify what food intolerances are because many people think they are an allergy, which is incorrect. Unlike food allergies that involve an immune response, food intolerances are non-immune reactions triggered by certain foods or food components. In other words, these intolerances are not anaphylactic but can cause you life-disrupting symptoms such as digestive distress, headaches, skin reactions, sleep disturbances, and much more.

So what does the inflammation cause that ultimately leads to your food intolerances?

Dysbiosis and Leaky Gut: The gut plays a pivotal role in both chronic illnesses and food intolerances. Many chronic conditions, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), or autoimmune disorders, disrupt the delicate balance of gut microbiota and compromise the integrity of the intestinal lining. This "leaky gut" phenomenon, caused by inflammation causing the junction barriers in the gut lining to open, allows undigested food particles and toxins to escape into the bloodstream, perpetuating your systemic inflammation and triggering immune responses and sensitivities to certain foods.

Systemic Inflammation and Immune Dysregulation: Chronic illnesses are directly associated with persistent inflammation and immune dysregulation. Scientists have now stated that systemic inflammation is the root cause of all disease. This inflammation and constant activation of the immune system creates a heightened state of reactivity, making you more prone to developing food intolerances. Inflammation, as stated above, can compromise your digestive processes, impairing your body's ability to break down and tolerate specific food components, leading to the onset of intolerances.

Altered Digestive Enzymes, Stomach Acid, Bile Salts, and Absorption. Oh My!: Chronic illness can impair the functioning of your digestive organs, affecting the production and activation of digestive enzymes, stomach acid, bile salts, and ultimately impair the absorption of nutrients. If you don’t have adequate stomach acid you will not activate your pancreas for enzymes or gallbladder for bile salts. As a result, you will struggle to digest fats, proteins, and carbohydrates properly. This malabsorption, if not corrected with digestive support, leads to improperly digested foods creating inflammation in the intestines and can trigger adverse reactions to specific foods, manifesting as food intolerances.

Medications and Treatment Side Effects: The management of chronic illnesses often involves medications, such as antibiotics, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and/or immunosuppressants. Prolonged use of these medications can disrupt the gut microbiota and alter the digestive processes which causes inflammation, increasing your risk of developing food intolerances. Additionally, certain treatments, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, can directly affect the gut lining, making you more susceptible to leaky gut and food sensitivities.

Conclusion: While the precise relationship between chronic illnesses and food intolerances is still being explored, there is mounting evidence to support their interconnection. The underlying mechanisms, including gut dysfunction, immune dysregulation, and compromised organ function, all stem from inflammation. It truly is a vicious cycle as inflammation can lead to illness and illness can feed inflammation.

If you suspect food intolerances, it’s important to figure out what they are and remove them from your diet. Not forever, but for a time. While some foods are obviously inflammatory and can do harm to the body, such as rancid oils and processed sugars, you may find that some foods you react to are considered to be “healthy foods” in the standard diet. These foods, while healthy for others, could be trigger foods for you. This means that while they in themselves aren’t inflammatory, they trigger a worsening of disease symptoms in you. The good news is, once you have healed and sealed your gut, built up your microbiome, and reduced your inflammation, you may be able to bring these foods back.

The best way to determine which foods are best to avoid so you stop putting fuel on the fire, is to keep a food journal. Some people choose to write everything they eat down and also log their symptoms to see a pattern. Others, with limited time and patience, choose to back log. This means they only log their last two meals when they experience a symptom. Either way can help you determine what foods you need to avoid while healing. Should you want a guided program to assist you in food eliminations and determining which foods work for you and which foods are best to be avoided, the Personalized Paleo™ program is exactly what you need. It is one of the programs that align with the foundations of The Wellness Model™ and is designed to walk you through your food journey in order to personalize your diet to exactly what works best for YOUR body.

Changing the way you eat can be challenging, but so is feeling bad on a daily basis. The very thing that is supposed to nourish and fuel the body can also harm it. The sooner you learn what your body needs to thrive, the sooner it can do exactly what it was designed to do; heal itself.