Food Allergies vs Food Sensitivities: How Each Causes Heartburn

A food allergy triggers your IgE immune system — fast, obvious, sometimes life-threatening reactions. A food sensitivity triggers your IgG immune system — a slow, delayed reaction that can show up hours, days, or even weeks later as a tummy ache, bloating, or heartburn. Standard allergy tests only look at IgE, so a "negative" allergy test does not rule out the food sensitivities quietly driving your reflux.

This is a very important concept that you need to understand, and if you have heartburn, could change your life.

What Is a Food Allergy? (IgE)

A food allergy triggers your immune system. In fact, to be more specific, it triggers a certain section of the immune system called IgE.

A peanut allergy is something you have likely heard of before. Or maybe somebody has celiac disease which is a full-blown gluten allergy.

But to think of a food allergy versus a food sensitivity, let's try this….

A great analogy is to think of your immune system as the United States military. There are different branches of the military that are responsible for different actions, both domestically and globally. If there is a major conflict that has to be dealt with at a moment's notice, they're sending in the top-notch Marines to take care of the job.

That's your IgE.

Your body is pulling out the big guns and the top soldiers that create the most damage and can eliminate the enemy as quickly as possible.

The problem is that a food allergy drives your IgE into Defcon 1. That's where the bronchioles in the lungs constrict and spasm to the point that you can't even breathe. It's a life-threatening situation and an EpiPen is the only thing that keeps you from dying at the hands of your own IgE immune system.

What Is a Food Sensitivity? (IgG)

What's amazing is that IgE is the only component of the immune system that traditional medicine recognizes as reactionary to foods. Traditional medicine does not believe that any other component of your immune system can be triggered by foods.

When you go to see an allergist, they do a skin prick test which looks at your IgE immune system…only.

It's a great test and if you have a skin reaction to a food, you most certainly have an allergy to that food.

But…..if you went through one of those tests and you were told that you don't have any food allergies, then you left that doctor's office believing that foods are not an issue for you.

We're telling you: traditional medicine is wrong.

Why?

Because the Marines are not the only part of the US military, right? There are other departments that are very important to our country's defense, just like there are other departments within our own immune system that are very important to our body's defense.

Like IgG.

Think of IgG as the Coast Guard. You're not sending in the Coast Guard when war has been declared….but the Coast Guard will come in and help the Marines, adding in ancillary backup and defense support.

It's the same with IgG.

You may not be allergic to dairy, but if you eat dairy, and your body is unable to properly digest it, you won't end up in the ER unable to breathe. But you might end up with a little bit of a tummy ache later on that day. That's because your IgG immune system reacted to it, not your IgE.

Here's what's even crazier - You might eat some dairy for lunch today and you may not have a tummy ache for 6 days. Then when that tummy ache comes on 6 days later, you might feel that something you just ate earlier in the day was the problem.

You would be mistaken. It was some dairy you ate days earlier (and in some cases, weeks earlier!).

The IgG immune system works slowly and very cautiously. It does not have the high-end soldiers or the big tech weaponry to deal with something at a moment's notice like the IgE system. It takes time. And during that time, you're led to believe that something else is causing your issue.

And the heartburn continues.

Food Allergy vs Food Sensitivity: Side-by-Side

	Food Allergy (IgE)	Food Sensitivity (IgG)
Mechanism	Immediate IgE immune attack — the "Marines" sent in at a moment's notice	Slow, cautious IgG immune reaction — the "Coast Guard" backing up the response
Onset	Minutes to a couple of hours after eating the food	Hours to days — and sometimes weeks — after eating the food
Symptoms	Hives, swelling, bronchioles constricting, trouble breathing, anaphylaxis (EpiPen territory)	Tummy ache, bloating, gas, bowel changes, and heartburn that just won't quit
Testing	Skin prick test or IgE blood work — what a standard allergist runs	IgG food sensitivity testing by finger-prick — not part of a standard allergy workup

Why This Matters for Your Heartburn

What does this all mean?

• You could be having heartburn right now.
• You may have gone to a doctor and been tested through either blood work or through a skin prick test to determine if you have food allergies.
• You may have been told that you have no food allergies and therefore nothing to worry about.
• You might also be thinking, well why do I still have heartburn?
• You know deep down you are having trouble with some foods but you can't figure out which ones.
• This means that you are dealing with Food Sensitivities - NOT Food Allergies.

If that's you, it's worth reading how eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) fits into this same picture — food reactions in the esophagus are one of the most overlooked causes of "heartburn" we see.

How We Test for Food Sensitivities

Wouldn't it be awesome if there was a test that you could do, to actually test for food sensitivities?

Guess what? There is.

IgG Food Sensitivity testing done by finger-prick! In our practice we use the Alletess 184 Food Sensitivity Panel — an immune response (IgG/IgE) test for 184 common foods that identifies the hidden sensitivities driving reflux and inflammation. It is not a standard allergy test, and that's exactly the point.

The great news about this IgG testing is that:

• It can be done at home with a simple finger prick / blood drop
• Although it is not covered by insurance, it is relatively cheap (approx $300-$350).
• It tests for almost 200 foods, beverages, spices, etc.
• As part of our testing for our heartburn patients, we include this as part of our investigation

Obviously, it is critical to figure out your own food sensitivities and get these out of your diet, especially if you have heartburn. You can see the full details on our food sensitivity testing page, and read more about how these reactions play out on our food sensitivities page.

Can't Test Right Now? Try a 60-Day Elimination Diet

Now for some of you, this type of financial cost is not doable for you at this time. Then your next best option is to eliminate the following foods (elimination diet) for 60 days and see how you feel:

• Dairy
• Wheat/gluten
• Soy
• Eggs
• Nuts (all of them)
• Seafood/shellfish

Obviously you should feel better if you avoid a food (or foods) that you're sensitive to. Heartburn symptoms should improve if not resolve completely. If that's what happens, you need to avoid those food sensitivities.

Period.

But for those of you who want to get the results faster and see symptoms resolving ASAP, it's time to go through our heartburn evaluation. That's how you figure out if you have food sensitivities. Don't suffer with heartburn any longer. Let's find out if you have food sensitivities that are causing your problem, and stop masking the problem - let's finally solve it!

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