I recently ran across a 2004 research article on IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and food allergies. It is the only article that I've seen that provides a comprehensive look at IBS, addressing many of the issues that we find to be important in helping people solve their digestive problems and other health problems.
The abstract reads: The notion of food allergy in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is not new. However, recent evidence suggests significant reduction in IBS symptom severity in patients on elimination diets, provided that dietary elimination is based on foods against which the individual had raised IgG antibodies (emphasis mine). These findings should encourage studies dissecting the mechanisms responsible for IgG production against dietary antigens and their putative role in IBS.
However, most interesting and enlightening is the authors statement on how we view and use the word allergy. It's a bit technical, but I think that you'll find it helpful.
Bringing empirical observations ad fontes advances science. In astrophysics, the term “black hole” was introduced to describe an extremely dense star which had collapsed into a singularity under its own gravity. A black hole radiates nothing; it absorbs all matter and energy falling within its sphere. The name was coined only after revisiting the initial theoretical achievements of Karl Schwarzschild, when observations made outside the earth’s atmosphere gave astrophysicists empirical x ray data on a new type of cosmic object. In allergology, in contrast, adherence to a paradigm whereby allergy is defined by the presence of specific IgE antibodies has hampered disentanglement. As a result, allergy remains a dubiously defined term with no unambiguous empirical content or explanatory power. The time has come to seize upon the available empirical data and plunge into the original theory of Clemens von Pirquet.
The term allergy was introduced by von Pirquet to denote a changed immunological reactivity which manifests itself on second exposure to an antigen (reviewed by Kay1). This altered reactivity is uncommitted, giving no indication of the direction of change; equally harmful and protective immune reactivity reflects prior encounter (see fig 1 [triangle]Figure 1). In modern terms, altered reactivity can be seen to evince either the most common mode of immune response elicited by the intestinal immune system, tolerance, recently defined as any mechanism by which a potentially injurious immune response is prevented, suppressed, or shifted to a non-injurious class of immune response,2 or abrogation of such an actively maintained process, which is currently linked to immunoinflammatory disease. Reassessment of the original theory of allergy is important as it would appear that it is not the immunological resources gained during antigen exposure, measurable by specific antibodies or specifically responding lymphocytes, which are decisive for the presence or absence of disease, but the complex cascade of events determining their use.
Essentially the article is pointing out that in practice we have traditionally limited ourselves to using the word allergy only when we believe that it is an IgE reaction to something. Yet the immune system is capable of manifesting many different types of allergic reactions, not just IgE reactions.
This is exactly the kind of thinking that I too have found to be incredibly disruptive to our understanding of why we are unhealthy. Medicine seems to be far less scientific than other branches of science, if one can even call medicine a branch of science.
And finally, the article has this to say about IBS: In common with allergic disease, IBS appears to result from an interplay between susceptibility genes and impaired gut barrier functions, immunological dysregulation, together with bacterial and viral infections and other environmental factors.
A rare breath of fresh air and keen thinking in the world of IBS. Thank you to the lead author, Dr. Isolauri of Finland. You can see the full article at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1774228/. You can also find many other excellent and related articles at the Innate Health Foundation Website.
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