Symptoms of food allergy.

Adverse reactions to foods can be due to many causes, but only those involving an immunological mechanism can be defined as food allergic disease. An increasing number of gastrointestinal and other diseases are being shown to involve food intolerances. Immediate reactions with symptoms within hours of eating a particular food are most readily shown to be due to food allergy and are often associated with the presence of food-specific IgE as shown by skin prick tests and RASTs. When reactions are delayed for 24 to 48 hours or more, underlying food intolerance is harder to recognize and much less often shown to be due to allergy. At present, diagnosis and management depends on dietary manipulation, showing that symptoms improve on food avoidance and are reproduced by food challenge (preferably double-blind). Further understanding of the mechanisms involved in food allergy, in Crohn's disease and irritable bowel syndrome may allow the development of simple tests to identify the foods concerned and perhaps, in the case of allergic disease, cure by the induction of tolerance.