Jane could fairly be described as a ‘typical’ case of food allergy. But Susan is not a typical case of food intolerance because there is no such thing. Food intolerance cannot lay claim to any single set of symptoms. Every patient is different, both in the cluster of symptoms they show and in the foods that affect them. Nor is there a single, clear-cut mechanism underlying the symptoms, as there is with food allergy. The available evidence indicates that there may be half-a-dozen or more different factors that contribute to the illness. In other words, food intolerance is a complex subject, and few generalizations can be made.
Nevertheless there are certain features that characterize this type of food sensitivity, and distinguish it from food allergy. Whereas food allergy reactions are usually immediate, food intolerance reactions tend to be much slower. The culprits in food intolerance are foods that are eaten very regularly, especially items such as wheat and milk that are consumed at almost every meal. The slowness of the reaction, combined with the fact that the foods are eaten so often, contributes to the ‘masking’ effect observed by the first doctors to study these reactions – the link between food and symptoms is unlikely to be made when the body is subjected to a constant bombardment with the food.
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