People who sometimes experience bloating, headaches, joint pain, or digestive issues for reasons they cannot explain may have an undiagnosed food sensitivity. Relieving this discomfort may be as easy as eliminating a specific food or foods from one’s diet; however, the tricky part can be identifying which foods are causing the problem. To help our patients live happier, healthier lives without frequent, unexplained symptoms, GetWell Health offers MRT-176, a food sensitivity test that identifies triggers of inflammation that cause a variety of symptoms.
What Is Food Sensitivity?
While many people confuse food sensitivity with food allergies, these are two separate issues. Food sensitivity is a more common and non-life-threatening condition that is caused by the body’s inability to process/break down certain types of food. Approximately one in three people have at least one food sensitivity.
Symptoms of food sensitivity may include:
- Fatigue
- Bloating
- Cramping
- Migraines
- Diarrhea
- Constipation
- Queasiness
- Joint pain
Lactose intolerance is the best-known food sensitivity, but there is a long list of foods that are potential culprits for digestive issues. This is sometimes caused by sensitivity to ingredients (natural sugars, caffeine, or assorted chemicals), reactions to preservatives (MSG, sulfites, and dyes), or inadequate enzymes for breaking down a specific food type.
How Mediator Release Test Helps
The professionals at GetWell Health offer the mediator release test (MRT-176), which uses a sample of the patient’s blood to test the response to 176 different foods and chemicals. The blood is exposed to all 176 foods or antigens individually, with laboratory experts tracking any change in white blood cell size. The more the white blood cells shrink, the higher the sensitivity.
Most of the food sensitivity tests available on the market focus on testing for the presence of IgG antibodies. Unfortunately, that is just one potential response to food sensitivity and may provide an incomplete or inaccurate assessment of food sensitivity. By analyzing the mediator response, MRT-176 thoroughly captures the foods and chemicals that significantly or slightly impact the digestive system.
What Does MRT-176 Examine?
MRT-176 checks the white blood cells’ response to a long list of food items, which includes fruits, vegetables, spices, proteins, nuts, dairy, grains, and more. It also obtains results for common chemicals, medications, and food additives like caffeine, color dyes (blue, red, yellow, and green), MSG, high fructose corn syrup, ibuprofen, lecithin, saccharin, sorbic acid, benzoic acid, etc.
What Our Patients Can Expect
Our team comes directly to the patient to draw blood from the comfort of the patient’s home. We then safely and securely ship this blood to Oxford Biomedical Technologies for testing. Once the results are back, we provide our patients with the charts as well as a customized write-up of recommended changes to limit food sensitivity inflammation. The total cost for this service is $549.
Schedule an Appointment
If you are in the metro Nashville area and are ready to discover whether eliminating a couple of foods might make a world of difference for the way you feel on a daily basis, please call or text GetWell Health at (615) 651-6953 to make an appointment to have your blood drawn.
