VIDEO. When food intolerances pay off big

In the search for a more balanced diet, you may have come across videos on social media that promote blood tests to detect food intolerances.

On the internet, you can also find self-tests for around a hundred euros. The sites, however, specify: “Food intolerance is medically controversial” .

However, general practitioners prescribe this type of check-up. We have an appointment with one of them, a nutrition specialist, to talk to him about our stomach aches. After a brief questionnaire, his diagnosis falls: “The definition of your problem is irritable bowel syndromehe explains. What I can do is tell you which foods are not suitable for you.“.

To convince us to carry out food intolerance tests. He claims to be able to cure illnesses by identifying foods that would not work for us: “I cured asthma by cutting out dairy products. But go explain that to the associate professor of pulmonology at the hospital… he’ll laugh in your face. But unfortunately it’s the truth.”

If the tests against food intolerances are not unanimous, it would be, he says, because of pressure from the food industry: “In France, we don’t want to attack food. Are you going to attack French cheeses?! It is the emblem of French gastronomy. Are you going to attack the French baguette, a UNESCO heritage site?”continues the doctor. The consultation costs us 130 euros and is not covered by Health Insurance.

Analyzes costing over 200 euros

Determined to track down these foods that would not suit us, we set out in search of these analyses, a simple blood test. We go to two laboratories, belonging to large biology groups. The first charges us 194 euros…the second, 311 euros. Each time, the promise is the same: more than 200 foods screened and classified according to our supposed tolerance level.

Result: one of the tests identifies 17 foods as problematic, including egg white, peas, cow’s milk, and even brewer’s yeast. LAnother test also includes white beans and corn.

A lack of scientific perspective according to biologists

Before going on a diet, we sought the advice of a specialist… an allergist, member of the French Society of Allergology.

For Dr Habib Chabane, these results would not detect foods that make us sick but rather those that we often eat. He claims that these tests have no medical value: “This is more of a test of exposure to the food, but not necessarily a test that shows that you are allergic or intolerant to this food. They can be found positive both in healthy subjects and in people who complain, so ultimately, it is very difficult to attribute a medical value to them.“.

“We can find positive tests both in healthy subjects and in people who complain, so ultimately, it is very difficult to attribute a medical value to them.”

Dr Habib Chabane, allergist

at the Eye of 8 p.m.

By telephone, biologists recognize that there is above all a placebo effect with these expensive examinations: “If paying to have these analyzes contributes to the well-being of patients… I say to myself ‘why not'”.

Others admit a lack of scientific perspective: “This is a bit borderline in the argument. I’m not 100%. But I have met several dozen patients who tell me that since they eliminated this or that food, they no longer have tendinitis, no more recurrent infections, they sleep better..

When contacted, the laboratories where we carried out our examinations claimed to carry out these tests in the interest of the patient: “The objective is to identify risk factors even before symptoms appear. This approach has not yet been fully adopted in France”, Cerba HealthCare writes to us.

For Biogroup, “cIt’s a test that is extremely popular in Germany and England. What matters is being in the patient’s interest”.

For its part, the High Authority for Health (HAS) affirms that it does not recommend these tests in the diagnosis of food allergies and intolerances because they have not proven their effectiveness.

Among our sources:

HAS recommendations (2018)