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Mary Ann

Mary Ann Benitez

Tired, itchy, hyperactive or suffering from skin complaints?

It could all be in what you eat, according to a Hong Kong-born, United States-based scientist.

Raymond Suen yesterday said up to 90 per cent of chronic health problems could be due to undetected food allergies.

Dr Suen, president of Seattle-based US BioTek Laboratories, said many patients complaining of ill-health felt better once they avoided certain foods to which they could be allergic.

'I believe 80 to 90 per cent of the chronic health conditions can be due to food allergies. These conditions include chronic fatigue, muscle pain, eczema or children's hyperactivity,' Dr Suen said.

Some food-based allergies surfaced immediately after eating, causing swollen mouths, itchiness and headaches. But it was the delayed allergies which remained undetected that caused many of the chronic conditions, he said.

The reaction could come hours, or even days, later.

The allergens also accumulated in the body over time, overloading the immune system and causing it to trigger the chronic conditions, Dr Suen said.

Sixty-eight per cent of 5,000 people in a Taiwan study had complained of chronic fatigue before it was discovered they were allergic to certain foods, he said.

Another 58 per cent had constipation and bloating, while another 51 per cent had headaches, Dr Suen said, citing the results of the study, which was conducted by BioTek Laboratories' representative company in Taiwan.

Other symptoms were itchy eyes, frequent infections, insomnia,  anxiety and sinusitis, the doctor added.

A separate study in Taiwan involving 'a few hundred children' found 61 per cent had sinusitis, 52 per cent had frequent colds, and 43 per cent complained of a lack of sleep that could be linked to allergies, he said.

Dr Suen was speaking as his company's Hong Kong representative, HK BioTek, introduced a new diagnostic test, known as the Elisa test, for food allergies, which measures antibodies to 96 foods.

The founder of HK BioTek, Anthony Wong Chung-hung, said medical researchers had begun to realise that inflammation, the defence mechanism of the immune system to a virus or bacteria, could go awry and lead to chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes.



Food allergies lurk behind most chronic illnesses, says scientist