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October | 2014

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20 | Washington Athletic Club Magazine | OCTOBER 2014 F eeling tired, bloated, thick around the middle? Do you sometimes deal with aches, moodiness, or skin problems? It's easy to blame these problems on getting older, but all too often these symptoms can be related to adverse food reactions. Adverse food reactions are your body's responses to foods it can't handle. Not only are they inconvenient, but they also take a toll on everyday living. Reactions can vary—from bloating because the body can't break down a food to hives because the body mounts a full-on defensive immune response to a food. If you've had bad reactions to certain foods but just wrote it off to getting older or even to having an off week, it's time to empower yourself with some knowledge. By identifying food intolerances, allergies and sensitivities, you can start cutting the culprits out of your diet and start feeling better. INTOLERABLE INTOLERANCES Food intolerances are gut-related non-immune responses. ey often happen when a person is unable to digest certain foods properly. Because of compromised digestion, a person may experience a host of unpleasant symptoms, such as excess gas, cramps, and even diarrhea. e most common food intolerance is lactose intolerance. is occurs when a person lacks sufficient amounts of the lactase enzyme required to digest milk sugar, or lactose. Undigested lactose travels from the stomach and small intestine into the large intestine where bacteria have a hay day. Depending on the degree of intolerance, cutting out some or all dairy is essential. With several dairy alternatives available, cutting dairy out of a diet is pretty straightforward. A lesser-known food intolerance is fructose malabsorption disorder. With this Wellness By Shana Hopkins, MS, CN, WAC Nutritionist A h, the tender age of 40. What fond memories: self- sufficient children, career in full swing, and that glorious over- abundance of digestive enzymes— yes, digestive enzymes. Our ability to produce the enzyme responsible for breaking down the sugar in milk products begins to diminish by age 40, creating some uncomfortable and socially unacceptable effects. Research shows that almost half of us over age 60 are dealing with a shortage of stomach acid. This, too, creates some obvious symptoms. One day you realize you have a problem with a food you didn't before. And that, my friends, is the good news. The bad news: Too often we don't recognize we have an ongoing problem with a food, so we don't remove the offender from our diets. Food sensitivities can elicit a host of symptoms not likely to be associated with eating. Because symptoms can also take up to 48 hours to manifest, it means we often don't make an obvious connection to the food we ate. Over time, poor digestion and immunological responses from food sensitivities tax our bodies and affect our long-term health. WAC Nutritionist Shana Hopkins tells us more. Tamela Thomas, Wellness Manager tamelat@wac.net 206.464.4639 Quit Belly Aching When foods are foes Understanding adverse food reactions

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