What is Food Sensitivity?

Food sensitivities are immune responses to certain proteins in the food.

An immune response can either produce IgE antibodies, a very quick response within a few minutes or hours, e.g., in many cases of peanut allergy.

Or it can produce other non-IgE antibodies (e.g., IgA, IgG or others), slowly over a period of hours to days.

In this second case, the type and intensity of symptoms can vary from person-to-person.

That's why it may be difficult to interpret them and often require full history of symptoms and rotation of suspected foods for confirmation.

This test checks the non-IgE antibodies, namely IgA, IgG and IgG4, to help confirm such concerns.

Why should you Test for Food Sensitivities?

An uncomfortable symptom after eating certain foods is called 'adverse reaction to food'.

This can be due to toxins in the food (e.g., botulinum toxins from bacteria) or it can be a psychological effect (a 'bad feeling' or past experience).

It can also be due to body's inability to handle the food.

Examples of the later include peanut allergy, which is a strong immune response, or lactose intolerance, which is the inability to digest milk.

The first case involves the immune system, where the body produces proteins called antibodies, in response to the suspect food.

There are mainly two types of these antibodies: IgE or non-IgE.

A food allergy test checks for IgE antibodies.

A food sensitivity test checks non-IgE antibodies (IgA, IgG, IgG4, C3d or others).

You might want to test for food sensitivities because once the antibody producing foods are known, one can reduce or eliminate from the diet.

This can be done by careful assessment of symptoms, diet rotation or testing for the antibodies.

This test provides the later two, and can be a vital tool in confirming the symptoms.

Testing for food sensitivity can help improve quality of life by eliminating common offenders or rotating them on a regular basis.

The simplicity of test is that once your results are received, you can eliminate suspect foods to confirm how they have been affecting you.

A diet rotation plan unique to your results makes this process easier.

What Foods are Tested?

The test will measure some of these food items (however, this menu is subject to change over time):

• Dairy: Casein, Cheddar Cheese, Cow's Milk, Goat's Milk, Whey.

• Grain, Legumes and Nuts: Almond, Barley, Buckwheat, Chestnut, Chickpea, Coconut, Corn, Gliadin, Gluten, Green Bean, Green Pea, Hazelnut, Kidney Bean, Lentil, Lima Bean, Oat, Peanut, Pecan, Pinto Bean, Rye, Soybean, Spelt, Walnut, Wheat, White Rice.

• Vegetables: Asparagus, Avocado, Beet, Broccoli/Brussels Sprout, Cabbage, Carrot, Cauliflower, Celery, Cucumber, Garlic, Green Bell Pepper, Lettuce, Onion, Pumpkin, Spinach, Sweet Potato, Tomato, White Potato.

• Fish, Crustacea and Mollusk: Clam, Cod, Crab, Halibut, Lobster, Salmon, Scallop, Shrimp, Sole, Trout, Tuna.

• Egg, Meat and Poultry: Beef, Chicken, Chicken Egg White, Chicken Egg Yolk, Duck Egg Whole, Lamb, Pork, Turkey.

• Fruits: Apple, Apricot, Banana, Blueberry, Cranberry, Grape, Grapefruit, Lemon, Olive, Orange, Papaya, Peach, Pear, Pineapple, Plum, Raspberry, Strawberry.

• Herbs and Spices: Ginger, Oregano.

• Miscellaneous: Baker's/Brewer's Yeast, Button Mushroom, Cane Sugar, Cocoa Bean (Chocolate), Coffee Bean, Flaxseed, Honey, Sesame Seed, Sunflower Seed.

• Candida Screen: Candida albicans.

Is the Food Sensitivity Test FDA Approved?

IgE antibody testing is well-developed with many FDA-approved diagnostic tests available in the market.

However, IgA and IgG testing is an emerging field and not yet fully approved by the FDA.

This test is performed at USBioTek Laboratories, which has been a leader in IgE and non-IgE testing for decades.

Their in-house assays have been developed and tested under the CLIA license (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments).

A CLIA lab may not always require FDA approval for offering these tests.

The tests are available for education, investigation and research.

The lab makes every effort to provide accurate and most relevant information, but they should not be considered for the purposes of diagnosis or therapy.

How to get Tested for Food Sensitivities?

This easy low-cost method to get tested for food sensitivities allows you to collect the sample from the comfort of your home.

Simply order a test kit, collect the sample at home, ship it to our world class CLIA-certified labs within US, and find out your sensitivities within days.

You can also order a 44 IgE food allergy test, a 96 IgG test or a comprehensive food sensitivity test that checks 240 different foods in American diet.

Q: Can I purchase the test across US?

A: Except New York and New Jersey the test is available in all 48 states. State regulations in NY, NJ do not allow us to ship the tests to their residents.

Q: What does the kit contain and how do I use it?

A: The kit contains a blood card to collect few drops of blood, a pair of lancets for finger-pricking, instructions on how to collect the sample, and a form requesting basic information including date and time of collection. The directions are straightforward and easy to follow.

Q: Are there any tips to help collect the sample?

A: The test requires about 18-20 drops with finger prick on a blood card sample.

Your kit includes extra supplies to help you collect samples from multiple fingers or over different days.

According to the lab, the sample is stable at room temperature for 30 days.

When collecting, let the blood drops fall on their own, without touching the card. A fully formed drop, falling on its own will fill the circle AND soak to the back.

The drops can fall anywhere on the card (the circles are a guide to the eye and blood doesn't always need to fall in the middle of the circle).

Do NOT put multiple drops on top of each other, that might affect your results.

Taking a walk, rubbing the hand, washing with lukewarm water can all help in increasing the blood flow.

It also helps to keep the hands below the shoulders to let gravity help.

Press the lancet gently but firmly for a good size cut, which is generally quick and often without much pain.

If you're not able to collect sufficient volume, reach out to us and we will guide you for next steps.

We work with a network of blood collection sites and can recommend one nearest to your location, but there might be an additional charge for their services.

Q: How long does it take to receive the results?

A: You will receive the kit within 3-5 business days with a prepaid return envelope for shipping within US. You can also choose priority mail for faster shipping.

After you ship the sample and it is received by our lab, you get the results in 5-7 business days.

The turnaround times are an estimate and not guaranteed. The labs try their best to deliver results as soon as possible but may need additional time due to holidays, confirmation of results or repeat testing.

Q: What do I expect from the report?

A: The report with your results will be easy to understand and will have all the necessary details.

It will list all the food items you are tested for and the corresponding sensitivity levels on a scale of 0 to 4.

Zero means minimal or no sensitivity and 4 means high sensitivity.

You can download a sample report by clicking on 'Get Sample Report' on top of this page.

Q: How reliable are my test results? Is it possible that the results may differ from what I expected?

A: Your test is performed at USBioTek Laboratories, a leader in IgG, IgA, IgE antibody testing.

Some people may notice that their results don't match their expectations (e.g., certain known sensitivities from previous testing didn't show up this time, or nothing was flagged).

Here are few other things the lab does to ensure you get the most out of your test.

I. Steps the lab takes to provide the most accurate results:

• Every sample runs twice for most accurate results: To consistently deliver the most accurate and repeatable results every sample runs in duplicate. Their advanced robotic testing is fully automated to avoid any human errors and they double check test results for inconsistencies so that you are confident they're accurate.

• Every sample runs with well calibrated reference samples: They always confirm the quality of their antigens, and use controls and reference materials to make sure their assays are of the highest quality available. Each batch includes reference controls with known antibody levels for validation of the testing process.

• Labs and equipment are regularly calibrated: Periodic inter- and intra-lab testing comparison is performed to verify precision and accuracy of the results. The lab regularly runs standard calibration samples internally and with other labs to ensure consistent quality across the tools.

• External accountability: they allow third-party agencies to verify their quality, with accreditation from CLIA, COLA, and CAP ensures their lab protocols exceed the industry standards. 

II. What might impact your results:

• Certain medications: the Food Sensitivity IgG Test checks for specific antibodies in your blood sample, which might be affected by certain medicines. Anything that suppresses the antigen (responsible for triggering sensitivity) or the corresponding antibody levels might affect your results. Immunosuppressive medications, antihistamines, anti-inflammatories (steroids, NSAIDs), anti-cancer agents (alkylating agents, antimetabolic agents, antilymphocytic agents, cyclophosphamide, cyclosporine, etc.), anti-convulsive medications (phenytoins) might interfere with your results.

• Cross-influence from other antibodies: certain antibodies might interfere with the results (e.g., honey interfering with pollen results or certain toxic chemicals might suppress antibody production)

• When you last consumed a given food: If you have known sensitivities and you avoid consuming those foods, the antibody levels will slowly reduce over time (e.g., gluten-free diet reducing the antibodies against wheat, rye, barley)

• Certain medical conditions: about 2.5% of the adult population may carry an inherited IgG subclass deficiency that may have low reactivity to our IgG test. 

• Advanced age, malnutrition/malabsorption, or chronic infections are known to cause acquired IgG deficiencies.

• No IgG antibodies are produced: The test specifically measures IgG antibodies and if no rise in antibodies is caused despite a person is sick or shows symptoms the test will not show antibodies.

• Radiation therapy is known to cause low IgG levels.

• Protein-losing conditions such as enteropathy and nephropathy can result in apparent selective deficiency of IgG.

• Intensive (“extreme”) exercise training can affect your results

• Smoking associated with chronic bronchitis can result in low IgG

• Unknown reasons: no test is perfect and in certain rare cases with unknown cause might affect the antibodies levels.

III. What should be next steps:

• Review the symptoms carefully as discomfort or inflammation may be due to many reasons. The test can only report IgG antibodies.

• Follow the diet rotation plan to confirm the results--without giving the test results a fair chance it's impossible to confirm the results.

• Follow the food elimination procedure for all food items in Class I and above, and repeat in two months to confirm the results.

Q: Can I use my insurance to pay for the test?

A: You can use HSA (or FSA/MSA/HRA) accounts to pay for the tests since these are prescription tests (for further confirmation, please check the IRS publication#969).

However, please ensure you are not going outside your specified max and min deductible limits.

We do not have the capability to process the insurance claim. Insurance plans vary by individuals, therefore we can not guarantee your HSA payment will always be processed by your plan.

Please talk to your insurance provider if you have any further concerns.

Q: How do you ensure the reliability of testing?

A: For testing your samples, we have partnered with CLIA-certified labs that are used by physicians across the US.

These labs are regulated by the states, as well as Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Additionally, the College of American Pathologists (CAP) requires inter-laboratory tests to ensure the ranges established by each lab do not drift or are not out of acceptable ranges.

This is done by regularly testing reference samples between different labs.

Finally, the labs test thousands of sample for different age groups and health conditions, and have well established reference data to compare your results against this large pool.

1. An IgA, IgG, IgG4 food sensitivity test can better help you understand the symptoms caused by common foods in everyday diets.

2. The additional antibodies may give more insight in pinpointing the root cause symptoms that may not be easy to resolve otherwise.

3. Even if you find you are not sensitive to the suspected food items, it helps to get the food part out of discussion in order to find the actual problem.

4. The test provides a full range of your sensitivity levels on a scale of 0 to 4. Even if you are sensitive to certain foods, it allows you to rotate those items in order to get a balanced diet.

5. Better health results in better quality of life, and a single at-home food sensitivity test from RxHomeTest.com can offer not only insight into various health related symptoms, but can also serve as a motivation to treat each of these symptoms and have a better quality of life!

Why with Us?

7 reasons to order an at-home IgG, IgA, IgG4 food sensitivity test kit from RxHomeTest.com:

• No lab visits or doctor appointments

• Dry blood spot sample valid for 30 days (needs just few drops with a finger prick)

• World class CLIA-certified labs

• A doctor's prescription

• Simple, secure, and confidential reports

• Free shipping

• Qualifies for payment using HSA/FSA

Still wondering where to get tested for food sensitivity from home?

• Our lab has decades of experience to offer one of the best at-home food sensitivity tests.

• RxHomeTest.com processes your tests at the same world class CLIA-Certified labs that doctors use.

• RxHomeTest.com offers convenient, confidential, and reliable results at some of the lowest costs in the market.

• You can order the test online, without requiring a doctor’s visit, which saves time and money on visits to the doctor and the lab.

• Our test needs just a few drops of blood using a finger prick instead of vials of blood–convenient for those afraid of drawing blood using needles.

Sample Collection Instructions