Worthless? A food intolerance test under way

Commercial testing for food intolerances is 'feeding on fear' and could endanger people's health, a major inquiry says.

It found 'highly inconsistent' results from tests costing up to £275 that experts condemned as having no diagnostic value.

Altogether 183 'intolerances' were found among researchers who had just one medically-confirmed allergy and one food intolerance between them.

The investigation by consumer watchdog Which? throws the spotlight on a multi-million-pound industry selling tests that are unregulated, or self-regulated by practitioners.

An astonishing 27million Britons claim to be intolerant to one food group or another.

Celebrity sufferers include actress Rachel Weisz  -  who avoids wheat  -  and Rod Stewart's former wife Rachel Hunter, who has problems with lactose.

But Which? says tests being used to identify food intolerance may put the health of users at risk by wrongly advising them to avoid essential food groups.

It asked researchers to go undercover and pay for four kinds of tests claimed to diagnose food intolerances.

These were blood samples tested for IgG antibodies, tests on strands of hair, changes in a person's electromagnetic field and kinesiology, which involves resistance to pressure applied to legs or arms.

The tests found a total of 183 intolerances, even though the researchers had just one medically confirmed allergy and one already recognised food intolerance between them.

Different test results were produced from identical blood and hair samples sent to the same company under different names. There was little or no overlap of test results from different companies for the same researcher.

A panel of medical specialists and a dietician concluded that none of the tests, which cost between £45 and £275, had ' diagnostic value' for genuine allergies or intolerances.

Which? magazine editor Neil Fowler said: 'A severe allergy can be life-threatening, so it's no surprise that people want to find out if they should avoid certain foods.

But some companies are playing on these fears to sell expensive intolerance tests that are not medically proven.'

Which? advised anyone worried that they could have an allergy or intolerance to keep a food diary and a record of their symptoms and speak to their GP.

The two companies making the IgG tests disputed the Which? report.

YorkTest Laboratories said: 'It was misleading, inaccurate and failed to address the difference between food allergy and food intolerance test.

'Some 76 per cent of our patients get better within three weeks of implementing the dietary changes recommended.'

Dr Mike Walker, managing director of Cambridge Nutritional Sciences, said: 'We are confident our tests can help patients identify foods that they react to.'