ALLERGY | how reliable are food sensitivity tests? |
What is Vega testing? Vega testing is a fast, safe, painless, and most importantly, accurate way of gathering information about your body. At the Macdonald.
In the current climate of self help, alternative treatments and complimentary therapists, food allergies appear to be the latest cause of ill health. But how accurate are these food sensitivity tests? Chris Packham goes undercover to find out.
Hundreds of thousands of people take a food sensitivity test every year to discover if their ill health is a direct result of their diets. Most walk away with a list of foods to avoid. Chocolate, cheese and wheat are among the usual suspects of irritant foods.
Chris pays a visit to three Holland and Barrett stores to be tested |
Problem foods are detected using a Vega machine. The machine claims to measure the body’s energy levels. These levels are meant to decrease when the body comes into contact with certain foods.
Health food chain, Holland and Barrett are one such company offering these tests.
Undercover investigation
We sent Inside Out’s Chris Packham to three Holland and Barrett stores across the South to find out more.
Chris took the Vega test in Newbury, Chichester and Farnborough, only to discover that his allergy results differed from store to store.
In total, Chris was sensitive to over 33 different foods, including staples like wheat, potatoes, milk, tomatoes, tea and coffee. But out of the 33 products, there was only two that all three testers agreed on - cheese and chocolate.
According to the three Vega tests, Chris should avoid a total of 33 foods - good luck Chris! |
Chris was also advised by Holland and Barrett staff to take a total of 20 different vitamins and minerals. But again, the testers can’t seem to agree and all three testers advised different supplements.
It seems your allergies may not be determined by food alone, but also your location.
Second time lucky
To give Holland and Barrett and the erratic Vega machine a fighting chance to get it right, we sent another member of the Inside Out team.
This time it is the stores in Southampton, Brighton and Dorchester that were put to the test. Once again the machine showed different results in different stores and this time the testers could only agree on one food product.
Inside Out put these findings to Holland and Barrett, who informed us that the tests carried out in the stores are actually conducted by another company called HSL, Health Screening UK Ltd.
Response
The Vega machine is only 70% accurate |
A spokesman for Holland and Barrett assured us that the points raised in the programme are being investigated.
'In light of the issues raised, we are already carrying out a full review of the services that HSL provide.'
Chairman of HSL, Roy Harris admits that the food sensitivity tests are only about 70% accurate.
'We have an imperfect system that works in the end because people eliminate certain things from their diet,' says Roy. 'It may just be the discipline of sitting down with somebody and agreeing to cut out the nasty things in their diet.'
If this is the case, what use is the Vega machine?
'It does stretch the imagination how the Vega test works,' admits Roy. 'But we have thousands of letters from people saying how much better they feel.'
So whether it’s a case of mind over matter, or sheer guesstimation, the Vega testing appears a dubious form of diagnosis.
While Chris battles on minus his 33 food products, Holland and Barrett battle to secure a more satisfactory form of food allergy testing.
Alternative medicine | |
---|---|
Claims | The diagnosis of allergies and other diseases. |
Related fields | Electroacupuncture |
Year proposed | 1970s |
Original proponents | Helmut Schimmel, Reinholdt Voll in 1950s) |
Vega machines are a type of electroacupuncture device used in Vega testing, which proponents claim can diagnose allergies and other illnesses. The forerunner to the Vega test was electroacupuncture according to Voll developed by Reinholdt Voll in the 1950s. Helmut Schimmel modified the technique in the 1970s and presented it under the name Vega test.[1]
Several medical associations have advised against their use, including the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence,[2][3] the Australian College of Allergy,[1] the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy,[4] the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology[5] and the Allergy Society of South Africa.[6] In 1990 a medical practitioner was censured by the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Committee in New Zealand for using a Vega machine.[7] Another practitioner was censured by the Discipline Committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario in 1999 for having 'failed to meet the standard of practice'[8] in his use of the Vega machine in diagnosis.[9]
Reviews of the available evidence in the medical literature indicate that electrodermal testing, such as that performed with a Vega machine, is ineffective at diagnosing allergies and recommend that it not be used.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]
References[edit]
- ^ abKatelaris, CH; Weiner, JM; Heddle, RJ; Stuckey, MS; Yan, KW (July 1991). 'Vega testing in the diagnosis of allergic conditions'. The Medical Journal of Australia. 155 (2): 113–114. PMID1857287. Archived from the original on 30 June 1998.
- ^'NICE warns against the use of alternative testing for food allergy in children'. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. 23 February 2011. Retrieved 7 February 2012.
- ^Bowcott, Owen (23 February 2011). 'NHS warns against complementary therapies for children's food allergies'. The Guardian. Retrieved 7 February 2012.
- ^'Unorthodox techniques for the diagnosis and treatment of allergy, asthma and immune disorders'. Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy. November 2007. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
- ^Bernstein, IL; et al. (March 2008). 'Allergy diagnostic testing: an updated practice parameter'(PDF). Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. 100 (3, Supplement 3): S1–148. doi:10.1016/S1081-1206(10)60305-5. PMID18431959.
- ^Motala, C; Hawarden, D (July 2009). 'Guideline: Diagnostic testing in allergy'(PDF). South African Medical Journal. 99 (7): 531–535.
- ^'Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Committee: professional misconduct findings against Dr D W Steeper'. New Zealand Medical Journal. 103 (888): 194–195. April 1990. PMID2330174.
- ^'The Discipline Committee Of The College Of Physicians And Surgeons Of Ontario: Dr. Jozef Krop'. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. Retrieved 8 February 2012.
- ^Gray, C (March 1999). 'Huge court fight may be in offing as Ontario college considers penalty for maverick MD'. Canadian Medical Association Journal. 160 (6): 877–879. PMC1230180. PMID10189439.
- ^Niggemann, B.; Gruber, C. (August 2004). 'Unproven diagnostic procedures in IgE-mediated allergic diseases'. Allergy. 59 (8): 806–808. doi:10.1111/j.1398-9995.2004.00495.x. PMID15230811.
- ^Gerez, IF; Shek, LP; Chng, HH; Lee, BW (January 2010). 'Diagnostic tests for food allergy'(PDF). Singapore Medical Journal. 51 (1): 4–9. PMID20200768.
- ^Waserman, Susan; Watson, Wade (January 2011). 'Food allergy'. Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology. 7 (Suppl 1): S7. doi:10.1186/1710-1492-7-S1-S7. PMC3245440. PMID22166142.
- ^Wüthrich, B (2005). 'Unproven techniques in allergy diagnosis'(PDF). Journal of Investigational Allergology & Clinical Immunology. 15 (2): 86–90. PMID16047707.
- ^Beyer, K; Teuber, SS (June 2005). 'Food allergy diagnostics: scientific and unproven procedures'. Current Opinion in Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 5 (3): 261–6. doi:10.1097/01.all.0000168792.27948.f9. PMID15864086.
- ^Sicherer, S. H.; Wood, R. A. (December 2011). 'Allergy Testing in Childhood: Using Allergen-Specific IgE Tests'. Pediatrics. 129 (1): 193–197. doi:10.1542/peds.2011-2382. PMID22201146. Archived from the original on 2012-09-11. Retrieved 2015-10-31.
- ^Patriarca, G; Schiavino D; Pecora V; et al. (February 2009). 'Food allergy and food intolerance: diagnosis and treatment'. Internal and Emergency Medicine. 4 (1): 11–24. doi:10.1007/s11739-008-0183-6. PMID18709496.
External links[edit]
- A comprehensive overview of 'electrodiagnostic devices' at quackwatch.org.
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