Alterations of food antigen‐specific serum immunoglobulins G and E antibodies in patients with irritable bowel syndrome and functional dyspepsia

Abstract

Serum IgG antibody titres to some common foods increased in IBS and FD patients compared to controls. But there is no significant correlation between symptom severity and elevated serum food antigen-specific IgG antibodies in these patients.

Discrepancies between the responses to skin prick test to food and respiratory antigens in two subtypes of patients with irritable bowel syndrome

“…The lack of specificity suggests that people with IBS symptoms, associated or not with food intolerance, have difficulties with food in general and specific foods may not be involved in the pathogenesis of this condition. In agreement with other studies, we suspect that IBS causes food sensitivity rather than vice-versa [3,22,37,38,41] . The mechanisms underlying these inflammatory responses are unclear, but recent studies have suggested that an alteration in the mucosal barrier function and a consequent increase in intestinal permeability are the basis for the increased inflammation in IBS [14][15][16][17] .…”

“…It is hypothesized that mucosal immune activation by FAs may contribute to the development of food allergy and IBS [9,11,13,[15][16][17]21,25] . Clinically, the role of food-intolerance-induced symptoms in IBS frequently contrasts with that in food allergy [20,[22][23][24][25]29,[37][38][39][40][41][42] , and dietary elimination may be associated with symptom improvement [31] . However, the interaction of food with the gastrointestinal system is not completely understood [13,17,20,22,23,25,29,[33][34][35][36][37]39] .…”

Immune Activation in Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Can Neuroimmune Interactions Explain Symptoms?

“…Th e primary role of B cells is to produce antibodies (Ig) directed against antigen, and IgG-positive B cells are increased in the blood of IBS patients relative to healthy subjects ( 68 ). Increased blood IgE and IgG concentrations are classically associated with allergy and are typically unaltered in IBS at baseline; however, in response to allergen serum IgE and IgG levels increase in IBS patients above that observed in health ( 37,70,71 ). Interestingly, increased levels of autoantibodies against neuronal channels have been observed in IBS patients; however, the clinical implications of this are yet to be determined ( 105,106 ).…”

Functional Dyspepsia

“…46 Food intolerance or allergy may play a direct role in functional dyspepsia, but this possibility has been poorly studied. 47 An overarching disease model postulates that, in genetically predisposed persons, an allergen or infection leads to antigen presentation, barrier disruption, immune activation, and a type 2 helper T-cell response in functional dyspepsia, in which eosinophils are recruited that degranulate in some patients (Fig. 2).…”