Measurement of cellular reactivity to foreign substances

By Cell Science Systems

The short-term efficacy of the ALCAT Test of food sensitivities to facilitate changes in body composition and self-reported disease symptoms: a randomized controlled study

Gilbert R. Kaats, Director, Health and Medical Research Foundation, San Antonio; Dennis Pulliri, Executive Director, Baylor Sports Medicine Institute, Houston, TX; Larry K. Parker, MD, Women’s Total Health Care Angleton, TX. Published in American Journal of Bariatric Medicine, Spring, 1996.

To examine the efficacy of providing dieters  with information on food sensitivities ential food allergies, 100 subjects completed a beginning and ending ALCAT food sensitivity blood test, an underwater test (displacement method) for assessing body composition, and a disease symptom inventory (DSI) self- report at the beginning and end of a four-week test period.

After completion of the initial test, subjects were randomly divided into either a control or an experimental group. Subjects in the control group were asked to pursue a weight loss program of their own choosing, while subjects in the experimental group were provided with the results of their ALCAT Test listing foods to which they were most and least likely to have a food sensitivity or allergic-like reaction.

Subjects in the experimental group were also provided with dietary guidance on foods that could be substituted for those to which they were likely to have sensitivity.

Analysis of the pre-study data revealed that there were no significant differences between the experimental and control group on any of the parameters of the test battery. However, as compared to the control group, the group following the ALCAT group plan lost significantly more scale weight, percent body fat, and fat weight; had greater improvements in body composition; and had greater increases in fat-free mass.

When compared to the control group, the ALCAT group reported improvements in all 20 items on the DSI, 18 of which were significant at the p=.06 to <.001 levels.

It was concluded that, as compared to participants following a weight control plan of their own choosing, following the ALCAT Test and diet plan resulted in highly significant improvements in body composition and self-reported disease symptoms.

High correlation of the ALCAT Test results with double-blind challenge (DBC) in food  sensitivity

Peter I. Fell, MD, Director, Oxford Allergy Centre, London; Jonathon Brostoff, MA, DM, USc, FRCP, FRCPath, Dept. of Immunology, University College & Middlesex School of Medicine, London; Mark Pasula, PhD, Research Director, AMTL, Miami, FL; Presented at the 45th Annual congress of the American college of Allergy and Immunology, Los Angeles, CA: November 12-16, 1988. Published in Annals of Allergy.

The ALCAT Test reproducibly measures volumetric shifts in the white blood cells upon incu-bation with antigens. This study was designed to assess the degree of corre- lation between ALCAT and the results of oral DBC with the same foods.

Nineteen symptomatic patients (IBS, atopic eczema, allergic rhinitis, or migraine headaches) with evidence of food sensitivity were ALCAT tested to each of 50 food extracts. Each subject was given diary cards to score (zero to four) symptoms daily over an eight- week period.

In the first two weeks, all ALCAT positive foods plus three ALCAT- negative foods were eliminated from the diet to determine the degree of symp- tom remission possible. In each of the subsequent six weeks, a new food was introduced randomly in DBC, several portions eaten daily for the week; three of the foods were ALCAT-positive and three were ALCAT-negative.

Symptom scores for each week were averaged and compared; any increase exceeding 40 percent over the second baseline week or the preceding DBC week was considered a positive food challenge. For the 58 ALCAT-positive foods selected from the 19 subjects, 46 were positive on DBC (79.3 percent) and 12 were negative.

For the 56 ALCAT-negative foods, 49 were also negative by DBC (87.5 percent) and seven were positive.

Overall correlation between ALCAT and DBC was 83.4 percent. This suggests that the ALCAT Test was quite reliable in identifying unsafe foods in these sensitive subjects.

Food intolerance in patients with angioedema and chronic urticaria: an investigation by rast and ALCAT Test

Lene Hoj MD, Copenhagen, Denmark Presented at the Xvl European Congress of Allergotogy and Clinical Immunology Madrid, Spain: June 25.30,1995. Published – European Journal of Allergy and clinical Immunology Supplement. Number 26, Vol. 50. 1995.

The aetiology of the atopic conditions angioedema (AE) and chronic urticaria (Cu) has hitherto been obscure with suggestions to allergy or other hypersensitivity as the cause. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis of food intolerance being associated with AE and CU. Fifty-two patients, 39 females and 13 males, with a median age of 48 years (range: 6-83) and a median duration of disease of 6 years (range 1-6 1) were included.

The patients, none of them deficient of C1- esterase inhibitor had oropharyngeal symptoms at least twice a month and classical skin eruptions at least twice a week. Follow-up (nm5l) was at least six months.

This research was provided by Cell Science Systems.

800-872-5228 • www.alcat.com