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Allergy Testing

Stand on one leg, hold out your arms and hum. There are better ways of testing for allergies that won't turn your hard-earned cash into a bag full of lotions and potions.

'Please help me! I had an allergy test and she said I'm allergic to dairy, wheat, fruits, vegetables, sugar and water from everywhere except the natural springs in the Swiss Alps.'

So said a patient to a colleague of mine. It's a real story - it's real life. I've seen similar cases, and you may have heard of some too. My colleague's patient was in one heck of a state, and are you surprised? Of course not. She'd been told she was allergic to practically everything and left the allergy testing centre believing that her lunch earlier that day was the last food she would ever eat. But don't worry, she was told, because she could buy all the supplements she would need from Reception on her way out. What she should have done was have a reliable allergy test, but how do you tell which are good and which are bogus?

Many people with allergies are desperately seeking answers and are vulnerable. They're easy prey for those members of society who see an opportunity to make a quick buck. Most experts in the field of allergy agree that there are reliable ways to test for the cause of allergy and there are ways that are no better than deciding an allergy on the roll of a die. If it lands on a six then heaven help you, because it means you're allergic to life.

Skin prick tests do what they say on the packet, and are acknowledged as being reliable. Quick, simple and inexpensive, they are usually the first test recommended when an allergy is suspected as they can test for many different allergens at the same time. Under certain circumstances blood tests may be used to measure the amount of specific antibodies that the immune system has produced to allergens in the blood. This kind of test, called RAST (radioallergosorbent test, as all the boffins out there will know) testing, is useful if rare allergens are suspected, or if pricking allergen into the skin risks anaphylactic reaction. Patch tests are used to identify whether an allergy, and if so, to what, is causing skin irritation or contact dermatitis. Allergens added to Vaseline, for example, are spread onto small metal discs, placed on the skin and stuck down with hypoallergenic sticking tape. About 48 hours later any redness or swelling is noted.

So you see, appropriate tests for allergies have a clear and simple description - skin prick, blood or patch test. It's pretty straightforward and they don't need fancy technical names to prove themselves. Now if anyone tries to blind you with science, or charge you large sums of money whilst trying to sell you the answer to your problems, then beware. Many different scientifically unproven ways are being offered up as allergy tests that conventional medical practitioners don't believe have any role in the diagnosis of true allergy.

Some of these include: measuring muscle strength or, to give it its awe-inspiring technical name, 'applied kinesiology'; hair analysis, where - yes, you've guessed it- your hair tells you what you are allergic to; leucocytotoxic testing, which involves mixing the patient's white blood cells with an extract of specific food and then measuring the cells in different ways for evidence of some form of change; and of course Vega testing. Widely used in health food stores, a mild electrical voltage is applied with a hand electrode over an acupuncture point on the finger or toe while the patient holds another electrode to complete the circuit. The substance being tested is placed within the electrical circuit and the conductivity across the skin is measured.

The claim to fame of these unproven tests is based on anecdotes, popular mythology and hearsay, which have brought these tests quite a public following. When these, and many other tests like them, have been studied in scientific trials they've been found to have no sound scientific basis, their claims cannot be substantiated and they haven't been able to detect allergies at all.


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