Chocolate Allergy Symptoms
Most of children and adults also addicted to chocolate that contains antioxidants. Some of people don't eat chocolates because of allergy that they have with chocolates. Many people believe that they are allergic to chocolate or the ingredient cocoa present in chocolates.
Mostly intolerance and allergy are responsible for causing reactions to chocolate to food allergies or ingredients in chocolates. These ingredients include corn syrup, milk, soy lecithin, gluten, nuts, dyes, phenyl-ethylamine, theo-bromine, and flavorings.
Chocolate allergies may also lead to asthma symptoms but mostly for those people who are allergic to more than one ingredients present in chocolate. The person having chocolate allergy can experience the symptoms such as irritability, nausea, hives, sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes, coughing, wheezing, heartburn, difficulty in breathing, anaphylaxis etc.
Chocolate allergy depends on the amount of ingredients present in the chocolate. If there is higher quality of chocolate that with higher ingredients like cocoa and butter, the chances of other additives are lower. However, most of people are allergic to natural chemicals in chocolates such as caffeine, phenyl ethylamine and theo-bromine present in chocolates.
Diagnosis of chocolate allergy:
As like other food allergies, diagnosis of chocolate allergy is also done with skin test and blood test. Skin tests are done to find out if there are any suspected substances causing chocolate allergy. If there are any signs of redness, irritation and inflammation, it is clear that there is allergy due to chocolate.
Blood tests are also done to find out the amount of antibodies present in blood steam to that suspected ingredient. Some person with asthma needs pulmonary function test. This test is very useful to measure the airflow through a device, which is called a spirometer. After the measurement of airflow, the patient is given a bronchodilator for another measurement of airflow.
There is one more test that is RAST (radioallergosornent test). This test is done in the laboratory only to examine the blood samples for antibodies that match the ingredients and additives of food. This test is useful for the person who has severe reactions to skin tests.
Oral food challenge is another way, which is more effective way to find out the exact cause of food allergy. In this method different types of food are used to hide their identity. Patient consumes the capsules after which they give signs if they have with that specific food they had taken. However, this method is very time-consuming and difficult.
