title: Hypersensitivity to foods: the adaptation phenomenon.
abstract: The ability of certain patients with an allergic diathesis to adapt to the ingestion of specific foods to which they are allergic accounts for the present confusion relative to the role food hypersensitivity plays in clinical medicine. An understanding of the concept of adaptation in ingestant allergy, with its stimulatory and withdrawal periods, aids both patient and physician in appreciating the problems involved in the recognition of food hypersensitivity. Specific adaptation undergoes a chronological development from the nonadapted stage through full adaptation to eventual maladaptation. Recognition of the stage of development present offers further diagnostic help in evaluation of the allergic patient. Reintroduction of a specific food into the diet after establishment of an induced nonadapted phase provides an accurate means of determining hypersensitivity to individual ingestants.
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D005512:Food Hypersensitivity / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000276:immunology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008892:Milk / Q000276:immunology