Food allergy, especially the immediate-reaction type, is usually lifelong. Food intolerance, on the other hand, tends to diminish if the food is avoided for a while. After a period of months, or sometimes a year, the same food can be eaten without ill-effects. But the potential for a reaction remains: if the food is eaten on a daily basis again, the intolerance is likely to reappear within a month or so. A viral infection can also spark off food intolerance again.
Sometimes intolerance reactions disappear very quickly after avoidance of the food, and do not reappear even though the person returns to their previous diet. This seems to happen more often in children than in adults.
In general, the longer offending foods are avoided, the better the patient becomes (as long as other foods are not eaten too regularly or in too great a quantity). With improving health, the person is better able to cope with both their diet and other environmental factors – airborne allergens, for example, or synthetic chemicals. Just as there was a gradual decline into ill-health, so there is now a steady recovery, with the body becoming stronger and less sensitive at each step.
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