How I Accidentally Discovered A Milk Allergy
I didn't sign up for this shit.
I ran a 160 day long experiment with Reflect where I alternated phases of eating 50g of cheese/day for three days, and abstaining from cheese for three days. Here's what I found.
Mood/Neurological
156% increase in lightheadedness
Increased hunger (I keep regular mealtimes, I record this when hungry at unexpected times during the day). This was a zero when I abstained from cheese
128% increase in feeling impulsive
Nutritional Intake
5% increase in calories consumed (~100kcal/day)
50% increase in calcium consumption
9% decrease in iron consumption (this makes sense, as the cheese was primarily displacing meat)
These findings partially match a study on dairy consumption and appetite, which found a 200kcal/day increase when participants ate 3 servings of dairy per day, though the study didn't find any difference in subjective measures of appetite.
Gastrointestinal
45% increase in diarrhea the same day, and 147% increase in diarrhea the next day
25% increase in shitting a lot the same day, and 12% increase the next day
Respiratory
1028% increase in sneezing
40% increase in nasal congestion (not statistically significant)
Skin
One of the predictions I made in the experiment was that increasing cheese would lead to poor skin health (more pimples), but that result was much less clear than the rest of my findings. These results all had relatively p value:
16% increase in pimples the next day
22% decrease in facial pimples the same day
I think the same/next day discrepancy could be partially explained by this being a lagging effect that only manifested a few days after cheese consumption.
Conclusion
While testing this wasn't the initial intent of the experiment, based on my findings I'm quite convinced I have a milk protein/casein allergy based on my symptoms of sneezing, lightheadedness, nasal congestion, diarrhea. Cow’s milk allergies can vary in severity. Some are mild, others are severe and can cause life-threatening anaphylaxis.
I really didn't realize the full effects my cheese intake was having until I completed the experiment and started researching dairy allergies and intolerances. The actual severity of symptoms was low enough that it slipped under my radar during the experiment for most symptoms other than the gastrointestinal distress.