Medically Unexplained Symptoms - Are Food Additives, Sensitivities, Mold, or Microplastics Behind Them?

If you’ve ever walked out of a doctor’s office with normal test results but very real medically unexplained symptoms, you’re not alone. Many people experience ongoing, persistent physical symptoms—fatigue, chronic pain, digestive problems, headaches, unexplained weight changes, anxiety, skin conditions, and brain fog—that don’t match a clean diagnosis.

This week’s Harmony With Food episode dug into exactly why that happens, and why so many patients are left with unexplained physical symptoms despite multiple evaluations, referrals, and follow-up appointments.

Millions of people live with MUS (medically unexplained symptoms): conditions where the body signals distress, but standard exams, imaging, and labs can’t pinpoint a cause. Symptoms get labeled as IBS, anxiety, stress, or “part of getting older.” Yet unresolved symptoms often have deeper origins—nutrition, digestion, stress physiology, environmental triggers, food sensitivities, chronic inflammation, microbiome imbalance, or functional disorders that conventional medicine rarely screens for.

Meg’s message was clear: better digestion, better evaluation, and better testing lead to better health.

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The Food Additives You’re Eating—But No One’s Assessing in Traditional Medicine

Most people consume 3–5 pounds of additives annually without realizing it. Artificial dyes, emulsifiers, stabilizers, gums, sweeteners, and preservatives—many have limited long-term research on their impact on chronic illness, inflammation, or somatic symptoms.

Additives can contribute to unexplained symptoms such as:

• GI distress

• Chronic bloating

• Headaches

• Fatigue

• Mood shifts

• Eczema or skin rashes

• Joint discomfort

• Cognitive fog

These issues frequently appear across MUS research, yet rarely receive formal medical evaluation. The Harmony With Food Bio Unique Boutique screens more than 57 additives, revealing patterns that are often missed in routine assessment.

Food Sensitivity, Allergy, or Intolerance? Key Differences for Persistent Symptoms

Meg broke down distinctions that matter for anyone navigating medically unexplained symptoms:

Food Allergies (IgE):Immediate reactions may involve swelling, hives, dizziness, or respiratory stress. These require urgent medical care and a clear diagnosis.

Food Sensitivities (IgG/IgA):Delayed reactions—sometimes linked to headaches, anxiety, fatigue, joint pain, chronic skin issues, digestive symptoms, and difficulty losing weight. These reactions can mimic functional disorders and contribute to persistent symptoms that seem medically unexplained.

Food Intolerances: Enzyme-related issues (like lactose intolerance). These cause digestive symptoms but not immune reactions.

Ignored sensitivities can easily lead to chronic symptom cycles — fatigue, pain, anxiety, irritability, stomach issues, and inflammatory flares that clinicians may interpret as somatic or stress-related.

Meg’s stance:

“Food has everything to do with it.”

The Microbiome: A Major Source of Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms

Over 80 percent of the immune system resides in the gut, meaning that microbiome disruption often leads to unexplained symptoms across multiple systems, including mental health, energy levels, digestion, skin, metabolism, and pain perception.

Meg’s microbiome testing includes more than 300 markers connected to chronic fatigue syndrome, functional gastrointestinal disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, and other syndromes commonly categorized in MUS research:

• Good vs. harmful bacteria

• Yeast and candida overgrowth

• Parasites

• SIBO and SIFO indicators

• H. pylori (full strain spectrum)

• Akkermansia and the F/B ratio

• Gut inflammation

• Leaky gut and intestinal permeability

Many patients with chronic unexplained symptoms receive an IBS diagnosis or are told their symptoms are stress-related. Meg’s approach evaluates what conventional medicine doesn’t test.

Environmental Triggers: Mold, Microplastics, BPA, Chemicals, and Chronic Symptom Patterns

Environmental exposures can produce persistent, medically unexplained symptoms that mimic anxiety disorders, somatic symptoms, chronic pain syndromes, and fatigue disorders.

Most clinicians do not routinely test for:

• Mold toxins

• Mycotoxins

• Microplastics

• BPA

• Chemical exposure

• Heavy metals

  
  

These triggers can cause:

• Chronic fatigue

• Sleep disturbances

• Muscle pain

• Brain fog

• Mood changes

• Hormonal disruption

• Immune dysfunction

• Chronic headaches

  
  

For people with long-term unexplained symptoms, environmental assessment can be the missing piece.

Real Clients, Real Diagnoses, and Real Improvement

Meg shared several cases where unexplained symptoms finally made sense through targeted testing:

• A bride who replaced weight-loss medications with gut-based interventions.

• A man recovering from a heart attack whose anxiety and depression improved with microbiome therapy rather than benzodiazepines.

• A mother whose wired-but-tired state—classic in MUS presentations—shifted after functional assessment.

• A woman who eliminated eczema after uncovering a food sensitivity that dermatology never evaluated.

  
  

These represent real-world examples of MUS moving from unexplained to explained.

The Bigger Picture: Why Medically Unexplained Symptoms Are Overlooked

Meg highlighted a difficult truth:

Traditional medical training focuses on disease detection, not on identifying root causes of functional disorders, somatic symptoms, or environmental and nutritional triggers.

Most providers are not trained extensively in:

• Nutrition science

• Microbiome health

• Toxin exposure

• Food additive research

• Functional neurological symptoms

• Stress and anxiety-related physiology

• Gut-brain interactions

• Chronic fatigue patterns

• Fibromyalgia-related pathways

• Somatic symptom disorder management

This gap leaves millions with symptoms but no answers.

MUS patients often hear: “Your tests look fine" “Nothing’s wrong." “Maybe it’s anxiety." “Just reduce stress.”

But persistent symptoms deserve a more complete evaluation.

Ready to Stop Guessing and Start Understanding Your Symptoms?

If you’re experiencing medically unexplained symptoms, chronic fatigue, pain, digestive problems, anxiety, or persistent discomfort with no diagnosis, there is a way forward.

The first step:

Book a free call at HarmonyWithFood.com.

Meg will evaluate your symptom history, discuss potential causes, explain testing options, and help you understand what might be driving your unexplained symptoms—whether food-related, environmental, microbiome-based, or functional.

You deserve real answers.

You deserve an evidence-based evaluation.

You deserve a treatment path that addresses the true cause of your symptoms.

Let’s help you move from unexplained to understood.

Schedule a Free Call With Meg

Episode Transcript