Delays in seeing a GP and a rise in the information to make changes to pandemic, when millions of people the number of people suffering with food intolerances sales of at-home health tests developed in the East Midlands soaring.
Test Your Intolerance, provided by Castle Donington-based Healthy Stuff, has experienced a 200% increase in sales of its products over the past 12 months from customers wanting to take control of their own wellbeing. The company supplies a range of allergy, intolerance and health tests, and has doubled in size in the past 12 months to keep up with demand.
It receives finger-prick blood samples and uses state-of-the-art equipment to produce validated results to determine allergies and food intolerances, giving customers the information to make changes to their lifestyle and amend diets.
Cris West (pictured), who runs Test Your Intolerance with business partner Jason Wootton, said: “We have never been busier. This is almost certainly because the NHS is in crisis and people can’t get an appointment to see their GP, never mind the ability to ask for a blood test.”
Test Your Intolerance also supplies tests that can measure a person’s kidney and liver function, as well as a prostate health test and levels of Vitamin D, and has recently released a menopause kit.
Cris believes the experience of using self-test kits during the pandemic, when millions of people became accustomed to checking for symptoms using lateral flow tests at home, has increased awareness and trust in how the technology can help them.
He added: “Our tests are clinically proven and because people have more faith in carrying out self-testing, as they did during Covid, there is increased confidence in the kits we produce. The majority of our tests are identical to those used by medical professionals, which means that presenting your GP with evidence of an allergy or intolerance will place you a step nearer to suitable medication, or an appointment with a specialist.”