Food Allergy Epidemic A Myth? Asks Harpers

[sharonb]

Wow, I went and read the pages from Harper's and must say I am seriously underwhelmed. What Busboy posted in the original post here is more pertinent than everything else in that anemic polemic - filling in the rest drowns out the punch, and makes the author seem like a niggler with an axe to grind.

There may be hysteria afoot, but no one has clearly and clear-headedly debunked the allergy factory, if one exists.

My prior post here was a little jumbled, but tried to communicate a sense that (from observation) food allergies are absolutely everywhere you look, in the U.S. - and I don't deny that: my mother gets violently ill from milk products; my sister's baby son breaks out in hives from peach skin; my father's business partner's throat swells up if he swallows vinegar - but why are there none over here in France (other than the clearly psychosomatic "allergies" to certain types of wine, which mirror my two cousins' self-diagnosed celiac disease, which makes them feel "sluggish" and irritable after eating flour).

It would be interesting to explore the hysteria, or what kinds of manifestations allergies or "allergies" take.

1. The idea that excessive antibiotics have left populations insufficiently hardy to attack certain things.

2. The threshold at which one feels that something is afoot: discomfort? indigestion? (Of course, here I am not talking about hives or one's throat swelling up.)

Yet, conversely, in France, society and the government are extremely aware of food-related health dangers. Three or four years ago, there was an outbreak of listeriose from industrially-produced potted meat (rillettes). Seventeen people were sick or died. It was on the first page of every single newspaper and was the headline news for at least a week.

It turns out, one of the two people who actually died was a frail, elderly woman whose refrigerator was kept, investigators found, at 63°F (17°C).

[mojoman]

Allergy is a specific and  much overused and abused term. Though clearly they do exist and can certainly be life-threatening and even life taking. In my job, I see a lot of patients who claim to have "allergies" to various medications including morphine and codeine. Allergies to penicillin and Sulfa are never questioned, however, most of the "allergies" people claim are either due to dose-related side effects, sensitivities or or other situation-specific, non-allergic complications. Food allergies are not much different. Nut and shellfish allergies are real, not uncommon and potentially very dangerous. Fruit allergies, though generally less dangerous are also real and may indicate allergies to other compounds such as latex. Regarding latex, there seemed to be a real outbreak of allergies to latex in the mid-90's, especially in the health care industry. This appeared to be due to decreased availability of quality product and alternate production methods. For whatever reason(s), the incidence of latex allergies seems to have diminished markedly over the last 5-10 years. That doesn't mean the allergies weren't real before that, just that the development of allergies is a complex phenomenon that can shift  depending upon current factors. The incidence of food allergies is likely to go along the same path. Of course when something generates press and public interest, some people will feel that they are effected when they really are not. Despite that real and serious cases do exist underneath and the issue should certainly be taken seriously though not necessarily accepted at face value.

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Right on Doc. What really pissed me off when I was a house officer were the patients who claimed to have a drug allergy because they thought it somehow made them "special" or to manipulate the system to get a drug that they thought was somehow better.

As a student, I had a LOL with CHF who had evidence of a UTI on U/A. I started amoxicillin (this was in 1990 - amox was recommended by Sanford as second line thereapy at that time) because she was sulfa allergic. She wanted to know why I didn't place her on cephalexin. I told her that I selected amox over cephalexin because it was more likely to treat her infection effectively, it was dosed TID instead of QID, and it was less expensive.

Low and behold, she decided that she was PCN allergic. :shakeshead:

[Meanderer]

A food allergy is an immunologic response to a food protein.

I really really really hate it when customers say they are allergic to things that do not contain proteins. "please make sure there are no mushrooms/garlic/onions/ because I am deathly allergic to them". I try to be nice.

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If you have anything to do with feeding my wife, you should be both nice and responsive to what she says about her allergy/intolerance. If not, and if you serve her mushrooms, even in a soup base, you had better have a healthy supply of toilet paper on hand.

[divalasvegas]

It would be interesting to explore the hysteria, or what kinds of manifestations allergies or "allergies" take.

1. The idea that excessive antibiotics have left populations insufficiently hardy to attack certain things.

2. The threshold at which one feels that something is afoot: discomfort? indigestion? (Of course, here I am not talking about hives or one's throat swelling up.)

Yet, conversely, in France, society and the government are extremely aware of food-related health dangers. Three or four years ago, there was an outbreak of listeriose from industrially-produced potted meat (rillettes). Seventeen people were sick or died. It was on the first page of every single newspaper and was the headline news for at least a week.

It turns out, one of the two people who actually died was a frail, elderly woman whose refrigerator was kept, investigators found, at 63°F (17°C).

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Is it possible sharonb that the U.S. population produces and consumes more genetically modified foods than the rest of the world? I'm not talking about what farmers and those who raise livestock have been doing for centuries, but mad food scientist types who may/are combining strands of dna from crab with oranges to create oranges (or some other type of produce) that are more resistant to the cold, certain critters, etc. I'd sure like some more scientific type like docsconz to explore that possibility with much more insightful and precise language than me.

[MomOfLittleFoodies]

Just because it's uncommon to be allergic to something, doesn't mean that it's impossible to be allergic to it.

One another foodie board, one poster told me that my son couldn't possibly be allergic to soy, because that's what they give people who are milk allergic.

My 10 year old used to have this laundry list of food allergies... wheat, soy, oats, egg, milk, rice, white potato, fish, shellfish, peanut, tree nuts (I'll spare you that laundry list), squid, sesame and coconut. Now he's just allergic to the last 6. We go through allergy testing every 2 years to monitor this stuff.

My 5 year old daughter is allergic to milk and shellfish.

They both also have dander, pollen and drug allergies.

I don't have any crazy theories on why they have allergies. For them, it's a hereditary tendency. This is what happens when 2 people with allergies, eczema and asthma decide to procreate.

For my kids, for me personally, the food allergy thing isn't a big deal. I take my kids to the allergist as needed, we avoid the things we need to avoid, carry antihistamines and epi-pens around, and we go on with life.

If anything, it's been a mixed blessing. Yeah, trying to cook around the allergies is a challenge, but at the same time, my children eat a lot of things that most kids their age wouldn't eat because we couldn't rely on the usual "kid friendly" foods.

[jumanggy]

Interesting discussion here. When I was diagnosed with eczema at a very young age, I was given a "standard" (that is, without testing) list of food to avoid: shrimp, chicken, chocolate, preservatives, peanuts... I think milk and eggs were in there too. While I have no doubt that I'm allergic to the biogenic amines produced by (er..) decaying chicken and shrimp (handling raw chicken made my hands extremely red, itchy, almost burning), I have pretty much an unrestricted diet. I suspect that's the attitude taken by most Filipinos (not that there's been a study about our attitudes towards food restriction-- check out the pork bellies eaten by the hypertensives).

On the downside, my eczema is rarely completely gone (though it's not as bad as when I was a kid). I have good months and bad months. But a tiny speck is worth being able to eat what I can.

Not that I am downplaying the plight of those with serious food allergies. Even if allergies are commonplace here in the Philippines, fatal food allergies are unheard of. That's already taking into account the distance from the hospital. What does afflict us are the usual third world bugs-- pneumonia, TB, diarrhea, dengue.

There was an ad saying that 9 out of 10 Filipinos are lactose-intolerant. It was an ad for lactose-free powdered milk. That milk is now non-existent due to poor sales; there's only two (imported) lactose-free UHT milk brands available and they're not even available outside the greater Manila area. Nobody cared! Ice cream and (powdered) milk just fly off the shelves. There were a few months when I was really stressed that my own lactose intolerance was pronounced, but I have no such problems now. (It's probable that it had nothing to do with stress-- I may simply have noticed it more when I was stressed, as in: "Oh no! Not now!" Tried to eliminate it with yogurt and it seemed to have worked, not that I drink milk now.)

[Eden]

Just to add to the "it's not just the USA" info, I came across this article from Italy today.

Italian Record for Coeliac Disease

Half a million sufferers and rising.

[feedmec00kies]

Just to add to the "it's not just the USA" info, I came across this article from Italy today. 

Italian Record for Coeliac Disease

Half a million sufferers and rising.

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Celiac is an interesting one. Talk about underdiagnosed.

I had a roommate/friend in college who was celiac.. in fact, her whole family was. IIRC, they were all diagnosed because her mother had a rare form of liver disease associated with Celiac disease, and so everyone else got tested and were found to have it. Actually, her mother has been so harmed by the disease that she can't ingest any significant amount of gluten ever again.

According to what research there is for it in the US, Celiac disease is not rare - I seem to recall reading about a study done of blood donated in a US city (Chicago?), and the rate of occurrence was around 1/250 people. Britain, which has a population somewhat similar (not the same, obviously) to ours has around a 1/250 occurrence as well.

Problem? It can only be detected through blood tests, and that's an expense insurance companies in the US just don't want to cover automatically. Celiac disease could be asymptomatic (it was, for all intents and purposes, for my friend), meaning that there are people who go completely undiagnosed. And with the way the syndrome manifests - by damaging the villi in the small intestine - it can cause nutritional problems as well as liver disease and whatnot.

Think of all the foods you have to avoid with Celiac disease. Not just bread, but anything that uses wheat or other gluten-containing grains as fillers, thickeners, etc. And beverages that contain grains. Now that's a bad disease to have.

This is certainly not one that's overdiagnosed or mythical. It's a genetic disorder where rates only increase because of awareness and screening.

Edited January 20, 2008 by feedmec00kies (log)

[Rebecca263]

Well, I don't know if I agrre with my doctors that all of these new intolerances are 'allergies' but, I ate a 1/2 ounce of blue cheese today during breakfast. I don't know if it's chemo induced intolerance or what, but I'm NOT having fun! Definitely, I'm going to listen to the doctors and avoid the 'offenders'.

[feedmec00kies]

Well, I don't know if I agrre with my doctors that all of these new intolerances are 'allergies' but, I ate a 1/2 ounce of blue cheese   today during breakfast. I don't know if it's chemo induced intolerance or what, but I'm NOT having fun!  Definitely, I'm going to listen to the doctors and avoid the 'offenders'.

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Hopefully it's only temporary and you'll be able to eat all the blue cheese you want again. Very unfortunate that you're having all these problems with foods.

Edited January 21, 2008 by feedmec00kies (log)

[Ndy]

I know a few people with serious peanut allergies, but I understand where the article is coming from with the rise of exaggerated allergies. Sometimes, I think people claim to have an allergy to something they just don't like.

[cathrynapple]

Most people on my father's side of the family have severe "itchy mouth/throat/ears" after eating certain fresh fruits. For me, it's fresh pineapple and avocado.

I've never considered this an "allergy," just an irritation.

I have seen children have severe reactions to peanuts, shellfish, strawberries, and other foods. It can be terrifying, and I completely understand why one life-threatening reaction to a food could make any parent instantly cautious about any potential food allergies. Allergy tests almost always come up with multiple allergies, even if the patient's reaction would only be mild no negligable.

I remember seeing a news report encouraging parents to introduce a wde variety of foods (in moderation, of course) to infants as soon as they were able to digest them. It's a better way to "train" a child's immune system to not treat new foods as enemies.

That said, many allergies are hereditary and unavoidable.