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View From AAAAI: Food Allergies Take Center Stage
By Charlene Laino
WebMD Guest Blogger
(Washington, D.C.) -- Food allergies are scary stuff.
If you've ever seen someone have an anaphylactic reaction to peanuts, shellfish, or any of the other common foods to which people are often allergic, you know what I mean. Their face turns bright red. Their lips, face, neck, and throat swell. Their airways constrict, and breathing becomes labored. Without prompt treatment, death can occur. All in a matter of minutes.
Such reactions are extreme, but not as uncommon as you may think. Food allergies have skyrocketed, increasing 18% over the past decade alone. About 12 million Americans are now counted among its victims, 3 million of whom are under the age of 18. Food allergy is believed to be the leading cause of anaphylaxis outside the hospital setting, causing an estimated 50,000 trips to the ER and 150 deaths each year in the U.S.
Meanwhile, some new food allergies are on the rise. Sesame allergies have probably increased more than any other type of food allergy over the past 10 to 20 years, according to new research presented at this year's meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
"They're now clearly one of the six or seven most common food allergens in the U.S.," says Robert Wood, MD, director of the division of pediatric allergy and immunology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Avoiding the offending food will, of course, ward off any reaction, but that's not as easy as you may think. You may be vigilant about checking labels, but hidden ingredients abound, other research shows.
Some 5% of food products that carry a "may contain" label actually contain an allergen, says Scott H. Sicherer, MD, of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Labels on another 2% of food products leave out the ingredient altogether.
Among the most risky of food allergies are those to peanuts. They're the cause of half of all food allergy deaths. Life-threatening reactions can occur after simply reusing a knife that wasn't properly scrubbed after being used to spread peanut butter.
Adding insult to injury: The allergy shots used to treat reactions to insect stings and pollen have never proven safe for people with food allergies.
So it was no surprise that news coming out of the meeting on a new treatment for peanut allergies grabbed headlines nationwide. Five of nine children with peanut allergies who swallowed small doses of peanut protein under a doctor's supervision daily for over two and one-half years can now eat unlimited amounts of peanuts without any signs of allergic reaction. It's the first time the approach -- called oral immunotherapy -- has freed people of a food allergy, researchers say.
"This is exciting stuff," says Harold B. Kaiser, MD, an allergist at the University of Minnesota who is studying ragweed allergies.
"Peanut allergies are a significant problem that has kids and parents frightened. This promises to be an option so that they don't have to be scared every time they're in a peanut environment," he tells WebMD. (And frightened they are. Sicherer says many parents with peanut-allergic kids avoid flying due to worries about airborne allergens when everyone opens their peanuts. The fact that most airlines don't give out nuts anymore hasn't alleviated their concerns. The potential for anaphylactic reactions is just too steep.)
There was good news for kids with milk allergies, too. Eight of 13 children with dairy allergies who wore a skin patch for three months could drink three times as much milk as before without showing signs of an allergic reaction, suggests a study led by Christophe Dupont, MD, PhD, of Hopital Saint Vincent de Paul in Paris.
Other Mt. Sinai researchers report that a formulation of nine Chinese herbs was safe and brought on immune system changes suggesting that the body was starting to build up tolerance against food allergens. Only about a dozen people with peanut, tree nut, fish, or shellfish allergies have been studied over the short-term, so stay tuned.
Other research shows that toddlers who have egg, elm, or cat allergies are at increased risk of developing eczema by age 4. Children whose parents have eczema are also at risk. Fortunately, traditional Chinese herbal medicine may help here too, relieving the dry, itchy, scaly skin of the skin condition in children and adults, according to two other studies.
While studies on food allergies took top honors at this year's meeting, new reports on asthma are worthy of an honorable mention.
Thanks in large part to new medications, children with severe asthma are breathing better than in years past.
In another study, cholesterol-lowering statin drugs cut the risk of hospitalization and emergency room visits in people with asthma by about one-third.
All in all, I'd say this year's findings are nothing to sneeze at.
WebMD Guest Blogger
(Washington, D.C.) -- Food allergies are scary stuff.
If you've ever seen someone have an anaphylactic reaction to peanuts, shellfish, or any of the other common foods to which people are often allergic, you know what I mean. Their face turns bright red. Their lips, face, neck, and throat swell. Their airways constrict, and breathing becomes labored. Without prompt treatment, death can occur. All in a matter of minutes.
Such reactions are extreme, but not as uncommon as you may think. Food allergies have skyrocketed, increasing 18% over the past decade alone. About 12 million Americans are now counted among its victims, 3 million of whom are under the age of 18. Food allergy is believed to be the leading cause of anaphylaxis outside the hospital setting, causing an estimated 50,000 trips to the ER and 150 deaths each year in the U.S.
Meanwhile, some new food allergies are on the rise. Sesame allergies have probably increased more than any other type of food allergy over the past 10 to 20 years, according to new research presented at this year's meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
"They're now clearly one of the six or seven most common food allergens in the U.S.," says Robert Wood, MD, director of the division of pediatric allergy and immunology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Avoiding the offending food will, of course, ward off any reaction, but that's not as easy as you may think. You may be vigilant about checking labels, but hidden ingredients abound, other research shows.
Some 5% of food products that carry a "may contain" label actually contain an allergen, says Scott H. Sicherer, MD, of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Labels on another 2% of food products leave out the ingredient altogether.
Among the most risky of food allergies are those to peanuts. They're the cause of half of all food allergy deaths. Life-threatening reactions can occur after simply reusing a knife that wasn't properly scrubbed after being used to spread peanut butter.
Adding insult to injury: The allergy shots used to treat reactions to insect stings and pollen have never proven safe for people with food allergies.
So it was no surprise that news coming out of the meeting on a new treatment for peanut allergies grabbed headlines nationwide. Five of nine children with peanut allergies who swallowed small doses of peanut protein under a doctor's supervision daily for over two and one-half years can now eat unlimited amounts of peanuts without any signs of allergic reaction. It's the first time the approach -- called oral immunotherapy -- has freed people of a food allergy, researchers say.
"This is exciting stuff," says Harold B. Kaiser, MD, an allergist at the University of Minnesota who is studying ragweed allergies.
"Peanut allergies are a significant problem that has kids and parents frightened. This promises to be an option so that they don't have to be scared every time they're in a peanut environment," he tells WebMD. (And frightened they are. Sicherer says many parents with peanut-allergic kids avoid flying due to worries about airborne allergens when everyone opens their peanuts. The fact that most airlines don't give out nuts anymore hasn't alleviated their concerns. The potential for anaphylactic reactions is just too steep.)
There was good news for kids with milk allergies, too. Eight of 13 children with dairy allergies who wore a skin patch for three months could drink three times as much milk as before without showing signs of an allergic reaction, suggests a study led by Christophe Dupont, MD, PhD, of Hopital Saint Vincent de Paul in Paris.
Other Mt. Sinai researchers report that a formulation of nine Chinese herbs was safe and brought on immune system changes suggesting that the body was starting to build up tolerance against food allergens. Only about a dozen people with peanut, tree nut, fish, or shellfish allergies have been studied over the short-term, so stay tuned.
Other research shows that toddlers who have egg, elm, or cat allergies are at increased risk of developing eczema by age 4. Children whose parents have eczema are also at risk. Fortunately, traditional Chinese herbal medicine may help here too, relieving the dry, itchy, scaly skin of the skin condition in children and adults, according to two other studies.
While studies on food allergies took top honors at this year's meeting, new reports on asthma are worthy of an honorable mention.
Thanks in large part to new medications, children with severe asthma are breathing better than in years past.
In another study, cholesterol-lowering statin drugs cut the risk of hospitalization and emergency room visits in people with asthma by about one-third.
All in all, I'd say this year's findings are nothing to sneeze at.
7 Comments:
I'm alergic to many alergins,winter and summer. dust,dust mites,pollen,ragweed,ceder,most trees,grass,and many food alergies.i've tried every antihistamine , with very poor results. help
I too am allergic to the world, but I was hoping that there would be something about soy. I wish so much that the manufacturers would just stop putting it in food because it makes it cheaper to produce on the grounds that they are making food healthier.
I have been so surprised that the fast food/resturants will use what I call unreal food -- Cheese that is not "real" cheese but soy based. Meat that is actually TVP that looks and tastes like the real thing. Why aren't companies made to reveal this?
I wrote to Hebrew National about their advertizement saying their hotdogs 100% beef. If you look at the ingredients, it contains TVP. How can it be 100% beef if it contain TVP? This is not the only company that does this? Check it out, you'll be very surprised!
What can you do about allergies to heat? It makes me go into a coughing spasm.
Also, each time it rains, the same thing happens. Starts with a sensation in left ear; also gets a sinis drip with it.
I am a practicing clinician. When I started to practice about 7 years ago, I had only a few patients with allergies. Now, I implement allergy testing on many of my patients every week and many come back positive for milk, soy, peanuts, and other foods. One of the thoughts behind the surge of food allergies in children is that perhaps we introduce solids to infants too early, when their immune systems are not ready to process them yet.
I recommend to my patients' parents to wait with introducing foods to their babies until they are 6 months old.
I was interested in allyour comments, and agree with everything. I have had allergiesand intolerances to just about everything since 1982 when I had a flu which left me ill all these years, and I so wish there was someone or somewhere that could actually help me to be free of this curse and to eat more normally would make life so less stressful. Waking each day and not knowing what to eat and where you can eat, well I've had enough. I have gone onto having lots of chronic health problems, and all the doctors/specialists say is take antihistamine (which I react to) and avoid the foods or titrate them...I don't find it helps I still react to them even years later. If anyone in a similar position has found something positive and real that can help, I would love to hear from them.
Have you looked into Xolair shots? They are expensive, but I'm fortunate in that my insurance does pay for them, but I was not approved until everything else had been tried. They have been a lifesaver for sure. My allergies have not gone away, I still take several medications, but as my husband has said, "I've stopped looking for a buriel plot."
I have a question, as I mentioned prior, I have problems with soy. Well last night, I was setting up an activity to do with by 1st graders using jelly beans. I ate one here and one there -- probably a handful or two in the end. Well, it wasn't long before I started having stomach pains and feeling bloated like I do when I eat something with soy in it. I couldn't imagaine what in the world I had eaten. This morning, after racking my brain of everything I have eaten in the last 24 hours, I looked at the ingredients of the jelly beans. You guessed it, they contain soy protein. What do you put soy protein in jelly beans? Those were made by Brach. I had also purchased Starburst jelly beans and they were just fine.
I would love to be able to take this problem further. If I knew who to contact, I would. I don't believe companies truly understand what people go through when they "just stick" something in it.
I once wrote to a company and asked about why they put a soy based product in their food. The representative proceeded to tell me that people aren't allergic to or have an intolerence to that. Maybe she'd like to trade places.
Soy is in 80% of the foods we buy Why? Why do they have to put soy in chicken? Why do they have to put soy in hamburger? Why do they make cheese out of soy?
I too suffer from food allergies. I'll be going out to the doctors to get tested, including getting tested for soy and peanut allergies.
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