| Just imagine what life would be like if you had to scrutinise the ingredients of everything you took down from the supermarket shelves. If eating out at a restaurant was literally a matter of life and death. Or if your toddler’s well-being depended on your keeping the house meticulously clean and carrying a syringe with you wherever you go. These are all part of day-to-day life for people living with severe food allergies. Did you know …?
In the UK, about 20% of adults believe themselves to be allergic to a certain food, but only about 1.4% have scientifically proven allergies. In many western countries, there has been an inexorable increase in the prevalence of food allergy, alongside other allergic conditions. In reactions such as peanut allergy, the body’s own defence mechanism, the immune system, turns against an otherwise harmless foodstuff. The most common cause of wheat allergy is the protein gluten, which gives bread its characteristic texture. Allergies and Science
A lot more people think they have allergies than the science would suggest. Food allergies are often confused with food intolerance – for instance when someone’s digestive system is short of a certain enzyme, making it difficult to digest some foods. Food allergies can also be confused with food aversion, where the unpleasant effects of eating a food are induced by psychological factors. True allergies engage the body’s immune system: they can be detected by repeatable, scientific tests which show an immune reaction. Did you know …?
About five Britons die of a food allergy every year. An inexorable increase?
Allergic reactions probably evolved to help protect against childhood infections, which are particularly likely to occur in large families and unhygienic conditions. But perversely, in our nice clean modern homes where there is less infection to cope with, allergic reactions seem to cause damage by producing exaggerated reactions to harmless dust mites, food or pollen. Put very simply, the human immune system has two main branches. One side is responsible for fighting infections, the other for allergic reaction. This leads to one of the great intriguing questions of contemporary immunology. By under-using one side of our immune systems, could we be unwittingly provoking the other side to turn against ourselves? Did you know …?
There has been a doubling or trebling of childhood allergenic asthma since the early 20th Century.
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