Why food allergies are on the rise

[Eldorado 57,563]

More of the population has food allergies than ever before – and around the world, they are sending more and more people to hospital.

One large-scale review of hospital admissions data found anaphylaxis cases on the rise in the US, Australia and Europe, among other regions.

In the US, hospital visits for food allergy increased threefold from 1993 to 2006.

Between 2013 and 2019, England saw a 72% rise in the number of hospital admissions for children caused by anaphylaxis, from 1,015 admissions to 1,746.

“That food allergies have risen is unquestionably the case, to an absolutely crazy extent,” says Graham Rook, emeritus professor of medical microbiology at University College London.

Full article at the BBC: Link

[Desertrat56 21,593]

My grandson is allergic to all tree nuts and has to have an epi-pen available all the time.  No one else in the family on either side has this allergy.  It is weird how many more people have really bad reactions.

[spartan max2 18,134]

The article touches on it, but I think it's the Hygiene Hypothesis. The idea that kids are exposed to less and less diversity of microorganisms and stuff in their guts because of how clean are world is. 

Their body then is more likely to think something is hostile to them due to unfamiliarity (allergy).

[Desertrat56 21,593]

3 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

The article touches on it, but I think it's the Hygiene Hypothesis. The idea that kids are exposed to less and less diversity of microorganisms and stuff in their guts because of how clean are world is. 

Their body then is more likely to think something is hostile to them due to unfamiliarity (allergy).

The mother of my grandson with the peanut and tree allergy lets him eat off the floor.  I don't think that hypothesis can hold water.  Granted she keeps her house fairly clean but my other daughter won't let anything that has fallen on the floor go near her kids mouth and she insists her sons wash their hands a lot more than the other one does.

[Golden Duck 12,399]

We have food allergies because we have more eating!

[Abramelin 4,469]

Mother Earth's immune system is starting to reject us.

[toast 17,171]

I think food allergies are direct connected to the increasing consumption of fast/processed/industrial food. Direct if the kids consume such food and/or indirect if the parents consumed it at a high level before giving birth.

[glorybebe 8,932]

Foods are being harvested before they are ripe so that they can get to the store before they go rotten.  Fields used to lay fallow so the earth could replenish,  now they use chemical fertilizers.  Animals are fed horrific amounts of hormones and antibiotics.  And the processing adds more chemicals while lowering the nutritional value in foods.  A lot of people are deficient in vitamins and minerals needed to keep our bodies healthy.  I am allergic to so many things, both food and metals/plastics.  Weirdly I am not allergic to nuts.

[Jon the frog 2,431]

On 11/2/2020 at 5:14 PM, spartan max2 said:

The article touches on it, but I think it's the Hygiene Hypothesis. The idea that kids are exposed to less and less diversity of microorganisms and stuff in their guts because of how clean are world is. 

Their body then is more likely to think something is hostile to them due to unfamiliarity (allergy).

Yep, it's probably one of the main cullprit. But adding the effect that people with genetic caused allergy survive and have offsprings, don't help the curve...