I didn’t say “that increasing incidence of allergy to peanuts can be tied to any one risk factor.”
, I said “There is some data that using soy formula may lead to P-nut allergies”
Is there a reason you keep typing “P-nut”? This is the second thread I’ve noticed it in lately. It can’t be much faster, you’re only saving one character, so I’m just curious.
People with severe allergies can integrate with society without you ever realizing it, unless you pay close attention to their eating habits. They’ll pack their own food a vast majority of the time, they’ll cover their eating area prior to setting food down on it, they’ll ask pointed questions about food preparation to waiters, they’ll only eat at certain restaurants…
I met the parents of an 8th grader who actually died after eating contaminated food. She and her mother were shopping and ate at a mall food court. She ordered a sandwich from a “safe” restaurant, one that doesn’t use peanuts in any of their menu items. However, they believe that she was exposed to peanuts from a neighboring restaurant that shared a common prep space.
So, to answer your question. Adults with severe allergies are everywhere. Most have learned to live with their condition by being extra vigilant with their food.
Slight tangent: has the medical literature ever recorded a “smell” reaction or an “opened across the room” allergic reaction to peanuts in a clinical setting? IOW, the patient was in some kind of medical “clean room”, but someone slipped up somehow and the patient was exposed through either smell or “opening across the room” and suffered a reaction.
Related: are “smell” reactions or “opened across the room” allergic reactions experimentally replicable? Has any researcher ever gathered consenting and compensated peanut-sensitive adult and, with medical staff at the ready and prepared for the worst, exposed them to peanuts by smell or by opening across the room? IOW, is there any credible scientific doubt at all that smell or across-the-room exposure can kill a peanut-sensitive person?
This thread seems to be primarily concerned with peanuts, but I will mention that I have breathing difficulties if I am near grapefruit. If someone sitting near me is eating a grapefruit, I have to leave. I have asked the woman I work with to let me know if she plans to eat grapefruit so I can leave the office. She told me she doesn’t plan to eat any, but it seems a good solution if she did.
I don’t want anybody to make unreasonable accommodations for me. When she was interviewing for the job I told her that I cannot tolerate fragrance, so that if we were going to share an office, she would have to forgo potpourri or scented candles on her desk. She agreed to that. Those things are not necessary. But she should be allowed to eat her lunch, and I am willing to leave the room if she wants to eat something that bothers me.
This sort of stuff I’m familiar with and I’ve seen at work/in public and among my friends. I have a friend who manages to keep himself adequately nourished despite being allergic to nuts, seafood/shellfish and keeping kosher!
But none of these people react to smell, or to food being opened across the room, which is the allergic response I’m curious about.
My family is full of people with severe allergies, and I know that those with food allergies are extra vigilant with their food. But if someone can actually have a life-threatening, anaphylactic reaction to smelling peanuts (not inhaling peanut dust, or eating food that may be contaminated due to a common prep area or utensils) , how can they leave their home and ensure that no one around them in a public space opens a package of peanuts?
And on a side note- why only peanuts ? I’ve never heard anyone claim that smelling chocolate ( or anything else) can cause a life-threatening reaction.
If you read my cite in post 17, the abstract includes the line “We describe five cases of severe food allergic reactions through skin contact, including inhalation in one.”
Now, they consider it rare, sure. And, it’s not in a double-blind clinical setting. But since it was described and investigated in a respected peer-reviewed medical journal, I think we can say that it has happened. Mind you, it was fairly close, not “across the room”, but inhalation can (very rarely) cause severe allergic reactions.
If that isn’t a rhetorical question, the best I can say is I have no idea. Well, maybe some idea - must be rare, no? Are there case reports? Let me check . . .
Here’s a direct quote from the e-mail I mentioned above:
Was is an observed clinical setting – say in the course of a controlled experiment – or was it a reported anecdote? I’ll read through your link to see if I can tell.
And even when they write “inhalation” … there’s a spectrum between “peanut dust blown into face” and “someone shelled a peanut down the hall 30 ft away”. We’d need more information to know that if any conclusions drawn about inhalation can be applied to smell or across-the-room exposure.
EDIT: Having read the abstract …
Close details are missing, but here’s what the abstract says:
So the conclusions we can draw are limited. Clearly, however, it’s not contested that concentrated peanust dust can, through inhalation, cause a reaction.
Right, but the “little bits” that reach your nose are small volatile organic molecules. The molecules that trigger allergic reactions are typically proteins or polysaccharides, big heavy molecules that won’t ever evaporate. Some larger organic molecules can also be antigens (most notably drugs like penicillin), but as far as I know none of these are volatile. I doubt whether anything volatile and light enough to be an odorant could ever be an allergen.
Of course, any allergen could be spread across a room in aerosols, say when someone is cutting a grapefruit near Sigmagirl and spraying juice everywhere. Cooking with peanut oil would also do a great job of producing allergen-filled aerosols.
I could not find any recent cases or research demonstrating allergic reactions, let alone fatal ones, simply on the basis of peanuts (or other substances) being exposed to air, with that air then being breathed or smelled (by ostensibly sensitive individuals).
That being said, there is some older literature, from the 80’s and 90’s (summarized nicely in this pdf) which seems to demonstrate that asthma, at least, can be precipitated and/or exacerbated simply on the basis of exposure to certain aromas. From what I gather, various strips impregnated with different aromatic substances (such as alcohol or perfumes) were used as the vehicles in some of those studies. Interestingly, the strips (and whatever was in them) did not induce any (cutaneous) immunologic response when administered intradermally (by skin prick testing). And, the effect was observed even when the subjects’ nostrils were clipped closed. In other words, the effect of the odors and aromas to worsen asthma was not due to the subjects perceiving (i.e. smelling) a particular smell or fragrance (i.e. not learned behaviour or “psychosomatic”), and was presumably non-immunologically mediated, possibly by a direct effect of the inhaled organic molecule to cause constriction of the airways.
I don’t know how to interpret that sentence. In one case the skin contact included inhalation? What does that mean?
Compare: “We describe 5 cases where people were bitten by dogs, including one who was bitten by a cat”. Well, was the 5th person bitten by a dog and a cat, or just a cat?
The reason I’m being so pedantic about this is that if there was skin contact in all 5 cases, then we can’t say that inhalation alone gave rise to an allergic reaction.
:dubious:
Note: I am dubious of attacks on soy-containing foods, given that lots of them are traceable to the non-scientific rants of the Weston Price Foundation (example here)
*(bolding added)
Here’s the relevant passage from the case study, in full:
So it sounds like this is all reported to the doctor by the kid’s parents, and not observed under controlled conditions. And at least in the case of cooking shrimp, there were very likely aerosols. I remain skeptical in the two incidents of wheezing supposedly due to peanut allergy. The kids parents are (quite justifiably) wary of any odd reaction their kid has, so when he started wheezing they looked for any possible explanation. But we do not know if that explanation is correct. How many times has the kid been in the vicinity of peanuts without reacting?
Well, I look upon schools afraid of peanut allergies being caused by inhalation being only slightly nutty, like making kids wear bicycle helmets on the swings. But not like making kids wear steel helmets in case of meteorites. 
However, we do know that kids will share, and food fights are not uncommon. So, it’s not crazy.
The data seems sparse and not very solid, I agree, but there’s some evidence.
As for soy formula, I like it as one possible factor. It fits many data points. Again, the evidence is rather slim, but I like the way it fits.