My dad is an Allergist, and I’ve worked in his office, so I know a little about food allergies. To be allergic to something, you must be exposed to it. It is an immune system reaction. One of the problems with food allergies is the way we process food these days. Look at the labels on the foods you eat. You will find Soy, Corn, and Peanuts in a lot of them. Thus, they comprise a lot of the food allergies out there because more and more people are getting exposed to them.
See also an earlier thread about this column: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=190486
I know a dude who is allergic to chocolate.
What a sad, sad life he must lead.
I thought people like that killed themself. 
In the spirit of one-up-man-ship:
I have a friend who after years of allergy related issues got tests done and found that she is allergic to Chocolate… and Coffee. :eek:
But, to Cecil’s column – part of the current anti-peanut movement is no doubt hysteria and cause du jour… but on the other hand if deaths and major illness are preventable, and at little cost to others would we not do that?
I have a friend (a different one), who has a severe peanut allergy (I think it extends to tree nuts too), and I know that he can get somewhat ill if someone eats peanut butter close enough that he can smell it.
I don’t see that banning peanut butter from a school is necessary, but offering sufferers a place that is peanut free is surely no great cost?
Regarding the discrepancy the column noted between how many people have allergies and how many think they do:
Part of that can be explained by people not understanding the difference between an allergy and a sensitivity. Lots of people have sensitivities to different foods, and foold oogy afterward. They identify them as allergies even though the immune system is not involved.
foold=feel
bup
I agree. Many people who are lactose intolerant think they are allergic to milk.
I am allergic to several things myself, including slight food allergies to corn and chocolate. Instead of killing myself, I just occasionally make myself wish I were dead… And, for the record, the corn allergy is just as bad as the one for chocolate-I loooooove mexican food, corn syrup is the single biggest sweetener used in processed foods, and corn starch is a common thickener.
As for peanuts-doctors usually advise people with severe peanut allergies not to eat chocolate either, since most manufacturers of chocolate goodies do not take steps to avoid cross-contamination of their nut-filled and nut-free products duriing the manufacturing process. Often, they are made in the same vats, albeit at different times. You’ll also find peanuts as a thickening ingredient in Wendy’s Chili, and they’re also in some gelatin-type products, like jelly-beans (Jelly Bellys at least).
If more and more people are exposed to them, won’t they build up a tolerance for the product and therefore not develop an allergy? Or am I misunderstanding the concept of an allergy?
I once worked with a gent who had an allergy to gluetin; about 99% of his lunch consisted of sardines on rice cakes. He had told me his allergy could cause him hives (on the low end) and shock on the high end, yet he never insisted people like msyelf to avoid breads, etc.
I suppose those who call for a ban (in lunch rooms, on planes) are perhaps overly sensitive, or that the chap I speak of took his chances.
Here’s the problem, Dantheman. You have to be exposed to something to develop an allergy, which is an immune-system response to something that would normally not cause a reaction. So, as more people get exposed, more people get the chance to develop an allergy. The thing is, research is still ongoing as to WHY someone’s immune system has this kind of reaction to everyday things. There are several theories, but none of them has been adopted by a real majority. My personal favorite (remember, I’m no MD) is that immune systems in the 1st world nations have gotten “unconditioned” because we have such good preventative medicine and public health programs. That is, our immune systems have so little to do, they start “looking for trouble” among the other substances that enter our systems. Some of the evidence in favor of this theory is that allergies are almost unknown in developing nations where people’s immune system get barraged by all kinds of pathogens. Of course, the counterpoint is that you may not be able to detect allergies in the “noise” of all the other illnesses prevalent in those regions.
Here’s the problem, Dantheman. You have to be exposed to something to develop an allergy, which is an immune-system response to something that would normally not cause a reaction. So, as more people get exposed, more people get the chance to develop an allergy. The thing is, research is still ongoing as to WHY someone’s immune system has this kind of reaction to everyday things. There are several theories, but none of them has been adopted by a real majority. My personal favorite (remember, I’m no MD) is that immune systems in the 1st world nations have gotten “unconditioned” because we have such good preventative medicine and public health programs. That is, our immune systems have so little to do, they start “looking for trouble” among the other substances that enter our systems. Some of the evidence in favor of this theory is that allergies are almost unknown in developing nations where people’s immune system get barraged by all kinds of pathogens. Of course, the counterpoint is that you may not be able to detect allergies in the “noise” of all the other illnesses prevalent in those regions.
I guess I had always thought that we develop immunities to pathogens by being exposed to them early in life. If I had not been exposed to any peanut products in my formative years and then was exposed while an adult, I could develop an allergy because I hadn’t buily up an immunity to it.
I understand what you’re saying about the more people are exposed, the more people develop allergies. But if these same people were exposed as children, would they still develop the allergy?
Or would it be more of an intolerance?
An allergy can develop at any time. While most of my allergies developed in childhood, I didn’t develop my food allergies until I was in my late 20’s, and BELIEVE me, I ate my share of chocolate and corn (in a variety of forms). Additionally, I have a buddy with deadly food allergies, and not only didn’t they develop until he was an adult, but his periodically shift. At one point, he was having nasty reactions to chicken, beef and pork. Now its soy that gets him.
Remember, an allergy is your immune system responding to normal substances as if they were pathogens. So, one day you could be enjoying your favorite burger, and then, for whatever reason allergies trigger in people, you develop an allergy to beef. Beef isn’t a true pathogen, but your body thinks it is. Suddenly, instead of merely clogging your arteries, you get hives, extreme gastric distress, or even respiratory difficulties and death.
Stupid body!
Thanks for a most informative post.
He he! I never thought of it that way-
My body is stupid!
I’d really like to see some cite from medical research about this. Because personally, I find it rather unlikely. I’m not a doctor, but it seems to me that this is a histamine over-reaction by the body to an allergenic substance that has entered the body. How can the smell of the substance trigger this body reaction?
It seems to me more likely that this is a psychosomatic illness rather than an actual allergic reaction – the person knows how badly he reacts to peanuts, so the smell of peanuts triggers a mental reaction that makes him feel sick. Feeling really bad, for all that, but a psychosoomatic reaction rather than an allergic one.
But this is just my opinion – can anyone cite any medical studies on this?
Even more of a pain the ass is the ingredients that don’t make it onto the label. Peanuts are just one of the few substances that has gotten enough attention that it is now labeled. If you are unfortunate enough to have an intolerance or allergy to other, lesser common substances - you’re screwed. Our current manufacturing processes end up removing most of the nutrition from our food. Then it needs to be added back in, so the the products are ‘healthy’ (ha! but don’t let me get into that here). For example, I hope you’re not intolerant/allergic to potato - it’s used in just about everything. Any ‘enriched’ product has vitamin D taken from potato. And this is ** NOT ** anywhere on the label. Truth-In-Labeling my ass. They don’t have to tell you where they get their sources of vitamins and minerals. All that added calcium to OJ and juices these days comes from milk. Hope you’re not Dairy intolerant. You have to do the research yourselves, and find out the sources of your additives. And good luck with ‘Natural Flavors’. I shutter to think what’s ‘Natural’ according to Kraft. Maybe someday, we’ll see everything truthfully on products. But until then, we need enough people to go into shock to force companies to label ingredients and possible contaminants.