Why are food allergies so common?

3 ANSWERS

1. Guest4031
   

   Now a day's food allergy becomes a common health problem to all people. It is really horrible experience to face in daily life. Food allergy can affect human body very badly. It can appear with red rashes on skin or sometime even it can take the suffered person to death. Allergic symptoms are generally very easy to identify but sometimes it is not easy enough.  Food allergy very commonly happens due to having eggs for many people even from very childhood. It is very important for the parents to observe what food is not suiting their baby because food allergy can destroy your health day by day. You will not feel comfortable with your daily life. Before giving any food to child the parents should be concerned about the labels of baby food. But if it noticed from the very starting there can be absolute solution as well as treatment of this kind of allergy prescribed by the physicians so that egg will be no more allergy source.

   Report (0) (0)  |   12 years, 7 month(s) ago  

2. Guest3254
   

   Why food allergies so common in North America? I was born in a 'third world' country and food allergies are very rare there. It seems that everyone is allergic to something here.

   Report (0) (1)  |   12 years, 7 month(s) ago  

3. Guest5976
   

   Here's my casual analysis. 

   
   

   
       
   • I suspect that food allergies have always been around. 
   
       
   • In the past and in third world countries, people with SERIOUS allergies probably died from these early in life before having (any/many) children.
   
       
   • This would have a tendency to slow the rate passing of the various genes that predisposed us to allergies to offspring.  Perhaps even to a tiny growth rate proportional to the population.
   
       
   • I wonder how many cases of childhood deaths that were actually caused by allergic reaction were understood/diagnosed that that way?  Even if they suspected a serious allergy did they know precisely what the allergen was and how long could contact be really avoided unless they knew precisely how to avoid it and how to get treated when contact occurred?
   
       
   • Colic in young babies?  What percentage of cases were just various kinds of food allergies misunderstood?
   
   

   
   

   Today in modern societies:

   
   

   
       
   • We have advanced medicine that helps supress/control the symptoms.
   
       
   • We are aware of allergies and are better at recognizing and avoiding things that cause serious reactions and pass these genes pre-disposing us to allergic tendencies on to our children.
   
       
   • We tend to live longer due to medicine in general
   
       
   • Our population has grown substantially, so the number of people with allergies should grow also.
   
       
   • Global communication and technology has made it easier to connect the dots and quantify the number of people that have various allergies.
   
   

   
   

   So, I'm not a doctor and don't even play one on TV.  But I'm a pretty firm believer that if allergies are a genetic predisposition and some triggers are all that is needed, then the above makes perfect sense to me.  But I'm open to other factors also.

   Report (0) (0)  |   12 years, 7 month(s) ago