Only about 1.1% of Americans are allergic to peanuts (the most common food allergen), according to the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. That may sound like a small number, but 1.1% translates to about 3 million people — and that’s just peanuts. Milk, wheat, egg, soy, and seafood are also well-known food allergens. Plenty of other foods have been known to provoke allergic reactions as well.

Food allergy is not the same as food intolerance, although the two are often confused. While annoying, a food intolerance bears a passing resemblance to gastrointestinal food allergy symptoms (like indigestion), but it rarely involves the immune system, and it’s rarely fatal.

Like insect stings and medication allergies, a severe food allergy can kill. Serious symptoms are so immediate and obvious that they are seldom mistaken for simple indigestion. Chances are, if you’ve experienced a life-threatening food reaction, you’ve already seen your doctor. On the other hand, you may have experienced a milder allergic reaction without realizing it.

If the symptoms are mild, why worry? As with insect stings, a food-related allergic reaction can worsen with each exposure. The effect is cumulative and builds over time. In other words, that peanut may give you indigestion once or twice, but later, it may send you to the hospital.

Common food allergy symptoms

If you notice any of the following after eating foods commonly associated with allergies, you may have a problem:

• Skin symptoms, such as rashes, welts, spots, hives, redness, or eczema (dry, flaky, scaly patches of skin)
• Digestive tract symptoms, including itching, blistering, canker sores, swelling, or redness in the mouth or on or around the lips, a noticeable increase in salivation, swelling of the tongue or throat, severe heartburn or indigestion, stomach cramps, stomach pains, or nausea (with or without vomiting), and diarrhea
• Pulmonary symptoms, such as shortness of breath, tightness in the chest, or wheezing
• Anaphylactic shock, which is a life-threatening whole-body allergic reaction requiring immediate emergency medical care

What to do if you suspect food allergies

If you’ve had food allergy symptoms, begin by cutting the suspect food out of your diet until you’ve seen your doctor. Other illnesses (including food poisoning) can produce similar symptoms, so your doctor will want to rule out such possible causes. You may be asked to keep a detailed food diary — a record of every meal and your reaction to it. Your health care provider may order allergy tests for the most common food allergens to pin down a diagnosis.

Is there life after food allergy diagnosis?

Avoiding allergy-causing foods is the best way to prevent a reaction. People with a history of severe allergic reactions (including anaphylactic shock) may be prescribed emergency medication to carry at all times. And you’ll develop some new skills, like scrutinizing labels on packaged foods and learning to substitute safe foods for allergy-provoking foods when you cook.

Progress in food allergy treatment is currently under way. You may have heard of desensitization therapy for pollen and insect allergies, also called immunotherapy, or plain old allergy shots. In simple terms, desensitization trains the immune system to ignore allergens, reducing the severity and frequency of allergic episodes. The Jaffe Institute for Food Allergy Research, at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, hopes to someday develop effective desensitization therapy to treat food allergies, or even a peanut allergy vaccine.

In the meantime, identifying and avoiding food allergens is the only treatment endorsed by the National Institutes of Health.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 at 5:19 am and is filed under Allergies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.