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"While we found that one in 10 adults have food allergy, nearly twice as many adults think that they are allergic to foods, while their symptoms may suggest food intolerance or other food related conditions," says lead author Ruchi Gupta, MD, MPH, from Lurie Children's, who also is a Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "It is important to see a physician for appropriate testing and diagnosis before completely eliminating foods from the diet. If food allergy is confirmed, understanding the management is also critical, including recognizing symptoms of anaphylaxis and how and when to use epinephrine."
[...] "We were surprised to find that adult-onset food allergies were so common," says Dr. Gupta. "More research is needed to understand why this is occurring and how we might prevent it."
The study data indicate that the most prevalent food allergens among U.S. adults are shellfish (affecting 7.2 million adults), milk (4.7 million), peanut (4.5 million), tree nut (3 million), fin fish (2.2 million), egg (2 million), wheat (2 million), soy (1.5 million), and sesame (.5 million).
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday January 06 2019, @08:15AM (7 children)
Nonsense. Let's begin with this: "based on a nationally representative survey". So we're relying on self-reporting, and (among certain groups) it's very trendy to have a food allergy, to show how "special" you are.
Then we have their own figures: 19% of people claimed a food allergy. The study included questions about their symptoms, and of that 19%, only half actually described symptoms consistent with an allergy. Of that half, "only half of adults with convincing food allergy had a physician-confirmed diagnosis". So now we're at half-of-half or maybe 5%.
Of those, how many really have a diagnosis, and how many had their doctor say something like "if you want to avoid shellfish, that's fine" - and the patient's confirmation bias took that as a diagnosis?
When you come down to it, the only number that - maybe - has some solidity is the number of people with epinephrine prescriptions. This was "less than 25%" of those people who claimed to have a diagnosis, which makes it less than 1.25%. Which sounds a whole lot more believable.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday January 06 2019, @03:29PM (3 children)
That's because the dude is doing infinite and frankly not useful hair splitting for a political/financial purpose.
Lets say you want people to eat more wheat, because I donno, you grow the stuff or are a political action committee for wheat farmers or whatevs. A crazy guy would redefine the symptoms of illness resulting from wheat consumption as merely being a "food related condition" and ta da he gets his research contract money by redefining away every person with Celiac disease as no longer being an "allergy". Note that this has no effect on reality; people who puke after eating wheat will still puke, antibody levels in the blood will be crazy high, malnutrition due to the puking, stomach wall biopsies will be abnormal, etc. The purpose of the article is sophistry of the highest (lowest?) sort. The linked article is not scientific discussion about the world, but mere sophistry.
If eating wheat makes you puke, and not eating wheat makes you not puke, if your doctor wants to play word games WRT it being a "food related condition" vs a "genuine allergy" will you continue to eat wheat resulting in puking, or if you've already figured out not eating wheat results in no puking will you continue not to puke even if that not puking makes some industry shill, shrill?
For another example, say an dumb carpenter said he was allergic to hitting his thumb with a hammer. A doctor can reeeeeee about how thats not an allergy all he wants; in the real world should anyone intentionally hit their thumb with a hammer merely because some industry shill reeeeeee'd about his thoughts being impure and incorrect and its merely a bruise not an allergy so humans are not allergic to hammer strikes to the thumb so OSHA should F right off? It gets weirder WRT woodworkers and "tropical hardwood" allergies, which seem to be real. Also some of the more adventurous wood finishes and glues in uncured form can cause quite an allergic response (thinking epoxy bar tops, for example).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 06 2019, @04:35PM
What? Sense? Crazy talk!
Why aren't you joining our incel bashing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 06 2019, @11:58PM (1 child)
I have onion intolerance, it's fairly common, I exhibit all kinds of symptons, especially if the onions are not well cooked. Do I not eat onions? Of course I do. They are fuckign delicious. I also know many lactose intolerant people who will eat ice cream, because sometimes it's worth the pain. Intolerance is definitely not the same thing as allergy, not even close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07 2019, @12:54AM
For people confused about the difference, allergy means you're going to die in two minutes as your throat swells closed and you suffocate. Intolerance means you're going to die in 20-40 years from a malnutrition related sickness because your immune system slowly attacked and destroyed yourself. Eating vitamin pills won't help because the parts of you that absorb those nutrients are gone, destroyed by your immune system because it thought they were a threat. It's easy to know if you have an allergy. Some people never uncover their intolerances.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday January 06 2019, @05:10PM
You seem to be limiting "allergy" to people with SEVERE allergies. Not everyone with an allergy is threatened with anaphylaxis. Your earlier post rightly differentiates between "food intolerance" (which affects the digestive system) vs. "food allergy" (which targets the immune system). But immune system reactions can vary widely.
I've had a mild allergy to cats since I was a child. I've been officially tested by a doctor. Most times in the presences of cats I barely notice it, though. With prolonged contact (or an unclear house with a lot of cats), it may manifest itself by giving me watery or itchy eyes, perhaps a slight rash if the cat is particularly "friendly" and I spend a lot of time with it. I've lived for short periods in houses with cats without any severe reactions.
I have had friends and family members who have been tested with allergy panels by doctors. Many of them have mild immune system responses to some things. Others have things that could potentially be life-threatening.
I agree with you that the study may be bogus. But not everyone with an allergy will die with casual contact to the allergen, and doctors "confirm" allergies all the time without necessarily giving prescriptions for epinephrine.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday January 06 2019, @05:12PM
Epinephrine is only useful in treating some allergies. Others don't respond to it. So your final figure is a low-balled estimate.
OTOH, my allergist required me to carry epinephrine, but didn't give me a prescription. (He supplied it.) So even the low-balled estimate is too low. (That said, I never had to use it, and no longer carry it.)
Not all allergies are life threatening. I suspect that most aren't. But even though it isn't life threatening, it can be quite disagreeable, so I really need to avoid certain foods. (One example of something I avoid is bell peppers [not chili peppers, though], which causes intestinal bleeding in me. But that's not something that shows up on the allergy test, and I can eat things lightly flavored with bell peppers, so if they're in chunks large enough to remove, they cause me no problem. But officially it's not an allergy.) That's not an official allergy, but it causes me real problems. OTOH, I test positive to an allergy to shrimp, but that's never given me a problem. (Perhaps prawns are sufficiently different from shrimp?)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday January 06 2019, @10:37PM
Is an allergy only one that can be "treated" with an epi pen?
coeliac disease kills the microvilli in the gut, and prevents micro-nutrient absorption (every sufferer has slightly different levels of imoact, and symotoms, but long term impact is pretty much "early death", owing to something related to lack of thos micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, etc))
So, "allergy" vs "food related illness" may be semantics, but it *matters*, medically, because the treatment is different.
Some medical conditions require *prevention*, and that is the only way to "treat" the problem, so these are often called "feed related illneses"
Some can be treated after the event, and these are often/usually called "allergies".
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex