Why are so many children allergic to everything now days?

[Mummysharkdoodoodoo]

Watching grand designs and the couple have two children who are allergic to most things. Even the doctor was surprised that they were so ill on such high tablets.

Why are children allergic to more and more things now days?

What causes it?

This is really interesting, my DS age 6 has an allergy to pretty much all fish.

We are english but have lived in Australia for 10
Years now, when we had testing done, he had a reaction to every single local fish (11) except the control sample which was a Europe's fish sample.

I wonder if it's an environmental thing, the water is different here and his genetic tolerances are that of his European parents.

Maybe the foreign foods from across the world are a factor?

Better knowledge & diagnosis of allergies. In the mid 17th century, a haberdasher started a record of the cause of death of Londoners, tallied from the death records in the papers at the time. Some were recorded as having died from "Teeth and Worms", "Lethargy", "Fright", "Grief", "Stopping of the Stomach", and one person died of "Itch". It was also noted, apparently with surprise, that women appeared to outlive men, although it's unclear if this takes maternal mortality into account or if it just looks at the age of the oldest citizens & noting that many were female. It was also recorded that a third of the city's population did not live past the age of 6.

There could have been a lot of people with allergies. But how would people have found this out? In an era when many people in rural areas may have eaten a single source of carbohydrates as their primary calorie source, and if they were unlucky enough to live in an area that farmed rye, they could have experienced ergot poisoning. It is believed to be a possible cause for the symptoms which were blamed on witches in Salem.

How many kids in Britain during the 60's/70's/80's/90's were actually eating nuts though? Especially peanut butter?

I didn't have peanut butter till I was at uni in 2000. Yes it was available, but it wasn't popular.

I think a few factors are at play :

Widening food group (50 years ago people ate local, let's face it my grandma thought quiche was exotic. The spuds were from local fields, the meat locally reared. She was not eating coconut milk imported from Thailand)

Without a doubt people were outside more. This helped I think.

More exposure to dirt - the carrots were from the field - not precut in a supermarket where they've been power washed several times. Traces of dirt on carrots and veg help your immune system.

People's diets were more limited : therefore less chance of actually finding something to be allergic to. These days we eat everything from all cultures so more likely to find something to be allergic too.

I sure there's more but I'm knackered

We are english but have lived in Australia for 10
Years now, when we had testing done, he had a reaction to every single local fish (11) except the control sample which was a Europe's fish sample

^^

Let's face it, if you've got 500 years of ancestry of eating certain goods, then you suddenly introducer barramundi or whatever, your body probably thinks 'what the hell is this???' and reacts via an allergic reaction.

I believe a combination of better recognition/diagnosis, hyper-hygienic environments (and I say that as a dx OCD sufferer who had to fight that to allow my dd to get dirty sometimes as a small child), over prescription of anti-biotics in the past, pollution, unnatural farming methods (anti-biotics there too of course) and of course better treatment of allergies means those of us with genetic predisposition to certain allergies now survive to procreate whereas in the recent past we'd have died!

Lots of reasons.

"my Mum is a bit OCD" off topic but PLEASE don't use the phrase "a bit OCD" there's no such thing and it's an incredibly distressing and serious condition, please don't minimise and trivialise in this way. It's really unhelpful to genuine sufferers.

I'd love to hear why I in the last 10-15 years have developed severe intolerances or allergies to various medications. Until that point I'd been able to take anything so I'm interested to know what part age plays in it.

"Did people die years ago of allergies? I can't remember one single person in my class who had an allergy (70s)" some still do. A colleague of mine died age 32 from an asthma attack on way home from work. Otherwise healthy, sporty guy.

"Similar to how hayfever is more common in people who weren’t exposed to a variety of pollens as a child." Never seen or heard of that and nothing coming up when I google. I have hayfever which several relatives do too on one side of family. I have almost always lived rurally and as an army brat moved all over uk and Europe so no doubt exposed to many different pollens.

Dd was bf until 9 months when my milk dried. She has/had a few allergies, the standard genetic trifecta of asthma/hayfever/eczema but far less severe than I had them (bottle fed from 6 weeks) she's not had an asthma attack since she was 3. Eczema and hayfever well controlled.

Also dd was emcs I was vaginal birth, again I have more trouble with allergies than she does.

"l don't remember any children l went to school with having allergies except me" could well be they had died before that point or were too 'sickly' to go. My gran had a brother with a lot of allergy issues he'd died before he reached school age.

"Our diets have changed vastly over the last 50 years or so." Yes but so has the genetics of the food we're eating!

I went veggie for ethical reasons 30 years ago. Purely coincidentally stomach issues I'd had all my life basically cleared up within about 6 months, but if I unwittingly eat something with red meat or red meat products in, even before I knew that had happened I got severe cramps and diarrhoea. Didn't surprise me at all when they found the links with certain meats to bowel disease. My dad was advised to stop eating red meat, processed meat by his gastro dr just before that info started hitting the headlines. He'd had similar symptoms for years and dismissed what I'd said as "veggie zealotry", then when his dr said it and he tried it, same - cramps, excess wind, diarrhoea cleared up. Dad is fine having chicken and fish though.

"When you have a child with allergies yourself, everyone shares their own stories and there are an amazing amount. People are also embarrassed to say they are allergic to something if they aren’t anaphylactic as it’s seen as such a faddy thing now. It’s not until you share your own story that they know you won’t mock them." Think that was even more true in the past.

I have another very clear food allergy, which my parents denied as me being 'fussy' until one time when they made me eat the offending food and I spent the next 48 hours regularly throwing up! Proper projectile vomit too! Never made me eat it again.

"You don't have to go far back to a time when very few children were affected by allergies." Lack of diagnosis =/= lack of existence! Pre-nhs most working class couldn't afford to go and get it diagnosed! They'd have just noted child can't manage eating/exposure to X y Z and not given them the thing they were allergic to!

I too was raised in a smoke filled home - asthma markedly improved after I left home!

Could it be linked to sunscreen usage?

I had peanut butter sandwiches for lunch everyday from the mid 80s. I don’t remember that being strange at all

I really don’t understand the weaning theory. Have any of these studies explained why this might be the case? People wean at 6 months now, rather than 4. 2 months, in a lifetime of 85 years. Why would such a small time period Make a difference to anything? The whole idea seems really weird.

There are more people with allergies because we can't cure the allergies but we can treat them. So people with allergies don't die, as they would have done at one time, and go on to have children with sometimes more severe allergies.

You can become allergic to anything at anypoint in your life. Iv suddenly became allergic to pineapple it makes my lips swell and gives me blisters lol

Shear that's an interesting theory and sounds plausible, so we're onto the second and third generation of allergies? Is there anything to back that up though?

I have severe allergies to nuts and pulses and am otherwise atopic too with asthma and eczema. My dad (born in the 40s) also has a nut allergy so I assume my allergies are genetic.

Anyway, I really came on here to join the discussion re what anaphylaxis looks like. It does not always include visible hives or swelling, or dramatic choking. It can be relatively calm looking similar to the quieter sort of asthma attack. There's an episode of one of the channel 4 paramedic programmes where a school call to report an asthma attack. It even takes the paramedics a few minutes to realise the girl has anaphylaxis due to the lack of swelling/hives. It educated me and I have experienced anaphylaxis myself!

Years ago a lot of kids would have dropped down dead. It may not have been marked as an allergy. But was iyswim ?? It would have just been put down to choking or heart failure.

Same as people saying 40 / 50 years ago ADHD and ASD didnt exist.........it did. The general population was just ignorant to it. 🤷‍♀️

When I was a kid in the 70’s I can’t remember anyone having allergies and surely the infant deaths weren’t that high years ago I think they are about the same. It can only be the GM foods and different diet people have nowadays, In pregnancy and in early years. It must also be something to do with lower breastfeeding rates.

Three of mine were breastfed - they all have allergies, two are severe. The only child without allergies was bottle fed.

I think it’s generic - my third child was very difficult to wean and had diarrhoea/ failure to thrive with lots of food. This resolved when he went Glutenfree for about 8 years. He’s now much healthier.

The first three kids were young together - same variety of foods, played outside - got dirty. I wasn’t overly particular to make them be clean because I knew the idea that ‘too clean’ predisposed to allergies, and there was a family history of atopy on their dad’s side.

And yet - three of them have allergies - and the only change between them and the oldest is that I was more confident as a mother and fully breastfed those three for several months.

Thinking about it oldest also weaned the youngest - around 10 weeks. Maybe foods need to be introduced earlier.

This is interesting

I did read somewhere that there is scientific support for the idea that there is a correlation between caesarians and allergies.

My son was born by cs, was bf then mixed then ff and has no allergies. Only moderately clean house in London but early trips to rural grandparents. Both I when pregnant and he when tiny had a much more varied diet than his grandparents or I as a child would have had; but probably no more additives.

I have no allergies except to mussels and oysters, which I didn't discover until I was an adult. I, like many at the time, was bottle fed. As a child (b1965) I remember two adult coeliacs and a couple of children with asthma and eczema. Hayfever seemed relatively common, especially around exams...

My husband, by contrast (b1961) has asthma and eczema (both developed in his teens), terrible hayfever, slight allergy to animals and has recently developed a severe allergy to aspirin. This looks to me like a genetic or early-acquired sensitivity which gets triggered from time to time

I certainly remember there being an understanding that there were people who were very allergic to bee stings, snake bites and nuts; but they were almost the stuff of legends.

ItWasntMeItWasIm he recovered fully thankfully.

"I don’t recall anyone in primary school (80s) being allergic to things"

My classmates would probably say the same, but I have severe allergies that were not formally diagnosed at primary age.

At that time, my parents knew that I would tear off wool sweaters and tights in an instant because they made me itch but classmates would not have seen it.

Antibiotic allergy wasn't diagnosed until my 20s.

Btw, I'm breastfed and born vaginally in a time/place where food was all local and home-made - The only person with allergies in my immediate family.

These things are not as easy as "Oh it must be genetically modified foods" or whatever. Correlation is not causation, and when what you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And by that I mean the prominence of the diet/nutrition malarkey is making people think everything is due to changes in diet/food.

I certainly don't think weaning is the issue. 12 weeks seems very young to introduce solids and remember bowel issues chrones disease and colitis are both very high in the 60's 70's and 80's generations who were weaned very young.

I think the poster who mentioned exotic / far travelled food could well be onto something.

Hayfever sufferers are advised to eat locally produced honey made with local pollens to reduce reactions to pollen.

40 years ago food was less travelled. People prepared most food from scratch at home. Using locally bought and produced ingredients. Bread was made in the local bakeries.
You just didn't get the freight planes flying food round the world. Refrigerated trucks didn't exist. Home freezers were restricted to an ice box inside the fridge.

My granny who never even owned a fridge, suffered quite bad asthma (or maybe poorly managed asthma) would be hospitalised fairly regularly, maybe twice a winter, for 4/5 days with asthma / chest infections.

I think they are slowly increasing but also deaths in the past would have just been unexplained.

My 2 year old has a milk allergy. I did take antibiotics for a big chunk of pregnancy, took blood pressure pills (had pre-eclampsia) and she was a c-section baby (breech). I think nowadays they wipe over the vagina then wipe over the baby's face. No idea if they did that for me as the curtain was up but if I have another one, I'll ask them to. I did breastfeed her. I also have a dust allergy and hayfever ; if a parent has any allergies the child is much more likely to have one too. It's shit. I've also read that the mother taking a daily probiotic (a good one) can reduce allergy rates.

I have no idea why my daughter has an allergy, but I wish she didn't!

I've always thought it was due to increasing maternal age, older mothers are more likely to have children who have allergies, cardiovascular issues or autism as well as accounting for a higher percentage of high risk births. In the past people had DC earlier in life, and older people recall seeing less children with allergies or autism. My younger brother has nut allergies, animal allergies, awful hay fever, asthma, had terrible eczema as a child my DM had him at 38, we joke that he was a defective egg (he instigated this btw) It would make sense to me that a mum who had mild allergies could pass those allergies on but magnified due to older eggs where abnormalities are more likely to manifest.

I doubt maternal age has anything to do with it.
I also think many ASD / ADHD cases would have been put down to the "odd ball" at the back of the class, bad parenting, or expelled or put in special school. Non diagnosis doesn't mean these kids didn't exist.
Early 80's, a girl lasted 3 days in my school having been expelled from another school. With hindsight I'm 90% certain that wee girl was autistic and terrified.

The problem with comparing in the past is, it isn't all one place. When dh was a child (early 60s) peanuts were probably a lot less prevalent- and we're not just talking peanut butter but things fried in peanut oil or peanut as a food ingredient in ready meals or peanuts prepared in the same part of the factory as other meals. Ready meals were less common for a start: MILs idea of a good meal (several days a week) was Smash and Spam with tinned peas- very few opportunities to sneak a peanut in there. A lot of things had changed by the time we got to the '80s, but there was probably still fewer peanuts in food preparation.

As for breastfeeding, was it really any more common in the '80s? Any stats here?

The "in the past people had children younger" is also a statement that begs the question "which past?" In the 19th century and early 20th lots of poor people (servants etc) could only marry late in life. As for the ones who did marry young- yes, they had their first child younger but by the time they got to the 11th, they were not that young any more. So there would still have been quite a few people around who were the children of older parents, though not always the only child of an older parent. The marry young/have only 2 children is probably more something that came in after WW2 and was the result of more money/more access to contraceptives.

I think the trouble with attributing anything to increasing maternal age is that years ago many people had larger families and so women giving birth in their 40's wasn't unusual.

I was born in the late 60s 3 children in my primary class of 30 had asthma.

My Dad was born in the 1930s and was asthmatic. His brother couldn't eat peanut butter (which was a standard 1970s sandwich filling btw)^^ as it made him cough...

I also strongly suspect that a lot of intolerances were simply not diagnosed. It's not too many years since chronic bowel conditions were thought to be the fault of anxious mothers.

I hadn't heard of the Leap study - thank for the reference. Interesting stuff.

beingsunny That's interesting, DH (whose family are from the Phillipines) has terrible excema, alopecia and doesn't like a lot of typical European foods (hot drinks, hot puddings etc.)

DS is mixed race and has the constitution of an ox (clearly got all the best genes from us both)

Mind you I know lots of mixed race children and my friends (both breastfed and live in the countryside) 2DC get every bug going, and her DS has allergies...I think some of it is just bad luck!