What IS it with all these allergies?

[BlooDeBloop]

Just back in the UK after a decade of life in the EU and find the UK is full of people with allergies. Kids school has banned nuts. The numbers of adults I've met with gluten/coeliac disease, lactose intolerance, nut allergy etc is incredible. There was that terribly sad case of the teenage dying in London from eating a milk product. I reckon maybe as much as 10% of adults I've been meeting have some kind of complaint. What the hell is going on in the UK?

I’m surprised people aren’t mentioning the EAT and LEAP trials - it seems increasingly clear that actual allergies (not just diagnosis or survival rates or awareness) are increased massively - and late introduction of allergenic foods seems a huge driver. Introduction of peanuts early (at 3 months) almost eliminated the development of peanut allergy.

There are far more people in countries such as Spain, who are lactose intolerant.

Most of the world is lactose intolerant, it's Northern Europeans who are the anomaly.

If cleaning were a factor my DH would not have allergies as indeed neither would most Indians have intolerances to milk etc.

Lactose Intolerance is because your body stops creating the enzymes needed to digest it, this is normal for most of the world where milk is for babies.

Northern Europeans tolerate alcohol better than many others because our ancestors realised alcohol is safer to drink than water, in Asia they discovered boiling water and making tea made it safe to drink.

There are racial differences with some medical conditions / intolerances but due to the spectre of eugenics it is difficult to study it or even discuss it. We are a multicultural country but we mostly ignore that when health is being discussed.

I’d love to know about this.

2 DC

Dc1 bottle/formula fed. Strong as an ox, no allergies, never poorly, resilient child, tall for age. Weaned as per guidelines at 6 months.

Dc2, EBF, allergic to animal fur (acute and extreme), asthma, eczema, hay fever and now joint issues, small for his age. Weaned as per guidelines at 6 months.

Neither were c-sections, no history of family allergies of any kind on either side, both had exactly the same environment. The only difference is one was EBF and one wasn’t and the one who wasn’t is the healthy one ironically. I have no idea about exposure but we had cats till DC2 was 2yo. The cats died and a year later that allergy started. I have no idea how that can even work.

Read the book, "What's making our children sick?" by the US pediatrician Michelle Perro. She thinks it's industrialized food, including all the pesticides that they are grown with. She gets wonderful results with very sick patients just by prescribing an organic diet that's also free from genetically modified (GM) foods (GM foods are common in the US food supply, not so in the EU where consumers have objected to them more). There are now a number of doctors and pediatricians who prescribe organic and non-GM diets for sick patients, with good results.

It's fascinating and worrying.

My DD was an IVF baby, born prematurely (29 weeks) by emergency c-section, formula fed - and she currently has no known allergies (she's 8).

There was also a spike in children with nut allergies whose mothers followed government advice to avoid nuts while pregnant. I avoided nuts when I was pregnant as per the advice at the time and my son has a peanut allergy. Wish I had used my common sense more and eaten lots of nuts while pregnant!

I craved peanuts when pregnant with DC3, I ate packets and packets of them. He is allergic, and I've always wondered if it was my fault.

The LEAP studies, which are specific only to peanuts, show that early exposure can reduce incidence of developing a peanut allergy by 81%. That's impressive and can guide behaviour on peanuts but it also shows that early exposure is not the whole story (bearing in mind that they were forced to exclude children who were born with a peanut allergy from their sample so it goes beyond those 20% who went on to develop a peanut allergy even with early exposure) and it certainly can't be extrapolated to all food allergies.

notso as you can see on this thread, plenty of people followed the guidelines and their DC have allergies and others didn't and their kids do have allergies. These things can't be seen on a case-by-case basis. Population-wide tests and observations can inform but can in no way predict for individuals. The fact is no one can tell you specifically why your child has a nut allergy.

Read the book, "What's making our children sick?" by the US pediatrician Michelle Perro. She thinks it's industrialized food, including all the pesticides that they are grown with.

Us food is very different to the UK/EU. McDonalds chips in the UK are made with; potato, salt, cooking oil and a flavour enhancer for part of the year, US frise have about 17 ingredients.

Meat production is also very different with routine antibiotics given.

The late introduction of nuts doesn't follow the same pattern in lactose intolerance for example. Asians are commonly lactose intolerant - we now think because milk products are absent from typical Asian cuisine. The Asian youth today have increasing demands for milk products (linked to seeing the bigger boned, taller, stronger Western competitors in one of the first televised Olympics, apparently). Because they were fed early on dairy the lactose intolerance has died out from the younger generation (I'm recalling this from something I read a while ago).

My sister has a severe nut allergy (airborne) so I avoided all nuts when pregnant as I couldn’t see my family otherwise. My dd was born with eczema (as both my sisters have eczema) but other than a mild dairy allergy she grew out of after the milk ladder, she has been fine since.

She’s had allergy testing and the specialist made us introduce all the highly allergenic foods before 6 months. I was very scared of this but she was weaned early on milk, eggs, peanuts etc before her immune system matured at 6 months following the LEAP study. So far no problems but neither me nor her dad have eczema, asthma or food allergies either.

I wish I'd managed to see the allergy consultant with DD early enough to get the advice to wean early. Despite first mentioning my concern re my baby and allergies (given that there seems to be a generic predisposition in my family) to my GP before she was even born I had to wait until DD had her first allergic reaction to even get the referral going. She was 10m at her first allergy appointment.

I should have said that although she didn't have her first clear reaction (hives) until 7m that there were obvious signs from week 1 that there were going to be issues (she couldn't tolerate formula top ups unless in tiny amounts, throwing straight back up anything more than 20ml and had 10-14 green mucus nappies a day during the top up phase). Ugh it was a horrible time!

@Alabasterangel6 the only difference is not that one has formula and one was breastfed. They also have different genetics. They might be siblings but their genes are quite different

We've really buggered things up, that's what.
My son has an epi-pen, heaven knows what triggered it off. Daughter is fine. I can't eat a speck of gluten without getting ill for a week. My house isn't especially clean, I had pets and an allotment, plenty of dirt here.

My 3rd child has an allergy and she's the one who never had anything sterilised, cat sleeping in her cot, definitely not very clean house, eating dirt and crumbs off the floor when lightly supervised etc. I didn't cut anything out in pregnancy and exclusively breastfed her.

My family is very atopic though, grandparents diagnosed with asthma/eczema/nut allergies back in the 60s.

I read a headline today about pollution soot being found in placentas - it's not that humans are naturally unhealthy, we just live in very unnatural surroundings.

I blame Brexit.
We brits are allergic to bullshit.

Soot particles are quite large, aren't they?

Increased awareness and doctors being more keen to test for allergies? I am gluten intolerant. Got the coeliac blood test and it was negative - but considering cutting out gluten immediately corrected the horrific sickness I'd had for going on a decade I think I can assume that was indeed the issue.

But for years, I hadn't even heard of coeliac disease or gluten intolerance, and it's hard to know that's what's wrong with you when nobody has ever mentioned it. People are figuring it out now, realising the symptoms they've had for years are an allergy or intolerance - not just "a dodgy tummy".

There was also a spike in children with nut allergies whose mothers followed government advice to avoid nuts while pregnant. I avoided nuts when I was pregnant as per the advice at the time and my son has a peanut allergy

Yes me too. Fortunately ds doesn't have a peanut allergy but I was given exactly the same advice.

I had hay fever as a child, but I either grew out of it, or my allergen was regional.

I think it's a really interesting subject & assume it's a combination of factors.

Definitely think raised awareness is a factor particularly for mild allergies.

DH can't eat a fruit with skin (apple/pear) without getting tingling/swelling in his mouths & gums, even organic types. However we have visited family in rural France & had an apple from the farmer next door & he has no problem. He also suffers from eczema. DC1 developed bad eczema last yr aged 4, it completely went over the Summer, vitamin D?
I also know of someone who had a very bad car crash & walked away but developed hay fever.

I'm 49 and have suddenly developed an allergy to mangoes. I'm also allergic to lots of detergents and makeup now as well. It's just happened out of the blue. I'm not a cleaning fanatic, I use natural cleaners, no antibac and I've kept pets for years, so have a reasonable level of scruffiness.

DD has egg and cows milk allergies and i'm currently watching her try to lick the sole of her own shoe. We are not too clean in this house!

I think we're more aware of things nowadays and seek help more quickly - lots of DD's early symptoms would have been dismissed as colic, fussy baby etc 30 years ago and my mum only just remembered the other day that when i was a toddler they gave me goats milk as i 'didn't get on with' cows. Didn't see a doctor, no HV advice, just did it. Certainly no talk of an allergy. The internet probably hasn't helped in that regard.

I read an article recently which put it down to better awareness/diagnosis. The allergies existed, but people died - usually labelled asthma attack or choking.

The Asian youth today have increasing demands for milk products (linked to seeing the bigger boned, taller, stronger Western competitors in one of the first televised Olympics, apparently). Because they were fed early on dairy the lactose intolerance has died out from the younger generation (I'm recalling this from something I read a while ago).

It doesn't work that way