How did people with food allergies/intolerance cope in the past

[Turning25]

I've got coeliac disease, and am lactose intolerant along with it (very common to be both) DH has a severe nut allergy.

We were talking today about how people would have coped 50, 100, 200 years ago.

My gran (coeliac) told me she used to have gluten free bread in tins, and I've read that doctors used to prescribe a diet of banana for coeliac disease but not sure how true that is!

I suppose nuts maybe weren't so common 200 years ago? So DH wouldn't have died? I assume I'd have died from malnutrition in medival times?

Googling it is a bit overwhelming! Is there anyone who had older relatives with food allergies who could ask them?

Thank you

I think we ate in a much more unprocessed way, with few ingredients. In part The current gluten intolerances are a reaction to the amount of gluten now in bread - its injected to hold it together as the wheatgerm has been split in to parts and sold. Its not a natural crust that holds that supermarket bread together, its the gluten. Thats how i understand it.

thats not to say there weren’t intolerances. And yes people died or were sick

there will be so many variables, like life expectancy, standards of living and health etc

Nut allergies are increasing due to avoiding nuts in infancy. Also due to increased hygiene - asthma is worse when children are treated for intestinal worms very young, for example.
I was gluten and lactose intolerant in the 90s (for about 3 years, investigated for coeliac but thankfully it went away) and survived on rice cakes and horrible soy milk.

Your viewpoint is very interesting actually and tbh makes a lot of sense to me too.

My daughter has loads of life threatening food allergies (egg, peanuts, peas, lentils, hazelnut).

we have zero history of food allergies in our family, but all her dads side of the family suffer from hay fever.

There’s a hypothesis that hay fever became a big issue from around the 1950s, and the ‘new wave’ of allergies is food.

I also thought maybe it was caused by our diets being ‘too exotic’ but eggs and peas are such normal staple foods it doesn’t really ring true.

I did have a c section which I suspect may have played a part.

(We’re doing immunotherapy that exposes her to allergens gradually so she can currently have a peanut, a hazelnut and a few peas!)

I guess it depends what your intolerance is. My friend has years of suffering, had tests, nothing showed up. She had an inkling gluten was causing her problems, so cut it out and she felt better within days.

Didn't know that the increase on allergies was being attributed to c-sections and formula feeding.

How that is a cause? Especially c-srctions - what about them could lead to allergies? Is the the reason for the section or the actual section itself?

Regarding formula when rates of death in childbirth was high surviving babies were given animal milk, simply a raw form of formula. (Wet nurses were for the wealthy.)

They would have died. My family has a lot of "Tiny Tim" types who died in infancy and childhood dotted through the ages. My generation has a lot of children with severe CMPA and other food allergies.

There is fascinating new research on ancient wheat that say the level of gluten content was so much lower plus other grains were common like spelt.
My DD is intolerant of modern gluten but would likely have been fine years ago.

My understanding is that babies are coated with beneficial bacteria as they are squeezed through the birth canal in a vaginal birth. (Microbiomes from the mother being present in the birth canal, not just in the gut itself)

With c-section, a baby picks up very important bacteria being passed through the vaginal canal. It misses this with c-section. And what you are born with plays a part for the rest of your life (tho it is possible to improve it).

breast milk is also full of invaluable bacteria, thousands of chemicals you couldn’t hope to replicate in formula milk.

My mum is 80.

She grew up during rationing.

She is citrus intolerant.

Doesn't eat anything with any kind of citrus in or that might do.

My mum was diagnosed with multiple allergies in the 70's/80's only due to a pioneering doctor she saw. However I remember very clearly her being treated like someone with psychiatric problems - people didn't believe her. They would often think she was doing it for attention. Sometimes she would go out without telling people because she couldn't bear the way people would talk to her like she was mad. Then she would come back and be violently ill. For her that was often better than the judgement. I think dairy allergies and perhaps nuts were understood a bit but allergies to anything else were essentially thought to be in your head.

This is really interesting, especially the nut 'choking' and 'failure to thrive' being linked to intolerances and allergies. Makes so much sense.

As far as peanut allergy goes, there is some evidence that early exposure in small amounts reduces the occurrence of the allergy.

@reesiespieces
There’s a lot of evidence now, but it’s eating it that’s important, not exposure otherwise. Exposure through the skin of someone with eczema is thought to possibly trigger the allergy. Basically you need to eat the food before this happens. In children that are high risk for peanut allergies they now recommend giving diluted peanut butter from 4 months for example. (NB diluted as it’s very sticky and a choking hazard)

The previous advice to avoid these foods and to introduce later to high risk babies was all wrong it seems. That advice changed in 2008.

@Onlyvisiting I'm surprised you've never come across anyone with severe allergies.

I know 3 men in their 40s all with nut allergies. A woman 40s with coconut allergies, a couple of people with coeliac plus a man who developed a wheat allergy in his late 30s, full on anaphylaxis.

I'm intolerant to something in Daz soap powder, I've also reacted to a mosquito spray and a novelty soap.
I don't think about it often but it took ages to get the hives to settle after the Daz.

Well yes, more than aware there's bacteria in breast milk and birth canal. But how does this cause food allergies?

If it were to do with lung development I'd have better understanding to be honest. But the link between bacteria protecting against allergies less so. Just feel there would be more into how bacteria can be used to prevent allergies.

I'll have a look for research papers.

Failure to thrive could be anything.
There's a thought that two children who were 'failure to thrive, sickly children' in FILs family were actually Cystic Fibrosis on the basis that a child was diagnosed and treated a generation later.

I have anaphylactic food and nut allergies. With the benefit of hindsight these allergies manifested themselves when I was a toddler. The medical profession and my parents labeled me an attention seeking naughty child and I was punished for wheezing and breaking out in hives!

When I was eventually diagnosed as a 30 something adult in the 1990s it was a real step forward. I had to carry a Tupperware box with adrenaline in little glass phials, lots of steroid tablets and actual syringes and needles. EpiPens are an absolute marvel.

My parents refused to believe I had an actual allergy and maintained that I was 'difficult' all their lives.

My biggest regret is the late diagnosis meant I had already passed my genes to my children. Suppose at least I survived.

The lack of bacteria in C-section babies is thought to affect immune system development. Linked with the hygiene hypothesis, the ‘old friends’ hypothesis and so on. Basically the thinking is we need exposure to these microorganisms for the immune system to function properly.

I think that this may be a reversal of cause and effect. Children who need to be born by c section are by definition experiencing problems of development. I don’t know enough about formula feeding to comment, but problems with milk supply might also be linked to a less than perfect pregnancy. (Hope not to have offended anyone, no judgement intended).

On past practice: my great grandmother was a village midwife in rural Northumberland in the nineteenth century, tales of her experiences have been handed down through the family. Women with a ‘good milk supply’ would feed babies or express milk for other women in the district who were ill or who had scant milk. Babies who ‘failed to thrive’ were given sheep or goats milk ( fun obtaining the first!) which was quite often effective.

I’ve heard of this and can only vaguely remember the reason - it’s something to do with having a vaginal birth meaning the baby is exposed to the microbes in the birth canal, fecal matter etc. Whereas with a c-section the baby is born in a more sterile way. Something like that.

From ancient greece onwards coeliac children were described as healthy till weaning when they stopped growing and faded away. The illness itself was well known , but the link to wheat (as its so common in diets) wasn't until the blockade of Amsterdam where these coeliac children put on weight when there was no bread unlike everyone else. The Irish potato heavy diet is thought to be the reason coeliac disease is so much more common as you could pass on your genes.
BTW, coeliac disease is actually an immune response to gliadin, a protein in gluten. Absolutely the same as ancient strains of wheat

No mention of allergies to animal fur/dander/droppings and the effect this would have on access to food! I'm allergic to most things that move. If I lived in a time and place where I had to deal directly with animals I would never have survived. If I had to ride horses, look after hens, milk goats, hunt rabbits, my face would have swollen shut or I'd have died of starvation. Luckily, I live in a time and place where I can avoid direct contact with most animals.

I just want to reinforce this message. My son was anaphylactic to peanuts and underwent a medically supervised treatment program, (that was only approved after blood tests over a long period of time). There was a young girl there with a dairy allergy. She had a very severe reaction and the medical staff were very responsive and professional but it was one of the scariest things I have ever seen in my life.

Having a son with severe allergies I have lost count of the times people say "just give him a little bit and he will get used to it". I wish people would just stop being so ignorant to the dangers of what this could do to a child.

Also adding to above, my grandmother (who would be 128 if alive today) used to get very distressed at the idea of children eating nuts and they could choke and die. Having had nut allergies diagnosed in more recent generations we do wonder if she was witness to an allergic reaction resulting in death that was mistaken for choking. Obviously nuts are a choking hazard but she was next level with her obsession about kids and nuts.