Food Allergies by Brainard Jason;

Author:Brainard, Jason;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A licensed medical professional can help a patient identify which foods are making them feel ill.

A Useful Tool

Sometimes an elimination diet is used to help test for food allergies. An elimination diet is one in which the most common allergens (and other suspected ones) are totally removed from an individual’s diet. After this diet has been followed for several weeks, individual foods are slowly reintroduced to the diet one at a time. For instance, eggs may be reintroduced first. If the individual shows no signs of discomfort after eating them for the first time in weeks, it can be assumed that they are not allergic to eggs. The next day, peanuts might be reintroduced. If there is no sign of a negative reaction, it can be assumed they are not allergic to peanuts. This continues until all foods that were eliminated are reintroduced into the person’s diet. The hardest part of an elimination diet is following it faithfully. Consuming even a trace amount of an allergen can ruin the test.

Many allergists and physicians consider elimination diet tests to be a useful tool. They caution, however, that the diets are best used in combination with other allergy detection methods. In addition, people with a history of severe allergic food reactions should not be tested through elimination dieting due to the risk that such a reaction may occur when a food is reintroduced. Furthermore, it can be hard to pinpoint food allergies through this method. Some studies indicate that elimination diets remove broad categories of food without sufficient evidence that they cause allergic reactions. “We get patients referred to us all the time who have been placed on very restrictive diets. They may be off ten or twenty foods,” said allergist Hugh Sampson. “We go through a full evaluation, and it turns out they are allergic to only one or two.”28 Overly restrictive elimination diets can also make it harder for patients to get the vitamins and nutrients that they need. This is especially true for children, whose food choices are dictated by concerned parents.

Too Old for Allergies?

Most allergies—including food allergies—first show up during childhood. Sometimes, though, adults can suddenly develop an allergy to foods they have enjoyed all their lives without experiencing any problems. In some cases, a food allergy can develop virtually overnight. “Allergies are like any ailment, they can strike whenever,”1 said allergist Neeta Ogden. Some people also develop asthma for the first time in adulthood. Cases of adult-onset asthma may or may not be caused by food allergies.

In many cases, the reason why someone suddenly develops an allergy to a food they used to be able to eat is a mystery to scientists. They note, though, that it is a relatively rare phenomenon. According to researchers, an allergy to shellfish is the most frequent type of food allergy that crops up in adulthood. In some rare cases, though, a cause can be identified. For example, in 2017, researchers found that some adults who were suddenly experiencing anaphylaxis for

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