Food Allergies

[NerdGirl]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/58819/

I just submitted a comment on this (trying to explain the whole gluten-free thing a bit) and I think I forgot to sign it... so if I didn't sign it and the comment gets approved, that was me!
(And if it doesn't get approved I'll post it here anyway because I know you're all be dying to know what I said!).

[vorpal blade]

Good comment, NerdGirl. Some of my relatives thought they had celiac disease, but I don't think it was confirmed by testing. They certainly have problems with gluten.

[NerdGirl]

Thanks, vorpal! I didn't want my comment to get any longer than it already was, but there are some people who have issues with gluten but don't test positive for celiac. In some cases it's because they have IgA deficiency, which for some reason is more common in people with celiac, and the blood tests they normally do don't work for people with IgA deficiency. Some people believe that there's such a thing as gluten intolerance that doesn't cause the damage related to celiac, but others say that people who seem to fit into that category are just in an early enough stage of the disease that the damage is still undetectable by the tests. And there are other GI issues that are sometimes inadvertently helped by eating gluten-free, which is why I think it's really important for people to get tested. I met a woman on a celiac support group online who tried a gluten-free diet and it made her feel better, but she finally decided to get tested, so she ate gluten for the tests and they didn't find celiac but they did find ulcers and an intestinal hernia! So now her ulcers and hernia have been treated and she's back eating gluten again without any problems, and she's quite happy that she can KFC and beer again.

And if anyone's interested in the research I referred to showing that celiac is becoming more prevalent, here are a couple of newspaper articles on it:
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20 ... ce_090701/
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/0 ... re-common/

I've wondered if something similar is happening with food allergies, but I haven't looked into it much yet. It would be a lot harder to do a study like that for food allergies, though, because there isn't this nice blood test you can use. But it seems like the incidence of food allergies is increasing like crazy!

[Hypatia]

NerdGirl,

Thanks for your comment, it was incredibly insightful! As for the possibility of food allergy incidence increasing over the past few years, I have a theory:

Food allergies are exacerbated by seasonal allergies. Seasonal allergies put the body into allergy hyper drive so any further aggravation could trigger anaphylaxis. Since more people are suffering from seasonal allergies (cleanliness, pollution, genetics, what have you.) food allergies are manifesting themselves at a higher rate.

This study (http://www.aaaai.org/media/statistics/a ... istics.asp) seems to support your speculation that more people than ever have food allergies. Crazy indeed!

[Whistler]

I have a question about this! Would taking allergy pills for seasonal allergies affect food allergies? I am thinking probably a little.

[Imogen]

you know what i just found out i'm allergic to? CHICKEN!!! OF ALL THINGS!!!! it's a mild allergy, but still....chicken....it's not fair.

also, i'm allergic to the outdoors. i'm going to get the shots, which i know can be used for food allergies, but i guess not gluten/wheat.

[NerdGirl]

Imogen - CHICKEN?!?!? That totally sucks!!

And Whistler, I think in the case of mild food allergies seasonal allergy pills can help a bit if you take them right after you eat the offending food. My mom has a lot of bad pollen allergies and mild allergies to melons and a couple of different kinds of nuts, and if she takes one of her allergy pills after eating something she shouldn't have it helps. But when she eats a food she's allergic to she just gets an itchy throat and her lips get a bit puffy, so it's not anywhere near life-threatening. I read something a few months ago about how people with allergies to certain pollens are also more likely to have allergies to certain foods because the offending proteins are similar.

I'm allergic to maple pollen and wasp stings, but no foods other than gluten. Celiac disease works slightly differently than an allergy because of some complicated immunological reason that I don't really understand well enough to explain, and that's why allergy medicine and shots don't do anything for it. I think different immunoglobulins are involved or something, so the reaction works differently. Celiac disease causes permanent (but reversible when you stop eating gluten) damage, but it won't kill you instantly like a food allergy can.

And that was an interesting study you linked to, Hypatia!

[Whistler]

ahh, interesting. I also am allergic/sensitive to melons, among other things, which is kind of a shame.

[Craig Jessop]

ahh, interesting. I also am allergic/sensitive to melons, among other things, which is kind of a shame.

Eating watermelon and bananas makes my inner-ears itch. It's just those foods and I have no other adverse effects from eating them (which is good, because watermelon is my favorite fruit of all time).

[vorpal blade]

Small correction to my previous comment. Two of my wife's brothers are confirmed by testing to have celiac disease. Some of my nephews have it, and for twenty years they thought another nephew had it, but testing said that he didn't. We weren't sure for a while about some of my kids. Anyway, no fun to have it or allergies of any kind.

[NerdGirl]

I was digging through my old questions and I found this comment I submitted only 5 short months before the very surprising day that I found out I probably had celiac disease! My doctor was trying to fix this anemia I had that just kept getting worse, and she had sent me to get yet another blood test to see if my iron levels were responding yet, and she also decided to put a celiac test on there just to rule that out. She didn't even tell me about it until it came back positive two days later. Then when I had the biopsy my villi were completely flattened and the GI doctor thinks I've probably had it for many years. At least I apparently already knew what had gluten in it, although what I said about oats is only half-true. Pure oats are gluten free, but they are almost always contaminated with wheat in the milling process, so you have to find oats that are specially processed.

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/45192/