While most skincare and hair care is filled with potential allergy triggers, it turns out that organic versions are, to green proponents’ dismay, among the worst offenders. Allergies Can Be Natural, Too is a good article on this topic that appeared in the Thursday, April 28, 2011 NY Times. It should be particularly useful to parents of kids with atopic dermatitis.
Yet another article on Food Allergies in the NY Times. The focus is different from the previous article which dealt with overdiagnosis of the problem. This one has helpful information for people who have kids with documented food allergies. See: Food Allergies Toll on Families and Finances.
Gina Kolata's article in the May 12th NY Times summarizes this topic well. See: Doubt is Cast on Reports of Many Food Allergies.
"A medically supervised daily dose of peanuts may help children with peanut allergies greatly increase their tolerance to the food, according to two new studies that raise the possibility of a cure for this potentially life-threatening condition.
The findings, presented on Sunday at a meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in Washington, suggest that a treatment for peanut allergy may be developed in two or three years, said Dr. Wesley Burks, the chief of the division of pediatric allergy and immunology at Duke University Medical Center, who helped conduct the research." From NY Times article, March 16, 2009 -- see Full Article.
This is an interesting article, but is really "old wine in new bottles." Sulzberger experimented with oral desensitization over 50 years ago. It is likely that American Indians have done this for hundreds if not thousands of years (see Wayne Winterrowd's fine piece: "The Baleful Weed.") There is a fascination with Peanut Allergy. It is far rarer than one thinks but has a strangely compelling aura. See Extraordinary Nutty Delusions.
Here is the abstract of a recent review of oral desensitization from PubMed:
Beyer K, Wahn U. Oral immunotherapy for food allergy in children. Curr Opin Allergy Clin Immunol. 2008 Dec;8(6):553-6.
Children's Hospital Charité, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
[email protected]
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Food allergy is a common disease in childhood. Natural tolerance development is frequent, but some children with cow's milk or hen's egg allergy and the majority of children with peanut allergy will remain allergic until adulthood. Within the last several years, the usefulness of oral immunotherapy has been investigated in food allergic patients. This review covers the most recent findings. RECENT FINDINGS: In cow's milk and hen's egg allergy, controlled trials have been conducted in children, showing that oral immunotherapy, in general, has been successful and safe. Moreover, rush protocols have been developed allowing desensitization in a short period of time. Although side effects are frequent, allergic reactions seem to be controllable by antihistamines, steroids, or epinephrine. For peanut allergy, the first results look promising and detailed data will be available shortly. SUMMARY: Several studies have shown that oral immunotherapy is a promising approach, especially in patients with severe and persistent food allergy. Side effects are frequent but seem controllable. So far, treatment protocols have been performed in highly supervised research settings. Until more experience is gained from larger long-term studies, oral immunotherapy should not be tried in clinical practice settings.
"Doctors
say that misdiagnosed food allergies appear to be on the rise, and
countless families are needlessly avoiding certain foods and spending
hundreds of dollars on costly nonallergenic supplements. In extreme
cases, misdiagnosed allergies have put children at risk for malnutrition."
This is an important article that you should read if you are afraid you or your child has food allergies. It's old news. Hugh Sampson has been saying this for > 15 years, but many docs were not listening. The simple answer is that in many cases RAST testing is overused. Be warned.
An important comment piece was published in the British Medical Journal of December 10, 2008.
BMJ 2008;337:a2880
This allergies hysteria is just nuts
Nicholas A Christakis, professor of medical sociology, Harvard Medical School, and attending physician, Mt Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, Massachusetts
The issue is not whether nut allergies exist or whether they can occasionally be serious. Nor is the issue whether reasonable accommodation should be made for the few children who have documented serious allergies. The issue is what accounts for the extreme responses to nut allergies and what to do about the responses and the allergies themselves.
The responses bear many of the hallmarks of mass psychogenic illness (MPI), previously and quaintly known as "epidemic hysteria." MPI is a social network phenomenon involving otherwise healthy people in a cascade of anxiety. Outbreaks typically occur in small towns and in schools, factories, and other institutions, and they are most often prompted by fears of contamination. It does indeed provoke anxiety to imagine a hidden, deadly danger in so innocent a thing as having a snack in kindergarten. And being around others who are anxious heightens one’s own anxiety.
Read in full: Download Nut Allergy Nuts