http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/science/27qna.html

The Fatal Peanut
By C. CLAIBORNE RAY
Published: December 27, 2005

Q. I never used to hear about peanut allergies, especially fatal ones. Is the number increasing?

A. Experts differ on whether more people are becoming allergic to peanuts or more cases are being recognized and reported. Allergies over all were poorly understood until recent decades, and sudden deaths from anaphylactic shock owing to extreme peanut sensitivity might easily have been ascribed to other causes.

Reasons that have been suggested for an actual increase in cases include changes in diet and changes in manufacturing techniques for processed foods, which could expose and sensitize more and more people.

Allergy to peanuts is found in about 0.6 percent of Americans, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Allergy to peanuts or tree nuts is the most severe of food allergies, and unlike most of them, which tend to fade with age, it often persists into adulthood and increases in severity with each exposure.

Because it is life-threatening, peanut allergy is the first target of a new Food Allergy Research Consortium, which will receive about $17 million from the allergy institute. The researchers will evaluate a possible desensitization therapy using a modified form of the peanut proteins that set off the allergic reaction; using natural peanuts is too dangerous.

In 2000, one of the researchers in the study, Dr. Hugh A. Sampson of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said in the Journal of Pediatrics, "Most pediatric allergists agree that the prevalence of food allergies, and peanut allergy in particular, is increasing, although appropriate epidemiologic data to substantiate this belief are lacking. The reason for this apparent rise continues to elude us."

C. CLAIBORNE RAY

It's evolution. *snicker*

I know peanut or really any allergy is nothing to laugh at, but for some reason when I read it, evolution popped into my head. I personally think it's less hygienic conditions. I mean it only takes one person not cleaning something to contaminate something else. And a lot of people do not give allergic reactions the merit they deserve. Especially if they don't have allergies themselves. Or they have non life threatening allergies, so, of course, no one else's could be worse than theirs.. (That isn't "everyone" of course) But, I have reaction to aspartame. I've been told that since I don't break out in hives, I'm not allergic. I just have a sensitivity. I just get a case of diarreah and horrible cramps.. And I'm told, since it didn't bother them, it must be "something else" in the product. But, I've had that reaction when that's the ONLY sweetener in the product...

I'm not sure about the evolution part, but if more children are surviving their peanut allergy (ie it doesn't kill them as children) and passing their allergy genes to the next generation, it could at least in part explain the increase.
Strangely enough, peanuts are the only 'nut' (they're actually not nuts but legumes) that my DH is not allergic to but he has life-threatening (as in carry an Epi-Pen with you at all times) allergies to all tree nuts along with several other foods. What's interesting is that he developed these food allergies as an adult at the age of 40.

Actually, a lot of allergies are being blamed on living with a "too clean" environment. You don't find the number of allergies in third world countries that we have in the US. They say children in multi-children households, and pets, help kids not develop allergies. Probably because enough challenges are brought into their environment to help develop REAL challenges to their immune system.

My son had an anaphylactic reaction to peanuts when he was a toddler. It was terrifying. It was also frightening for him to have to carry around an epipen kit and to know that something so simple and so prevalent could kill him. I took him to a Dodger game once. We had to leave right away because there were peanuts all around him.

When he became a teenager, his allergist retested him using and external blood test,the patch test being too dangerous. Surprisingly, his allergy was gone! He still doesn't like to be around peanuts, but they won;t kill him.

"Actually, a lot of allergies are being blamed on living with a "too clean" environment"

I meant contaminate other items with peanuts because they didn't clean the container or belt or whatever... But, I've heard that about being "too clean" too. (I don't have that problem , pets, etc)

My mom sent me an article that suggested I avoid eating peanuts and tree nuts during my third trimester of pregnancy, in the hope that it might make a difference in the baby's allergy status.

Not sure about the science behind that, but it wouldn't be a big deal for me to avoid those things.

I think it's GM foods. I used to have a cast-iron constitution and was raised in something less than a sterile environment (ahem). I could eat, breathe, or contact anything non-poisonous. In the years since GM foods were forced into our diets without our permission or knowledge, I have developed "sensitivities" (also no hives, but sometimes painful and severe reactions) to a number of different foods. Apparently, I'm not the only one. Fancy that! A recent increase in allergies and sensitivities. Gee.

The food industry will blame these allergies on anything but the the food, of course.

I've heard that about illness, but never about allergies. Moms who are a little too zealous about keeping their kids healthy and zapping as many germs in the environment as possible can actually be doing them a disservice by not allowing their immune systems to be challenged once in a while.
Allergies, on the other hand, have a strong genetic component. My DH has had 'hay fever' since he was small and now has developed food allergies in his middle age. My oldest daughter who favors her dad's side of the family has had 'hay fever' (dust actually triggers her the worst) since she was 2, probably younger, and when she was diagnosed, her pediatrician just shrugged and said, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree". We had 2 indoor cats at the time and having 2 babies under 2 I wasn't exactly obsessive about house cleaning. My youngest DD (raised in the same house and environment) has no allergies so far but she tends to favor my side of the family.



That would go a long way towards explaining why my DH has developed allegies to foods this late in life and the types of foods he's now allergic to (raw apples, carrots, celery, peaches and all tree nuts cooked or not), but it doesn't explain airborne allergies (dust, molds, mildew, pollen, grasses, etc...). Perhaps, like many things, it's a combination of genes and environment?

something he's eating is making him hypersensitive. A few years ago, I had a tooth break. It had had a root canal, so they didn't get me in for four days. Well, it got infected. Then, to deal with that, they would drill in, clean it and put in a temporary filling. Then do it again the next week. The infection was so bad, my jaw bone was gray on the x ray. I had hives the whole six months. The dentist stated that it was something other than the tooth. I didn't think so though, as I could go in reasonably clear and be breaking out when I left. I began reacting to everything. If I changed clothes I'd break out, so I changed my laundry detergent. They had me on inhalers and steriods and antibiotics. The combo that killed a few people then. The erethromycin and a antihistamine that they no longer use together. To finish up a long and convulted story. When they finished getting the infection out of the tooth and put the permanent filling in and crown on it. My hives were gone. Period. Very weird.

My "hay fever", which I have suffered from for the last 15 years (all as an adult), turned out to be a wheat sensitivity. I know that's not the same thing as a peanut allergy, but it's possible that our increasing poor diet is at least partly to blame for the increasing allergies.

Could it be that as a population we are being exposed to more peanut-containing products than in the past? Not sure how common peanut butter was a hundred years ago. Same goes for all foods, our food distribution system is so developed that we are eating stuff from around the world now. Things are available year-round, that were either seasonal or not available at all in the recent past. And we can afford more of them as well.

Why blame GM foods when there isn't a shred of evidence that they cause allergy or even that incidence has changed? I think it is because of the internet, I mean it has come onto the scene in the last ten years and here we are seeing an increase in allergies. TMI.

I think it is possible that the average carb-laden diet is causing our immune systems to be on constant high alert, making us more prone to have an allergic reaction to something that would otherwise be a mild allergen. I myself have had my asthma and acne essentially dissappear after being on LC for a year. Thats just a correlation and proves nothing, but I think I've read where insulin has something to do with inflammation. I'm banking on this helping me to avoid the arterial disease that is prevalent in my family.

We could also attribute an increased sensitivity to allergens, to things like dust and smog from cars. Anything that irritates your system, kicks your immune system on and from there you are a hair-trigger away from a severe reaction. Without being on DefCon5 all the time, you might not even have noticed the reaction to something you were otherwise mildly allergic to.

There are many many possibilities. And this is only IF we assume the incidence is going up, and not simply the rate of recognition. I suppose that until we have evidence that there actually has been an increase in allergy incidence, the potential cause(s) are a nonissue.

Many GM foods do not express the protein in the edible parts of a plant. And it escapes me, why someone would think that a foreign protein would cause anything but an allergy to that particular protein? You don't eat peanuts and develop an allergy to wheat, not unless there is homology between proteins from the two species. And the GM proteins are typically bacterial in origin, which means we are also exposed to them in our guts in many cases.

I think it's mainly increased exposure, combined with the other factors mentioned.

It reminds me of latex allergies: many health care workers suddenly develop a severe allergy to latex after wearing gloves for 40 hours a week for a number of years. This happened to several of my co-workers, and there were always latex-free gloves available for them.