Are Food Allergies Over Diagnosed?

by Michael on July 15, 2010 in Allergies

Results of a study and organized by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases conducted study shows that 30% of Americans think they have food allergies while 5% actually do.

There seems to be several reason for the results:

Lack of stringent test standards. Results reported from allergy studies were not standardized and often lacked clarity. Most people confuse being intolerant to a certain food ( simply react badly ) with being allergic. ( Which by definition needs to involve the immune system.

And secondly others have been simply misdiagnosed. The two most common test – skin rick and blood test – applied resulted in an almost 50 % misdiagnosis.

“When someone is allergic to something, their immune system responds the way it might if it were infected with a parasite,” says Hugh A. Sampson, professor of pediatrics and dean for translational biomedical sciences at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics”.

Here’s a quick overview of some common effects that would occur in Intolerance and Allergic Reactions

Normally allergic symptoms include: ( immune System )

hive
swelling
wheezing
anaphylaxis

Normal Intolerance Symptoms: ( digestive System )

gas
nausea
headaches
bloating
diarrhea

In addition for some unknown reason some people that have suffered in the past from food allergies have since recoverd without ever knowing and some allergies are of cyclical nature.

To make things even more confusing once you have received a positive allergy test doesn’t necessarily mean you have an allergy.

“Allergy tests screen for IgE antibodies, which can indicate an allergy to a certain substance. However, while the IgE antibodies may point to an allergy, their presence is, in practice, irrelevant if a person has no physical reaction to the suspected allergen. Dr. Joshua Boyce, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard and an allergist and pediatric pulmonologist, told The New York Times that the immune system often produces IgE antibodies while reacting to certain food proteins, but that “these antibodies can be transient and even inconsequential.”

In plain English: while the test can positively detect if one has an allergic antibody – it doesn’t mean that one will react

To be absolutely sure patients would have to undergo a food challenge – small amount of foods are being eaten in an controlled enviroment under the supervision of a nurse or doctor. While this is one effective strategy – the downsides are time and costs.

While the percentage of people that really have allergies is lower that perceived , nevertheless estimates are as high as 10% of the American population truly have food allergies. The main reason is likely the fact that at one point these antibodies had a real function in our system – warding of parasites – but with advances in modern medicine and our ” pampered ” western lifestyle there is simply not much fighting going on any more. – so these antibodies will react to other stimuli.

While the research discovers some shortfalls in the current way allergy research is conducted it also shows that we simply don’t know very much about the reasons and treatment of food allergies.

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