Some are Saying There is a Peanut Allergy 'Epidemic' - is There?

Peanut allergy has been called "almost epidemic" in the United States. But the danger they actually present is very much up for debate.

Now that world has basically shrugged off a dire climate change report by UN scientists earlier this month predicting an environmental crisis as soon as 2040, we can turn our eyes back to the big issues, like how to pack a proper school lunch.

Parents are being warned of a peanut allergy "epidemic." Or "almost epidemic," to be precise.

"It really is almost an epidemic," Dr. Scott Sicherer, the director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at New York's Mount Sinai hospital, told CNBC's "On the Money" on Sunday.

A Jaffe institute study found that from 1997 to 2008, peanut allergies more than tripled from 1-in-250 children to 1-in-70.

"It's impossible to deny an increase, even with anecdotal reports from school nurses," Sicherer said, adding that "about two (children) per classroom have food allergies. It's not just our imagination."

In Sicherer's world, food dangers far worse than mayonnaise left out in the sun lurk at every turn for the allergy-prone.


"When you're living with a food allergy, it's like you're living in a landmine situation," he told CNBC. "Every meal, every snack, every party, every social activity — is that food that can hurt me going to be there?"

No one is arguing that peanut allergies aren't serious, but deaths are extremely rare. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official documented only 13 deaths (six of whom were adults) between 1996 and 2006.

More recent accounting suggests a few hundred people each year die in the U.S. from food allergies, with roughly 50 to 60 percent from anaphylactic shock related to peanut ingestion. You have a better chance of being hit by lightning.

"The problem is that the anxiety about nuts is far out of proportion to the risk," Dr. Nicholas Christakis, an internal-medicine specialist who studies medical sociology at Harvard Medical School, said in a 2009 interview.

Christakis told the BBC that the fear of peanuts had led to a situation resembling "mass psychogenic illness" — once known as epidemic hysteria.

The United States supposedly has a peanut allergy rate of between 1 to 2 percent and 10 percent of the population. That's far greater than in France (between 0.3 percent and 0.75 percent), Denmark (0.2 to 0.4 percent) and Israel (0.4 percent). Self-reporting may partly account for the discrepancy between the U.S. and other countries.

In a 2003 study published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 30 children with significant peanut allergy were exposed to peanut butter, which was either pressed on the skin for one minute, or the aroma was inhaled. None of the children suffered a severe reaction, although about a third experienced a reddening or flaring of the skin.

Hyping the danger of food allergies can be profitable to the people raising the alarm — for example, a drug company marketing a new food allergy suppressant.

It's worth noting that Sicherer's book "Food Allergies: A Complete Guide for Eating When Your Life Depends on It" (second edition/Johns Hopkins Press) is currently for sale on Amazon.

In recent years, doctors have been recommending parents feed infants at high risk of developing an allergy foods containing peanuts as early as four to six months. A 2015 Kings College, London, study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that eating peanuts in infancy prevents subsequent development of the allergy.



Source: sfgate.com