Why are childhood allergies so "common" nowadays?

KFCA

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Or does it just seem that way?

I grew up in the 1940ties/50ties, and my husband in the 1930ties/40ties, & neither of us can recall the allergy "problem" that seems to exist in kids today. The MOST either os of us can recall is hearing of someone's (ususally an adult's) occasional reaction to strawberries or tomatoes. Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches were de riguer in kids' lunchboxes. I "personally" never met an allergy-challenged "peer" until I was in my 20ties.Nowadays it seems every other kid is on a gluten-free diet & who knows about peanuts. And forget "dairy".

What, if anything, is going on? Or do a lot of parents just have an overactive imagination in seeing things in their child's behavior that a diet change is called for?
 
I don't have a link for you, but IIRC, the latest thinking is that children today are growing up in a more sterile environment.

The obsession with creating a dirt-free and bacteria-free environment for children, together with advances in air filtering, cleaning and disinfecting technology, has left them unequipped to deal with the outside world, which remains a dirty place.

Someone debunk me if I've just latched on to a recent myth. But I will still be creeped out by that advertisement where the mom follows the kid around with a can of Lysol, spraying all his toys before he touches them.
 
I'm allergic to work. I get violent, kitchy reactions and the urge to strangle some of my clients. Do you think claritin will help this?
 
It has been suggested that peanuts may have something to do with latex allergies.
 
I've ended up believing the same thing about our over-sterile environment and under-worked immune systems (hmm... I see a mob of confused anti-vaxers appearing over the horizon with flaming torches, all chanting "Whaddya mean under-worked?").

I also wonder about better diagnosis. If you didn't know nut allergy existed there would just be these unexplained sudden deaths. At least allergy can be objectively tested, so even if historical records are not reliable we can at least characterise today's population quite accurately. Unlike, say, autism/Asperger's which, as far as I can tell, has been subject to wildly wandering diagnostic boundaries. I believe now a genetic marker has been found for autism-spectrum disorder. Possession of a Y-chromosome. Ooh look, one of the mob of anti-vaxers has just had her head explode. Just goes to show the power of irony in the hands of a committed sceptic.
 
This is the hygiene hypothesis. In short it's complicated from what I can make of it.

Having a pet and a sibling and going to day care can reduce allergies; contracting a disease as a child does not protect against allergies as shown by a Danish study

My view was that modern living in a double glazed, centrally heated habitat may promote conditions optimal for the house dust mite which is a well known allergen. Yet this study says otherwise.

On the other hand, prenatal exposure may be a factor as evaluated here

I said it was complicated.
 
Badly Shaved Monkey said:
I've ended up believing the same thing about our over-sterile environment and under-worked immune systems (hmm... I see a mob of confused anti-vaxers appearing over the horizon with flaming torches, all chanting "Whaddya mean under-worked?").

I also wonder about better diagnosis. If you didn't know nut allergy existed there would just be these unexplained sudden deaths. At least allergy can be objectively tested, so even if historical records are not reliable we can at least characterise today's population quite accurately. Unlike, say, autism/Asperger's which, as far as I can tell, has been subject to wildly wandering diagnostic boundaries. I believe now a genetic marker has been found for autism-spectrum disorder. Possession of a Y-chromosome. Ooh look, one of the mob of anti-vaxers has just had her head explode. Just goes to show the power of irony in the hands of a committed sceptic.
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I think putting this down to people surviving unexplained infant mortality to emerge with a manageable condition could also put the anti-vaxers in a head spin. Or Kumar.

Does anyone know how long we've been able to identify anaphylaxia as a contributory factor in deaths? I'm assuming that the thread was referring to this and not less serious reactions to substances.
 
I come from a family that has had allergy problems and I am 42 years old, so it is not a new problem. My brother at times was allergic to eggs, milk and half a dozen other things.

I think any increase is due to better diagnosing and, unfortunately, misdiagnosing. If you go to an allergist, you can get a correct diagnosis. The scratch tests are fairly accurate.

If you go to various quacks, you can easily get a quack diagnosis as a child or an adult. I have seen to many adults who take some perverse pride in being allergic to wheat or something after visiting a chiropractor or naturopath or what ever flavor of quackery they prefer. I imagine they do the same for their children as well.

Also, many food intolerance (e.g. milk) are miscalled allergies. These things can affect babies who are just starting to eat real food. Fortunately, most of these are outgrown.

CBL
 
CBL4 said:
If you go to various quacks, you can easily get a quack diagnosis as a child or an adult. I have seen to many adults who take some perverse pride in being allergic to wheat or something after visiting a chiropractor or naturopath or what ever flavor of quackery they prefer. I imagine they do the same for their children as well.
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I know a woman whose toddler daughter was diagnosed (by a chirpractor) as being allergic to chicken. The diagnosis technique was this: the girl sat in the mom's lap, and the chiropractor mentioned the name of a kind of food, then pulled on the mother's arm. When he said "chicken," he percieved that the mom's arm was harder to pull on, the obvious conclusion being that the little girl is allergic to chicken.
 
Suezoled said:
I'm allergic to work. I get violent, kitchy reactions and the urge to strangle some of my clients. Do you think claritin will help this?
Click to expand...


No, for that you need Drambuie, Suez, Drambuie.
 
Curt C has a point. There are a lot more quack allergy diagnostics around these days. But even allowing for that, I think there's an increase.

I read a good article in the Biologist about education of the immune system, and how we rely on exposing our immune system to the right sorts of things so it can figure out what to do about the various challenges. It was speculated that 98% or more of the immune system's work was figuring out what not to respond to.

The suggestion was that three classes of disease - allergy, autoimmune disease (considering the molecular mimic hypothesis) and intestinal disease involving food intolerances - were due to faulty education of the immune system. The suggestion was that it might be possible to deveop vaccines to do the education, once the basis of it all was better understood.

I tore out the article to keep it safe, and I seem to have lost it. What a surprise.

Rolfe.
 
That the prevalence in allergies and asthma has increased in the past 30 or 40 years in industrialized countries is a fairly well established fact. The 12-month prevalence in wheezing increased from 19% in 1960 to 46% in 1990 in Melbourne for instance link. Whether the increase has leveled off or is still increasing is less established. Some increase can probably be subscribed to increased awareness but not all. As to the cause of the increase the hygiene hypothesis is the one that shows the most promise. According to it, the newborns who are more prone to react in the allergen-way doesnt receive enough "priming" from microorganisms to jumpstart their cell-mediated defense. Thus their immune system have a greater risk to behave in the allergen way in the future also. It's also the first few years that are important, the pet/no pet debate is complicated but in Sweden the recommendation is to get rid of them. Breastfeeding up to 6 months is related to lower risk for allergy and astma but its hard to give more practical advise than that.
 
Benguin said:
I think putting this down to people surviving unexplained infant mortality to emerge with a manageable condition could also put the anti-vaxers in a head spin. Or Kumar.

Does anyone know how long we've been able to identify anaphylaxia as a contributory factor in deaths? I'm assuming that the thread was referring to this and not less serious reactions to substances.
Click to expand...

Not just unexplained deaths, but also people who were generally weak or sickly. No all allergies are life-threatening. Some just make people miserable.
 
I think that everything points to the sterilized environment as the major culprit. I also vaguely recall a study (in Germany ?) among families who lived in the countryside and maintained stables. The children who visited the stables more often and spent more time there, presented significantly less allergies.
 
That the prevalence in allergies and asthma has increased in the past 30 or 40 years in industrialized countries is a fairly well established fact. ... Some increase can probably be subscribed to increased awareness but not all.
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Forgive me but I am skeptical about this. I had read too many similar arguments in the past to believe it on the evidence I have. Here are two examples:
1) The rate of diabetes is up ... but the definition of diabetes was lowered to ensure more diabetics.
2) The rate of autism is up ... but the rate of unlabeled mental retardation has drop by the exact same amount.
3) Nightlight for babies causes vision problems ... but parents with vision problems are more likely to have nightlights.

Since I have not done much studying on this, I am an agnostic on this issue. Perhaps it really has been proven and I am unaware of it.

Breastfeeding up to 6 months is related to lower risk for allergy and astma but its hard to give more practical advise than that.
Click to expand...
This is another questionable statistic w/o more evidence. Perhaps it is due to woman staying at home and cleaning more. Perhaps it is due to economic class. Do you have link for this?

CBL
 
Is the skin test an objective diagnosis of allergies? I know someone who had skin tests that showed she was allergic to many things which had caused no discernible reaction. For instance, horses, her test showed a reaction to horses, but I had horses at the time and I asked her if she had problems after visiting my horses. She answered no. There were many other things that she was supposedly allergic to, most of which she had never shown an apparent reaction. I believe that her doc gave her his complete test of allergens rather than one specific thing.

I have reason to believe that her allergist was dipping into 'alternative medicine' and I wondered if, or how, that might affect his findings. She also has 'multiple chemical sensitivities'. (I don't recall how that was tested) I've known her for many years and have seen no indication of that. She does have Fibromyalgia, which can mimic many other conditions, but I don't think it affects skin scratch tests. Now that's the other thing: her tests were with injections rather than scratching, if I recall correctly and I may not. Is anyone familiar with that type of allergy testing? I think he injected a small amount of the test medium just into her skin. I remember thinking the testing seemed bogus, somehow. Maybe just given past history, at other times she had saliva tests, hair analysis, is a regular user of chiro, her husband uses a 'Rife Machine' to cure his cancer...
 
The allergy tests usually do test for a range of substances, not just specific things. They'll start with more common allergens and then move on if problems still occur.

They can use a scratch test, but Intra-dermal injections are used as well (these are also used for PPD tests to detect TB). The ID injections make little "bubbles" in the skin of an allergenic fluid.

The test is somewhat subjective. Most allergens will show no reaction or a clear reaction. However, just as with the PPD, sometimes a reaction is on the line, and the doctor/nurse/medic viewing it has to decide whether it's a plus or minus. So there is some subjectivity involved.

As to the long list of allergens, the tests will show reactions even for milder allergies. In many cases, these mild allergies are completely swamped by other factors. I havea very slight allergy to dogs that developed in the last few years...I didn't even notice it for a while. I finailly realized that my nose would itch after I'd been playing with the dog outside (i.e.-rolling around and wrestling, running, etc). Just being around the dog, or petting him normally, wouldn't cause this.

Now, from your description, it sounds like the person doing the test may not have been quite on the up and up, but I don't have enough info. The test itself seems to have been done correctly, but I couldn't say. Your firend might want to get retested. Also, many times allergies can go away or develop during adolesence and young adulthood...so your allergy profile may change.
 
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