Allergy Awareness Week

Sunday May 17, 2009 (foodconsumer.org) -- Food allergies are already shared by 12 million Americans, including three million children; according to the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, these numbers are rising.

Researchers, who estimate that food allergies cause tens of thousands of emergency room visits each year, say they don’t understand why food allergies are increasing at an alarming rate, particularly in children, according to a PRNewswire release.

The CDC reports the rate of peanut allergies among children doubled in a recent five year period, and allergies to other foods are also increasing. Besides peanuts, the most common allergens are tree nuts, eggs, milk, fish, wheat and soy.

As part of Allergy Awareness Week, the week of May 10-16, allergy groups nationwide are getting the word out on the growing problem of food allergies and funding new research trials.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a member of the Board of Directors for the Food Allergy Initiative (FAI), announced Thursday, May 14, the formation of the Advocacy Steering Committee to seek increased funding for food allergy research nationwide. The Committee is made up of 16 parent advocates from across the country who are support group leaders in their communities.

Committee Chair Gina Clowes, who heads AllergyMoms in Cranberry Township, Pennsylavania, said the FAI has led the way in funding research for treatment of allergies for the past 11 years.

“Nothing is more important to me and millions of other parents,” she said, “who wish they could take their children to restaurants, birthday parties and school cafeterias without living in constant fear of exposure to potentially deadly allergens like peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs and wheat.”

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is supporting new research to help with better prevention, diagnosis and management of allergies. The NIAID researchers are working to understand how tolerance to foods normally develops and how it is lost in people with food allergies. They are also developing new animal models of food allergy that more closely resemble the human disease.

The NIAID, part of the National Institutes of Health, is also conducting trials to alter the body’s immune responses to food so they no longer induce allergic reaction. One trial will determine whether early and regular consumption of a peanut snack by children at risk of developing peanut allergies will promote tolerance and prevent a reaction.

Allergic reactions to food can range from mild, itchy hives to anaphylaxis, the most severe. Anaphylaxis causes throat swelling, a dramatic drop in blood pressure, vomiting and even death.

Symptoms to look for in food allergies include: skin rashes (including hives and eczema), vomiting, nausea, stomach cramps, indigestion, diarrhea, asthma (with coughing or sneezing) and rhinitis (itching, stuffy, and/or runny nose).

(By Sheilah Downey, and edited by Heather Kelley)