Food Allergy

How Do I Treat It If It Happens? Several important steps can protect a patient with serious food allergies from having future reactions. These steps include: 1. Remove all sources of food that the patient is allergic to. Even trace amounts of a food protein can cause a severe reaction in some people. It can [...]

Almost half of people who are allergic to peanuts are also allergic to tree nuts, such as almonds, Brazil nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, macadamias, pistachios, pecans, and cashews. People who are allergic to one tree nut are often allergic to at least one other tree nut. Tree nut reactions can be severe, even with small exposures, [...]

Over the past 10 to 15 years, researchers have sought ways to prevent the development of food allergy in children. A large number of interventions have been tried in parents who are at increased risk for having allergic children, including dietary restriction in the mother (during pregnancy and breast-feeding), strict adherence to a breast milk [...]

No treatment can cure celiac disease. However, you can effectively manage celiac disease through changing your diet. Once gluten is removed from your diet, inflammation in your small intestine will begin to resolve, usually within a few weeks. Even a small amount of gluten is enough to cause symptoms and complications, which means all foods [...]

Celiac disease is a digestive condition caused by eating gluten, which is a protein found in bread, pasta, cookies, pizza crust, and many other foods containing wheat, barley, or rye. If you have celiac disease and eat foods containing gluten, an immune reaction occurs in your small intestine, causing damage to the surface of your [...]

Autism is a disorder that affects brain development in children and causes problems with social interaction and communication skills. In recent years, investigators have sought to understand the role of food allergies in causing or worsening the severity of autism. Specifically, gluten (a wheat protein) and casein (a milk protein) have been occasionally blamed for [...]

Injectable dye, also referred to as  radiocontrast media (RCM), is used in a wide variety of x-ray studies, including angiograms, computed tomography (CT) scans, and intravenous pyelograms. Reactions to RCM have been reported to occur in up to 13% of patients receiving intra-venous contrast. More often than not, the reactions are mild and consist of [...]

Fortunately, many of the food allergies that occur in infancy and early childhood resolve spontaneously between the ages of 3 and 5 years. Prominent examples of these foods include milk, soy, and eggs. However, peanut allergy, which usually also occurs in early life, has a very low chance of going away as the patient grows [...]

The protein most often linked to shellfish allergy, called “tropomyosin,” is found in all types of shellfish, including abalone, clams, cockle, crab, crayfish, lobster, mollusks, mussels, octopus, oysters, scallops, shrimp, snails, and squid. The likelihood that a person who is allergic to one type of shellfish, such as shrimp, is allergic to another, such as [...]

I am highly allergic to peanuts, and a recent allergy test also showed small reactions to soy and wheat, even though I can eat these foods without developing symptoms. Do I need to avoid soy and wheat? This scenario brings up a couple of very important points regarding food allergy. First, the peanut is a [...]

Peanuts are commonly used as an ingredient in a large variety of processed foods, particularly baked goods, ice cream, and candies. As even trace amounts of peanuts may provoke an allergic reaction in a peanut-allergic per-son, these foods should be strictly avoided. Frequently, food manufacturing equipment used to process sun-flower seeds and tree nut butters [...]

The most important component in diagnosing allergy to a food is the patient’s history. A food allergy is most often suspected when a particular item was eaten prior to the onset of acute symptoms. In some cases, the implicated food was eaten by itself, making it easy to identify the probable source of symptoms. In [...]

Heartburn is caused by gastric acid rising up out of the stomach and into the esophagus, causing irritation and inflammation. This condition, referred to medically as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), usually occurs because of loosening of the sphincter muscle where the esophagus enters the stomach and may be present in people of all ages. A [...]

Certain raw fruits and vegetables may cause patients to develop itching of the lips, mouth, and throat. This syndrome, called  oral allergy syndrome, is caused by specific proteins in the foods (including melons, bananas, and apples). Importantly, these proteins are heat-sensitive and can be rendered nonallergenic by cooking the food. For example, patients who have [...]

Many patients experience acute reactions after drinking beverages containing alcohol. In my own experience, the most frequently described adverse effects of alcohol can be attributed to alcohol intolerance, with exaggeration of the expected physical effects. The symptoms of alcohol intolerance may include headache, rapid heartbeat, nausea, vomiting, heartburn, abdominal pain, nasal congestion, and flushing. These [...]

This reaction could certainly represent an allergic reaction to tuna. Fish allergy, as noted in Which foods are patients most commonly allergic to, is one of the more common foods to which adults become allergic. Certainly, if you have experienced systemic reactions, including hives, flushing, gastrointestinal symptoms, wheezing, throat swelling, or dizziness after eating some [...]

Gelatin protein, which is found in Jell-O gelatin and pudding desserts, is normally added to many vaccines as a heat stabilizer. Routine childhood vaccines containing gelatin include MMR, varicella (chicken pox), influenza, and DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis). Allergic reactions to the MMR vaccine are most likely to be caused by an allergy to [...]

Vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and influenza are both raised in egg-based cell cultures, prompting concerns about the safety of these vaccines in children who are allergic to eggs. Careful analyses of the MMR vaccine have demonstrated that it does not contain egg proteins capable of causing a reaction in an egg-allergic individual. [...]

Most cooking oils that are commercially produced, including peanut oil, are highly refined using a hot solvent extraction method, causing the protein to be removed from the product. Since it is the proteins in foods that are responsible for food allergy, these highly refined oils are typically considered nonallergenic. Obser-vations made over many years have [...]

Food additives, including preservatives, flavor enhancers, and artificial colorings and sweeteners, are found in virtually all processed foods. As a general rule, food additives are unusual causes of food-related symptoms. However, in situations in which no food protein can be identified as the cause of a food reaction, additives should be considered. The additive most [...]