Lethal Legume

by The Philosophical Fish

I imagine a few kids I knew as a child had peanut (or other food) allergies, but it certainly didn’t seem as widespread as it appears to be now. Studies show a 50% increase in food allergies among children between 1997 and 2011, with further increases reported in recent years. The prevalence of peanut and tree nut allergies has significantly increased, with some studies reporting a three-fold rise between 1997 and 2008. “Peanuts rank among the top food allergens causing severe reactions among Americans. In sensitive peanut-allergic individuals, peanut protein consumption can lead to hives, shortness of breath, or nausea within minutes of exposure. For a subset of individuals, exposure to small amounts can result in anaphylactic shock” (Saab & Jones, 2022).

There are suggestions that children had peanut products introduced in their diets earlier when one goes back to the 1960’s and that it seems to be correlated with lower incidence of allergic reactions. In the late 1990’s and early 2000s, doctors apparently changed their approach and felt that delaying the feeding of peanut for several years was the best approach to preventing peanut allergies. But there was little evidence for the change and it’s now thought that the delayed introduction of peanuts was the cause of the spike in allergic reactions to peanut products.

Another hypothesis is cleaner living. People are living more hygienically than in the past, which some believe may cause the immune system to overreact to the otherwise harmless proteins in peanuts. Babies born in developing countries have lower incidence of allergies than those in developed countries. But if a family moves to a more developed country, their children’s incidence of childhood allergies increases. So simply being in the environment of a developed country seems to change things. The hygiene hypothesis suggests that children who have more exposure to germs and certain infections at a very early age develop immune systems that are better suited to differentiating harmless substances from harmful substances. In this theory, exposure to certain germs teaches the immune system not to overreact. It would also explain why children who grow up on farms or those who have certain types of pets are less likely to develop allergies than other children. But much more research is needed to understand exactly how childhood germ exposure might help prevent allergies.

And a third reason could be a different approach to cooking peanuts. Peanuts are more likely to be roasted in Western countries and the roasting process can change the peanut proteins, which can make the immune system more like to create allergy causing antibodies.

As with so many things, we have learned a great deal through studies, but we still have so much to more yet to learn about the mechanisms underlying responses.

And that’s as far down that rabbit hole that I am going to go as a result of taking this photo.

References:

Logan K,  Bahnson HT,  Ylescupidez A, et al.  Early introduction of peanut reduces peanut allergy across risk groups in pooled and causal inference analyses. Allergy.  2023; 78: 1307-1318. doi:10.1111/all.15597

Saab, I.N., Jones, W. 2022. Trends in Food Allergy Research, Regulations and Patient Care. Nutrition Today 57(2):p 64-69.

https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/facts-and-statistics

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