What Causes Food Allergies?

For some people, a simple peanut or a bite of shrimp can cause the body’s immune system to wildly overreact. In some cases, the results can be deadly. But what exactly is happening in the body for it to confuse nuts or shellfish with a true threat?
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SICK is a new series that looks at how diseases actually work inside our body. We'll be visiting medical centers and talking to top researchers and doctors to uncover the mysteries of viruses, bacteria, fungi and our own immune system. Come back every Tuesday for a new episode and let us know in the comments which diseases you think we should cover next.
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Read More:
Allergy, Parasites, and the Hygiene Hypothesis

The Role of Mast Cells In Allergic Inflammation

Allergies and the Immune System

[Seeker]

Hi everyone, some of you have noticed that earlier in the video we refer to IgE antibodies as immune cells, and that isn’t correct. Immunoglobulin E is produced by the immune system and attaches to mast cells, but is itself not a cell.

[AppleCore]

"You're not allergic to milk"

You can just tell she's had a lot of people telling her that

[eliannam.]

My mother: it's just veggies, they won't kill you, they're good for you!
My immune system: hold my IgEs!

[Master_Therion]

I work in a lab and I think I'm allergic to one of the chemicals.
It always causes a... reaction.

[ianyoung]

I tried to give a friend peanuts(trailmix) and he freaked out, I laughed not knowing why he was reacting like that until I realized he must be allergic. He then yelled " you have no idea what its like!! get that away from me!!". I laughed and said "I do know what you're going through, I'm deathly allergic to shellfish". I literally almost lost my life to eating shrimp.Why my body gotta do me like that ?

[Asdfghjkl-lsor]

Is it just me or she has a rly sweet voice

[noneofyourbeezwax]

Wow! This makes so much sense! My daughter has milk and egg allergy, and I always wondered how. But as a baby and when we were introducing foods she had very bad eczema especially around her face. I remember the first one or two times we gave the food to her she did not have a full blown reaction, but her skin around her mouth got very red and irritated. Hopefully she grows out of it. Life with food allergies for a kid is hard. She doesn’t fully understand why she can’t eat what the other kids eat yet ☹️

[tunnelsnakesmedia]

i was born and raised in mexico for a part of of my childhood, straight up playing in the dirt and with dogs
glad to report that i rarely get sick, not immune but its rare when i get sick and its very quick too.

[bcgrote]

An allergist told me that even though I got itchy, uncomfortable, and wheezed after eating certain foods, they weren't allergies. Yeah... I have a new allergist!

[slimkek]

“Peanut allergy? That doesn’t sound scary enough”

*People who watched Hereditary*
Well thats a really nice head you got there

[InderjitSingh]

grew up with domestic animals, played in dirt and barely washed hands, still got eczema

[matthias]

I've been an allergy sufferer for my whole life (>27 years, against egg, nuts, fish, animal's saliva/spittle) and still didn't know some of these things!

[davidfast]

0:25 “caused by immune cells called IgE antibodies” that sentence could not be more wrong. The immune cells that mediate the inflammatory response that we call allergies are called mast cells. Mast cells use IgE antibodies to recognize the antigen, in this case the shrimp or peanut etc..

[wepranaga]

i love this doctor 💘💘. can we have more of here explaining stuff to us 😊😊?

[PeymanSayyadi]

I wish the background music wasn't this distracting.

[cageybee]

who would win?

1/6th of the US army | peanut gas

[lilitudeamnocte]

This is the best description I've ever heard. Well done.

[danboyle]

Personally, I lean toward "the hygiene hypothesis." I'm in my mid sixties and when we were kids we played in the dirt, picked and ate berries, other fruits and vegetables and I honestly can't remember anyone who ever had food allergies.

[okman]

This video is for Mom and Dad's who always tell there kids to be clean 😁

[kanderson]

the hygiene hypothesis should also include the cleanliness of your foods or rather the biodiversity of your foods
processed and packaged foods just don't give the same diverse exposure to pathogens as organically grown food straight from the farm or wild harvests