Why Are So Many People Allergic To Food?

More people have food allergies than ever before. Peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, eggs, and even milk… the list of possibly dangerous foods seems to get longer every day. But why do some people’s bodies have deadly reactions food? And why are food allergies on the rise? In this video we explain what food allergies really are, and what the difference is between food allergy and food intolerance. Some fellow YouTubers tell us their stories of what it’s like to live with food allergies, and we bring you the best current science on how to prevent food allergies in kids and adults. It’s a tough nut to crack. #FoodAllergy #Allergies #FoodScience

Special thanks to WheezyWaiter and Emily Graslie for sharing their food allergy stories with us!

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REFERENCES:
Anagnostou, Katherine, and Andrew Clark. "Oral immunotherapy for peanut allergy." Annual review of medicine 67 (2016): 375-385.

Sathe, S. K., Liu, C., & Zaffran, V. D. (2016). "Food allergy." Annual review of food science and technology, 7, 191-220.

Tyagi, Nidhi, et al. "Comparisons of allergenic and metazoan parasite proteins: allergy the price of immunity." PLoS computational biology 11.10 (2015): e1004546.

Willits, Erin K., et al. "Food Allergy: A Comprehensive Population-Based Cohort Study." Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Vol. 93. No. 10. Elsevier, 2018.

Wong, L., Huang, C. H., & Lee, B. W. (2016). "Shellfish and house dust mite allergies: is the link tropomyosin?." Allergy, asthma & immunology research, 8(2), 101-106.

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[besmart]

A big thanks to Craig and Emily for sharing their allergy stories. Do you know anyone with a food allergy? Share this video with them! I'm on Twitter and Instagram at @DrJoeHanson

[kedremva]

I've been allergic to peanuts my whole life and I find it comically ridiculous that my body's reaction to peanuts is basically, "Hey this might be harmful, let me kill you before it get the chance to".

[chuckasualty]

I love how my package of almonds has a warning label on the back that says 'CONTAINS ALMOND'😋

[dothedotxom]

I’ve been allergic to eggs, dairy, and tree nuts since a child and I’ve never really thought about it, I’ve just always instinctively looked at the ingredients of foods

[carlchapman]

I grew up with a friend who had a nut allergy (This was back in the 80's before allergies were even accepted as a thing) but he didn't just react to nuts but would react to other people who had touched or eaten nuts, so if we had nuts we had to warn him to avoid skin contact for the rest of the day, he called it 'Essence of Nut'. He was the only person I knew with a food allergy first the first 21 years of my life.

[RobinYdal]

When I was a kid I wasn’t allergic to nuts at all and ate them regularly, but one day at the age of, I think 9 I ate a hazelnut (which I had eaten before) and got an intense reaction for no reason. I then got tested for nut allergy and it ended up showing not only hazelnut but a pretty strong allergy to most nuts excluding almonds.

I’m now 23 and about 2 years ago after having avoided all nuts but almonds since I got tested I tried just a tiny bit of peanut butter (which might have been stupid but that’s what I did) and waited for a while without any reaction, so I tried it again and still nothing. Eventually I tried a whole peanut butter sandwich and I had no reaction what so ever. I then tried nutella which has hazelnut in it which is what I was the most allergic to and I had absolutely no reaction.

I can now eat every kind of nut that I had become allergic to even if it isn’t processed into any food product without any reaction. So I went from having no allergy to being strongly allergic to all nuts back to not being allergic to them at all.

[niklasvilhelm]

Allergies is basically a guy shooting at a spider with a bazooka inside his house

[Graywolf]

Growing up, I was severely allergic to lots of things. I was allergic to peanuts, treenuts, seafood, peas, beans, and probably a few others I can't remember. It was bad enough to the point that just the smell of some of these things, especially peanuts, could trigger anaphylaxis. Now things are better, but growing up knowing they eating ant of these things could potentially kill me has really affected me. I still refuse to eat any of these foods, although now I am only allergic to peanuts, and maybe nuts. I have been doing the microdosing he was talking about for peanuts for a few years now, so that has greatly helped me with that allergy. Now I can truly eat anywhere, and almost anything. Before it, I had to bring my own food to restaurants, and that really sucked.

Sorry for the whole essay here

[debbiehenri]

I believe the answer lies in pesticides and herbicides - glyphosate in particular.
I'm a gardener and remember well when glyphosate was introduced, my boss showing off that 'It's so safe, you can practically drink it!'
(Yes, he actually said that).

Up to its introduction, I didn't know a single person with an allergy - then suddenly kids were getting strawberry and then nut allergies. I'm not saying such allergies didn't exist before, there's always going to be some with weaker systems who develop allergies to something, but this was on an escalating scale.
By the very fact that it's already been proved glyphosate has a very negative influence on the complex bioflora in your gut (killing it, in short), then those parasites you mention may come in when your bioflora is particularly 'low' and do some 'damage' then.

Look how the number of people with allergies has increased over the years. Look at the number of those who have developed intolerances.
Can it be any 'mere' coincidence that the increase in allergy/intolerance cases happens at the same time the farming industry has in fact 'increased' its usage of glyphosate (from merely clearing fields of weeds to 'deliberately' spraying grain crops to desiccate all the plants for harvest at the optimum time)?

My family never had one instance of an allergy or even an intolerance - and now several of us have them: gluten, milk, food colouring, meat, eggs, bananas.
Meal times for us are more like a chemistry lesson now!

[beefybread]

Nobody can die, if nobody is there to kill.

-Immune System on how to stop sickness

[appa]

The immune system is like the abusive older brother who protects you when the school bully comes but also beats you up in front of your friends.

[PillzmansFox]

It's strange, my brother was deathly allergic to shellfish and seafood and an intolerance to dairy when he was younger, he ate shellfish on accident ( I think it was seafood salad in a conch noodle) and nothing happened when before we had to rush him to a hospital from a restaurant (before we knew) and he no longer has problems with dairy, but now I have problems with dairy around the same time he was fine with dairy.

[isabelle]

I've literally always been allergic to peanuts, yet when i was younger my family had no idea that peanuts was causing my eczema and now hives. but the worst thing was that when i was younger is that peanuts were my favourite thing, i used to eat them in almost every single meal- but slowly as the years have gone by my allergies to peanuts have gotten worse, i never got a epipen from a doctor bc my allergies have never been serious enough and my reaction to peanuts is usually onset, but last week i ate a candy bar with peanuts in it that didnt say it had on in the front of the package (i dont usually check labels if im being honest) so i ate it but after tasting the peanuts i spit it right out, i probably swallowed now even half a peanut bc i took a small bite, but regardless of that how 5 days later im covered in hives and my face has been swollen for the past two days

[Mono_]

My uncle is extremely allergic to garlic, he might be a vampire.

[smartereveryday]

If George Washington Carver was alive today he'd study peanut And probably cure them.

[clave]

I learned about food allergy in the United States. It's soooo common there and not in my country, Mexico. Further than that, in 1993, it was shocking for me to know about dogs (also in the U. S.) being allergic to certain kind of food!

[BlueJayYT]

Oh hey, you can see me in the background! Loved the collab

[isabelsy]

Brain: Eat food or we die
Me: Ok
Brain: Oh and also don't eat food or we die
Me: Oh

[whistlesongwriter]

I took a blood test...
Results: “congratulations, you have the possibility of developing over 10 different allergies”
Thank you, I’ll just eat air then.

[lizziecanadaroxya]

I've been reading alot about "leaky gut syndrome" and how things like excessive growth of candida (due to antibiotics killing good bacteria in your body which normally keeps this under control) can cause your intestinal wall to weaken, allowing small food particles to escape into your body, which then your body starts attacking. Also plenty of other things can cause this "leaky gut syndrome". Perhaps this is a cause of this? Perhaps pestisides or overly processed foods can also attribute to this.