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The Epidemic of Food Allergies

Yes, food allergies did occur in the past. I know that because I spent the first 12 years of my life allergic to eggs and suffered asthma, had severe hives with swollen lips and eyes until my immune system said, enough is enough and I began to tolerate the food.

But these days, there's an epidemic of a food allergies in the highly developed world in which we live, with the intense reaction swollen lips, tickles in the throat, eczema and asthma and reactions sometimes associated with allergic shock or anaphylaxis which can prove fatal.

Why? Is it something our parents have done wrong or is our community too clean and not providing enough triggers to the immune system which becomes board even though it's been trained over thousands and thousands of year to fight a host of bacteria, viruses and parasites?

Are there other triggers in this rapidly changing world of ours which are providing new set targets so the immune system gets confused?

Why is it, that a seven-year-old can eat a tiny sample of peanuts and within minutes, flare up with inflammation of the skin and as asthma attack so severe it reduces the oxygen she is breathing and places her in a position of extreme risk?

Her risk of shock so great that even after an injection of life saving adrenalin she failed to improves. Another injection was given moments later and it was only then that her breathing improved but her skin remain hot and itchy.

My team and I travelled to Kar Kar Island, sixty kilometres from Madang in PNG where a specialist in allergy and dermatology had found there was little allergy in this isolated place.

We joined him as he returned 10 years later and found that the absence of allergies remained but only in the mountainous regions of the island.

Here, food is grown in the garden and the forest and eaten when hungry in an environment where dogs lived in the village huts, pigs were everywhere searching for food under the huts.

It was different story near the sea, around the rim of the volcanic island, where the road had been improved by the laying of bitumen and here, little trade stores had opened and introduced the beginnings of a western lifestyle.

Things as simple as soap and food like tinned fish, white flour and household cleaners. At night one could hear the thump of diesel powered generators and see the scattering of light in the coastal villages

In this environment we found the beginning of allergy. Not much admittedly, but when we performed an allergy skin test, every now and then a positive reaction would appear.

In these early days the immune system of the 68,000 inhabitants was becoming alert but was not alarmed. It recognised the food trigger or the presence of what is called an allergen but unlike Australia mounted no attack against it.

Is it the fact that the people of PNG have such a different lifestyle and eat in such a different way that they are protected?

Is it because all the babies are breast fed?

Is it the beneficial bacteria or probiotic which they get in their bowels from the earliest moments of life or perhaps the fibre they eat once they start solid feeding?

In many ways this discovery presented more questions than answers. Our team visited Professor Susan Prescott in Western Australia who is beginning a trial of the introduction of egg to babies - it being the most common trigger for food allergy.

If babies show a sign of eczema, that is a signal that they may have food allergies in the future.

Professor Prescott is going against the old idea of delaying the introduction of foods in risky children.

Foods such as egg, fish, soy, peanuts and tree nuts are common food allergy triggers and by introducing the egg in small quantities early, the professor is wondering if the immune system can be trained to accept the normality of the food.

Time will tell.

It's early days but we are well on the way to understanding why this epidemic is occurring so we can plan a normal future for our children.

Dr John D’Arcy