Allergies

[dieseltaylor]

Thought this was an interesting piece given the hype that "allergens" now get in advertising. This article, part of it below, is only on food allergies but the principle I suspect is the same when building a marketing case. : )

Even people who had food allergies as children may not have them as adults. People often shed allergies, though no one knows why. And sometimes people develop food allergies as adults, again for unknown reasons.

For their report, Dr. Riedl and his colleagues reviewed all the papers they could find on food allergies published between January 1988 and September 2009 — more than 12,000 articles. In the end, only 72 met their criteria, which included having sufficient data for analysis and using more rigorous tests for allergic responses.

“Everyone has a different definition” of a food allergy, said Dr. Jennifer J. Schneider Chafen of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Palo Alto Health Care System in California and Stanford’s Center for Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, who was the lead author of the new report. People who receive a diagnosis after one of the two tests most often used — pricking the skin and injecting a tiny amount of the suspect food and looking in blood for IgE antibodies, the type associated with allergies — have less than a 50 percent chance of actually having a food allergy, the investigators found.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/health/research/12allergies.html?src=me&ref=general

PArt of the problem might be this:

Part of the confusion is over what is a food allergy and what is a food intolerance, Dr. Fenton said. Allergies involve the immune system, while intolerances generally do not. For example, a headache from sulfites in wine is not a food allergy. It is an intolerance. The same is true for lactose intolerance, caused by the lack of an enzyme needed to digest sugar in milk.

And other medical conditions can make people think they have food allergies, Dr. Fenton said. For example, people sometimes interpret acid reflux symptoms after eating a particular food as an allergy.

[Affentitten]

Yeah the milk thing used to annoy the hell out of me with fellow parents. "My little boy is allergic to milk." Ahh, no. He may be lactose intolerant and that means if he drinks about 2 litres of milk in a sitting he will get the runs. And actually, if you are from white European stock, your chance of being lactose intolerant is pretty much zero.

I also knew mothers who would not give their kids peanut butter for fear that their kid might be allergic. (Without any reason to suspect it.)

[Michael Emrys]

Yeah the milk thing used to annoy the hell out of me with fellow parents. "My little boy is allergic to milk." Ahh, no. He may be lactose intolerant and that means if he drinks about 2 litres of milk in a sitting he will get the runs. And actually, if you are from white European stock, your chance of being lactose intolerant is pretty much zero.

I had a cousin who was allegedly lactose intolerant. For some reason, she was never ice cream intolerant though.

Michael

[Affentitten]

I also know a mother who refused to let her boys eat any fish for fear that (a) they might be allergic and ( they would choke to death on a bone.

[Lt Belenko]

I have some extreme nut allergies. Had them since before I can remember (younger than 5, I'm 52 now) and have always been excruciatingly careful. If dessert isn't vanilla ice cream I usually pass.

My worst experience was at pot luck party, 15 years ago, in a friends backyard, evening after dark. I ate some cashews on a slice of pizza by accident. I've had Canadian bacon/pineapple pizza before but that was the only time I had it with cashews.

As I was swallowing the last bite I knew I was in trouble. The host gave me some benadryl from his medicine cabinet. About 20 minutes later my wife drove me to the hospital cause I was getting worse - less than 5 minutes away.

The ER was standing room only on a Saturday night. I walked to the counter. I said allergic reaction, it really didn't need to be verbalized as my eyes were shut, hives on my entire body, and I was wheezing like the oil spewing from a pipe in the Gulf.

"Right this way sir." is all she said. No waiting for me. They sat me in a chair took my BP. Another nurse approached and said we have a bed. The doctor was waiting by the bed for me when I got there- now that's service!! Before he spoke the IV was in. They asked how much Benadryl I had taken and the doc said that probably kept me alive. I didn't know the size of the pills or remember how many. The doc said 200mg of benadryl in the IV stat - no drip flow, a straight shot in the tube. The maximum adult dose is 250mg. They did other stuff too, but once the benadryl hit me I was floating and don't remember much. They sent me home is about 8 hours.

For the next week or so I would go from normal to massive asthma with buckets of flowing nasal snot, then back to normal in 20 minutes. I was on prednizone and lower dose benedryl during that week.

I only had one accidental nut exposure since but it wasn't as exciting. Much less involved and I spit it out before I swallowed. I just drank 1/2 a bottle of benadryl (about 150 mg worth) and slept for a afternoon. My epi-pin wasn't around and had long since expired. I don't carry one today just excruciatingly careful.

F-word - I'm all itchy and and wheezing just typing this.

[Affentitten]

My wife is like that with wasp stings. If she gets hit, we've got about 15 minutes to get her to the hospital.