Don't Leave Home Without One

"There are so many adults out there who have a negative reaction to a food. It is really important to get a proper diagnosis so that they can really know is this something treatable like lactose intolerance, or is this a life-threatening food allergy that they need to be very careful with."
"This is really concerning because chances are they could eat the food and then all of a sudden they have a reaction to a food that they could previously tolerate -- so what changed in their environment or in them that caused them to now develop this food allergy?"
"Some of these foods you know that they probably were able to eat because they are such common foods in the diet, but shellfish was interesting -- it could be one that they are trying for the first time as an adult."
"If food allergy is confirmed, understanding the management is also critical, including recognizing symptoms of anaphylaxis and how and when to use epinephrine." 
"We were surprised to find that adult-onset food allergies were so common. More research is needed to understand why this is occurring and how we might prevent it."
Ruchi Gupta, Lurie Children's Hospital, Professor of Pediatrics, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

The study data indicate that the most prevalent food allergens among U.S. adults are shellfish (affecting 7.2 million adults), milk (4.7 million), peanut (4.5 million), tree nut (3 million), fin fish (2.2 million), egg (2 million), wheat (2 million), soy (1.5 million), and sesame (.5 million). NeuroscienceNews.com image is in the public domain.

A newly published study out of the United States and published in the medical journal JAMA, relates that a good number of people convinced they suffer from food allergies have never been tested for any allergy problems and/or been diagnosed by a medical professional. An estimated 11 percent of the American population does suffer from food allergies but close to twice that number are convinced they do.

What the research team set out to do was gauge the validity of allergies, whether self-convinced or physician-diagnosed.

In a survey of over 40,000 U.S. adults, the research team focused on the nature of reported reactions to various food stuffs; throat tightening or vomiting versus bloating, stomach pain or diarrhea, as examples. Roughly 12 million people out of 26 million considered to be legitimate sufferers of food allergies, developed those allergic reactions for the first time as adults, even while among the general population the impression is that allergies are strictly a childhood condition.

As far as experts in the field are concerned, numbers similar to those arrived at in this study focusing exclusively on the allergic experiences of Americans, can be found in other countries of the world. AllerGen, for example, identifies 7.7 percent of Canadian adults and 6.7 percent of Canadian children claim a food allergy.

Of the foods eliciting allergic reactions, shellfish appear as the most common triggering reactions, with 2.9 percent of adults convinced they are allergic to shellfish, representing approximately seven million Americans. Milk and peanuts followed, with 1.9 and 1.8 percent representation respectively or five million people reactive to both milk and peanuts. Tree nuts such as walnuts, finfish, like salmon, eggs, wheat, sesame and soy follow on the list of allergens people react to.

The research also found that fewer than half of adults with "convincing" allergies had received an official medical diagnosis, while fewer than 25 percent were in possession of a prescription for epinephrine. With the potential of succumbing to a serious reaction when eating out rating high for some allergy sufferers, a prescription for an epinephrine auto-injector can be critical. Close to half of adults with food allergies developed at least one of those allergies as an adult.

Results of Study
Surveys were completed by 40 443 adults (mean [SD] age, 46.6 [20.2] years), with a survey completion rate of 51.2% observed among AmeriSpeak panelists (n = 7210) and 5.5% among SSI panelists (n = 33 233). Estimated convincing food allergy prevalence among US adults was 10.8% (95% CI, 10.4%-11.1%), although 19.0% (95% CI, 18.5%-19.5%) of adults self-reported a food allergy. The most common allergies were shellfish (2.9%; 95% CI, 2.7%-3.1%), milk (1.9%; 95% CI, 1.8%-2.1%), peanut (1.8%; 95% CI, 1.7%-1.9%), tree nut (1.2%; 95% CI, 1.1%-1.3%), and fin fish (0.9%; 95% CI, 0.8%-1.0%). Among food-allergic adults, 51.1% (95% CI, 49.3%-52.9%) experienced a severe food allergy reaction, 45.3% (95% CI, 43.6%-47.1%) were allergic to multiple foods, and 48.0% (95% CI, 46.2%-49.7%) developed food allergies as an adult. Regarding health care utilization, 24.0% (95% CI, 22.6%-25.4%) reported a current epinephrine prescription, and 38.3% (95% CI, 36.7%-40.0%) reported at least 1 food allergy–related lifetime emergency department visit.
Conclusions and Relevance
These data suggest that at least 10.8% (>26 million) of US adults are food allergic, whereas nearly 19% of adults believe that they have a food allergy. Consequently, these findings suggest that it is crucial that adults with suspected food allergy receive appropriate confirmatory testing and counseling to ensure food is not unnecessarily avoided and quality of life is not unduly impaired.
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