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Food Allergies

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Any mistake made on part of your immune system is the cause of food allergies. The immune system is your protection from germs and diseases. It generates antibodies that ward off bacteria, viruses and other minute organisms capable of causing sickness. However in the case of a food allergy, your immune system mistakes an ingredient in a particular food as being highly harmful.

Those suffering from food allergies need to be able to identify them in order to avoid the foods that cause allergic reactions. Some foods may cause severe illness and even life-threatening allergic reactions or anaphylaxis capable of constrictions in airways in the lungs, dramatic reduction in blood pressure and swelling in tongue or throat causing suffocation.

When the body’s immune system overreacts to an allergen like a food protein, it results in an allergic reaction. Although all foods are capable of causing allergic reactions, there are certain foods responsible for most of them.

Among adults, allergic reactions are caused most often by common foods like shellfish including shrimp, crayfish, lobster and crab, peanuts, legume which is among the main foods leading to severe anaphylaxis, in which a sudden fall in blood pressure can prove fatal unless treated immediately, tree nuts like walnuts, fish and eggs.

The pattern differs to a certain extent in children. The main culprits in food allergens that affect children the most include eggs, milk and peanuts. However while allergies mostly remain in adults, children sometimes outgrow them. Allergies that are most likely to be outgrown by children are milk and soy while least likely are those from peanuts, fish and shrimp.

Generally, for both adults and children, the foods they react to the most are also the ones they eat most. Instances include the frequency of rice allergies in Japan and codfish allergy in Scandinavia.