Food allergies - treatments, increasing prevalence, etc.

MeSci

MeSci

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
On BBC Radio 4

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000xn7

May Contain Nuts

The Food Programme

Following the recent high-profile cases involving food allergy deaths, Bee Wilson investigates whether labelling needs to go further to protect allergy sufferers. Bee asks if the growing number of people suffering from food allergies could be due to our diet and finds out how food production and labelling might change following the death of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse who had a severe allergic reaction to Sesame after eating a baguette from Pret a Manger.

Bee speaks to Michelle Berriedale-Johnson and Professor Chris Elliott about the state of current food regulations and the frustrations of the 'May Contain...' label. Dr Adam Fox and dietitian Lucy Upton talk through the probable causes of food allergies and why their increasingly prevalent in young people. Bee visits Vita Mojo whose use of digital menus offers their customers pinpoint accurate information about which potential allergens are in which dish. Kerrie Foy describes the shock of discovering that her daughter Bluebell may have a peanut allergy and describes how it's turned their lives upside down.
 
I haven’t listened to it yet, but thought I would put my uncoontaminated thoughts down first.

The main thing I would say is that the Pret case was a clear and deliberate misinterpretation of the labelling regulations. Pret (who I think are owned by McDonald’s) buy most of their sandwiches from food manufacturers, but their marketing infers that the products are all prepared on the premises (some food is). The issue is that they had all of the allergy information available to them from the manufacturer but chose to adopt a small business provision (loophole) that allowed the small business that prepares all of their food from scratch on the premises to have the information only when asked.

Sadly the consumer assumed by the fact that Pret is a chain and the products clearly look prepackaged that the allergen information was comprehensive.

Personally I think when it comes to Pret, they deserve everything they get, since they are misrepresenting the products they are selling and putting public health at risk. The law should be tightened up to prevent other large multi-site foodservice retailers from using this loophole.

As far as independent small businesses in food service (£100-250k turnover or there abouts etc.), I’m not sure what can be done since they would probably all go out of business if they had to allergen label all their products (this is more complicated than it sounds in terms of expense). Part of the reason we like shopping in these places (as oppose to chains) is that they offer us something different. Small foodservice businesses represent well over 50% of all foodservice sales in the UK so we have a lot of small low resource businesses driving the economy as oppose to enormous multinationals. It may be different elsewhere (particularly in the USA). Manufacturers are already set up to give all the information that consumers may need. I don’t think the problem lies here. It’s a matter of what to display and how far we want to go down the mass produced prepackaged route.

When it comes to consumers, I think there is sadly a much higher frequency of young people suffering from death or near misses by allergic reaction. This appears to be in part from them moving from leaving the protection of the parents managing the risk. I believe there is some steps being taken to raise awareness of the risks to young people but I suspect the government will adopt a Teflon approach to this expense and put the blame at manufacturers/retailers door (their normal responsibility shirking position).

I do think the rules need to focus on true anaphylactic allergic reactions (as opposed to the mainly self diagnosed food intolerances). The consumer where having a true allergic reaction to a foodstuff also needs to be better educated to take more responsibility for managing the issue (a bit like diabetes etc). In short it needs to be taken seriously in terms of correct labelling, education and self management. The government has a role to play in helping with this. I have no faith that Gove has any intention of doing a proper job though. We will see.
 
Merged post. Original title: "Food allergies and links with eczema - sounds vaguely familiar ..."

Don't think this one has been linked to, but I found it interesting.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/explosion-food-allergies-behind-boom/

(In the Saturday Telegraph Magazine 8th February, in case someone wants to look it up at their local library or whatever)

Also, there seem to be some familiar patterns emerging:

A method of preventing food allergies ... "can be deployed today.
"The problem is ... that an 'unquestioned, non-science-based dogma' elsewhere in the British medical establishment is preventing it from being rolled out."

Early introduction of peanut into the diet is 'a very powerful strategy to prevent peanut and egg allergy ...' Except 'we're not employing it at the moment.'
"Government advice for feeding newborn babies has remained more or less unchanged since 2002".

The current nutrition guidelines are described as 'plucked from the air.'

'America has changed its guidelines. The UK is lagging behind.'

I have a feeling I've heard this before somewhere ...
 
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Sunday Times today-
Online https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/natashas-prize-eradicate-food-allergies-hpz3sp5wkl

Several years ago, a young girl died on a plane back from France after eating sesame seeds to which she was allergic. Her parents set up Natasha's Foundation in her name which is now offering a prize of £10 million
" to fund research designed to stop food allergies from developing in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life."

None is born with an allergy yet one in 13 children are now affected.

"Sir Stephen Holgate, professor of immunopharmacology at the University of Southampton and director of the prize, said: “We need a completely new approach — that is what Natasha’s Prize is seeking to achieve. There have been so many encouraging new developments in our understanding of food allergy over the past few years. However, we will launch Natasha’s Prize with open minds.”

He said he wants to hear from AI experts, environmental scientists, dieticians and doctors of all disciplines. “The solution could be an intervention that primes the immune system to avoid food allergy, or preventative lifestyle changes. But we don’t want to prejudice the brainstorming process. We want to think creatively, boldly and without constraints. We could go in a completely different direction that we cannot yet anticipate.


For some families, there is a genetic element to the development of allergies, but that does not explain why numbers are rising. Some scientists believe there are environmental causes such as industrial farming methods, climate change and pollution. Others think less time spent in nature might be to blame, or it is down to a change in the way we bring up our children. Increased washing, a delay in introducing solid food to babies and diets high in ultra-processed food are all potential causes.
Whatever the reason, scientists believe that if the cause can be found, it can be prevented."




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A 2025 study has found that food allergy rates have declined since families began following early introduction practices.

The current guidance is to feed a baby the foods that most commonly cause food allergy at around 6 months of age and continue to feed them to a baby. If a baby is high risk for developing food allergy, introduction can start earlier than 6 months when developmentally ready, but not before 4 months.
 
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