When I was growing up, allergies were almost unheard of. Yes, I know that someone here is going to say that they knew people with allergies to one thing or another - I'm not arguing there was no such thing as allergies, but they were far less common than they are today. The first time I met anyone with a serious allergy was when I became a paramedic in 1986. Kids who had allergies when I was growing up were mostly girls, and there was one wimpy boy who had allergies. For the politically correct here, I am not saying that he was wimpy because he had allergies but that he was wimpy and he had allergies. I'll leave cause and effect to someone else. However, kids who had allergies when I was in school would get the sniffles in the springtime, and they'd call it hay fever, although we all knew that haying season was later in the summer. My main point, however, is that, as far as I was aware, no one I went to elementary school with, or to high school with, had a serious allergy. Certainly, no one was allergic to peanuts. Yet, now we're told that 0.6% of the population in the United States is allergic to peanuts. We're led to believe that kids are dying right and left, and everyone in the country has to change their diets, particularly if they're attending a school. The other day, I read that some ballparks are no longer going to be selling peanuts or cracker jacks, which totally ruins the only baseball song that I know. I grew up in a small, rural area, and that might have had an effect on the low number of people with allergies. Are serious allergies a consequence of growing up in a large city? Historically, there has always been an association between allergies and pampered rich kids. Is that the problem, that too large a segment of our population today is pampered, or not allowed to get dirty? I grew up on a farm, around crops and farm animals, yet, although my mother would often admonish us to wash our hands before eating, I frequently didn't wash my hands before eating, and even if I had washed them before actual meals, there were a whole lot of other things that I ate between meals, such as fruit picked from a tree or a vine, and candy that I bought after turning pop bottles in for the deposit. Some of these activities were apt to take place at some point after I had shoveled manure or cleaned the barn. Yet, I was rarely sick and did not have allergies. I have read somewhere that there is a far lower incidence of allergies among kids who grow up on farms, so this would lead me to believe that allergies might, in some part, be a result of a lowered immune response. In the past, some people have blamed allergies on pollution but air quality has improved greatly over the past few decades, while allergies seem to be increasing. Could the problem be in the food we eat? Again, kids growing up on farms have a lower incidence of allergies. Kids on farms get dirty, but they are also more likely to eat home-grown and home-raised food. Although someone here might insist that half the people they knew, growing up, had allergies, I don't think that's the case for most people. What concerns me is that it appears that all of the efforts, on the part of government health agencies and the medical community, is going into controlling the things that people are allergic to, or on medications to treat either the allergy or the allergic responses, and not into figuring out why so many people today have serious allergies, and fixing the problem.
Respiratory allergies have been around for as long as I can remember, but food allergies are on a DRAMATIC rise. Not only peanuts but tree nuts and wheat gluten as well. There are people allergic to rice and cinnamon, which I never heard about until recent years. I do believe that many allergies are misdiagnosed and are not allergies at all, but "sensitivities" or reactions. Some may be due to "Histamine Intolerance", which is not an intolerance at all, but an overload due to a malfunctioning system in the lining of the gut so that the body cannot properly process histamine produced by food or other things. This will produce a positive skin test, which many doctors, even bad allergists, rely upon for diagnosis. Real allergies are those proteins that produce IgE antibodies, not a skin reaction, which only assesses cell-mediated sensitivity, not true allergic reactions.
I have often wondered about this myself, especially the peanut hysteria. PB&J has always been a staple for kids in this house and thankfully it's not a deal.
Here just might be the answer. What is an allergy? It is a mistake of the immune system, the immune system is recognizing a substance to be enemy number one and must be attacked even if it is not a threat. How does the immune system learn this well if feels attacked by this substance and remembers it for next time? This I what a human phobia is so allergy is a phobic response of the immune system. Our memories work on associations you see/hear/ or touch something that brings back memories of other times. An example would be in bed having a very bad life threatening illness and you are sleeping on a feather pillow for the first time. This might when you come in contact with feather you might feel ill. There is also something that attacks the immune system these are the additives put in vaccines the reason they want your immune system to remember and fight the substance that is also in the vaccines. Make perfect sense the drawback is what else is present at the moment the vaccine is injected is there a molecule of peanut floating in the blood or other things and what is in the vaccine also in some vaccine there is peanut oil.
In nearly every kitchen / restaurant that I have managed I have insisted on using peanut oil in the fryers. It was more expensive to use and has a lower break point but the taste is unrivaled by any other types of frying oils. I never, in the nearly half century of working in the hospitality industry had I ever had a negative incident occur by using peanut oil but now....... Alas, now I would be banished to the outskirts of Hades itself if I were to propose the use of peanut oil in a restaurant. The insurance alone is too extreme to imagine just because, for whatever reason, folks have become suddenly allergic to peanuts and, though unrelated, those folks who aren’t allergic to peanuts have some form of Celiac’s disease and can’t have gluten.
I don't know if this is relevant to allergies or not, but since @Martin Alonzo brought up vaccines as a possible I thought I would throw it in. I found Merthiolate mentioned in a context, so I looked it up on PubMed to see what had happened to it. Apparently the stuff we used to put on our skin is no longer available in its original formulation as it is considered too hazardous. However, the other name for Merthiolate, thimersol, is in almost every vaccine we use. According to CDC data, even though we have removed it from most environmental sources and have removed it from dental fillings, the mercury content of the blood in the general population is actually going UP due to the increase in the number of preserved vaccines that are being injected, and is listed as a significant health risk by the CDC. Interesting...we can't eat or drink mercury, or use it in our mouths or on our skin, but we can inject it directly into our bodies. I suppose that could be linked to allergies, as no one really knows what the long-term consequences are.
Only in the land of 'Merica', can we be lead to believe that our health and welfare is of importance to our government while blatantly being poisoned by them .
My lifesaver on the allergy issue and I had them for decades before 1995 and did the otc drugs and allergist visits and shots and NEVER getting better, and then I attended a lecture in 1995 on Pycnogenol that was coming to the U.S. from France and we were told MAY prevent cancer, so I jumped on it. I was 57. First things to go were allergies and sinus issues... Then a year later I found Grape Seed Extract and it's 25 yrs soon and no more drugs and doctors and KNOW it's this powerful antioxidant. There are many other issues that these antioxidants benefit as well: gums, eyes, hearing and the list goes on and on. There is massive amounts of info on these antioxidants and you can do a google and find it supports and helps just about everything. Do your research, if you take a blood thinner from pharma, then caution. I don't and have never had an issue like a side effect in all these years. I'm 81 soon. And I've found roasted peanuts do not like me, I can eat some peanut butter but I buy almond butter.
Reason website states that labeling laws are causing there to be more allergy-causing sesame to be included in food. Sesame is the 9th leading food allergen. Here are the percentages of people with each allergy: Wheat (3.6%) Shellfish (2.9%) Milk (1.9%) Peanuts (1.8%) Tree nuts (1.2%) Fish (0.9%) Soybeans (mostly in children) Eggs (mostly in children) Sesame (0.4%) Sesame was recently added to the list of items that must be disclosed on food labels. If the ingredients don't include sesame, companies must take steps to prevent the foods from coming in contact with any sesame ("cross-contamination.") As the article states, "It's as if we've suddenly asked bakers to go to the beach and remove all the sand." In other words, preventing sesame cross-contamination is impossible in kitchens where sesame is used. Labels stating "May contains" or "Made in a facility where..." are insufficient to absolve businesses of taking expensive steps to prevent cross-contamination. So in order to avoid being punished by the government, restaurants and food makers—including Olive Garden, Chick-fil-A, and Wendy's—are simply adding sesame to their products. That way they can list it as an ingredient and not worry about being faulted for accidental contamination. Problem solved...sort of.
Food allergies have been with us from day 1 in this modern world. Sesame as I see it is a "mild" issue. But I suppose it's there. Read my above info and what I've done... I was highly allergic all my younger life.
Is there a country to give as a good example where the people are not being poisoned ? I know of not even one.
What makes it "hysteria" ? Unlike previous centuries, for the last few decades or so, many babies - children - adults now - have very severe anaphyhlaxis , may usually be life threatening if no one nearby has an epi pen.
America is probably the most industrialized country and hence all the STUFF added to the massive amounts of food produced for so many reasons, shelf live is a big one.. Other countries, there are too many, who knows...
Many good and true points in your posts. Also, and I think you did note this at times, not only is all the poison in shots, food, air, water , and medicine causing reactions, but the shortages of nutrition, mal-nutrition, is perhaps a greater evil/ cause/ of multitudes of serious and mild disease and problems every day for billions of people. Over the centuries including the last one, it was easily proven and seen that cancer is a nutritional disease, and not too difficult to correct IF the person, or the animal, does what is required to correct the deficiencies or imbalances. EVEN IF they do not believe it, it works.