4 ms·

Never heard about peanut allergy here in India, looks like a first world problem.

by skbohra123 9y ago

dboreham 9y ago
Possibly. Or the people who have it just die for unexplained reasons.
- tbarbugli 9y ago
  you don't need Gregory House to diagnose an anaphylactic shock
ljf 9y ago
Quite likely - some of the more recent thinking is that it is linked to a loss of gut bacteria - which makes sense for our case as our boy had antibiotics young, and first reacted to nuts at 4 months.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
CydeWeys 9y ago
India does have a huge problem with lots of people dying from poor food (and other) sanitation practices, though. When your house is burning down you don't notice a light left on in the attic.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  This is a ridiculous statement, similar in tone to reactions in Western media any time any Indian achievement (space, medicine etc.) is mentioned, and reeks of arrogance. Peanut allergy is largely unheard of in India across a wide range of geographies and socio-economic classes. There are literally hundreds of millions of Indians who do not die of improper sanitation, and who don't have peanut allergies. Instead of learning what people can from experiences around the world (such as the fact that kids' immune systems are more likely to be untrained due to almost unscientific, excessive obsession with hygiene, not letting kids be exposed to dirt and to the elements, using hand sanitizers for the slightest of things etc.), you choose to make an irrelevant 'GOTCHA' snipe.
  - jchw 9y ago
    So basically, OP is justified in calling a condition that can kill someone a "first world problem." However, responding to that calling out problems with India's sanitation in response is somehow especially arrogant? Aren't both of those at about the same level of dismissiveness? I'm not advocating for either behavior, but it seems to me that some people only want to others to learn from their experience and not the other way around.
    - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
      Not really. If this was an article about bad sanitation in India, and someone came and said that diseases like typhoid were a third world problem because the first world had good sanitation, that would be okay (even if obvious and unnecessary). The discussion here is about allergies, and OP is right in saying that they are largely a first world problem. The rebuke about sanitation practices is irrelevant to that discussion. It's not as if those Indians who live in cities with good sanitation and manage to not get typhoid have a lot of allergies.
dragonwriter 9y ago
It largely is. That is, globally peanut is among the most common severe food allergies, but it's still fairly rare. But in the developed world (IIRC, particularly the US) popular guidance to mitigate the risk of peanut allergies in very young children (who can't communicate symptoms.as effectively, so, if they have an allergy, are at greater risk of consuming more and/or having treatment delayed) was to avoid any exposure. It turns out that that guidance actually increased the incidence of severe peanut allergies immensely, because it made it much more likely that when people were exposed later, they would develop an allergy, and peanut allergy is far less common where children are usually exposed at a young age.
pmoriarty 9y ago
There's something called the Hygiene Hypothesis which states that "a lack of early childhood exposure to infectious agents, symbiotic microorganisms (such as the gut flora or probiotics), and parasites increases susceptibility to allergic diseases by suppressing the natural development of the immune system".[1] In other words, it could mean that excessive hygiene in childhood could be causing allergies. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis
- theprop 9y ago
  Probably not so much excessive hygiene, but antibiotic use. Some studies already indicate higher rates of allergies in kids who as toddlers took antibiotics.
jordigh 9y ago
Yeah, disease of affluence, they call these things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_affluence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_affluence It's weird how acknowledged the problem is in the US (and Europe?) and how rare it is elsewhere. Trying to convince people in certain countries that peanut allergies are real can be really difficult, because they have never heard of such a thing. It's also even hard to find information online about the worldwide prevalence of peanut allergies because almost all of the data is US-based, with the occasional tidbit from the UK or continental Europe.

Never heard about peanut allergy here in India, looks like a first world problem.

dboreham 9y ago

Possibly. Or the people who have it just die for unexplained reasons.

tbarbugli 9y ago
you don't need Gregory House to diagnose an anaphylactic shock

ljf 9y ago

Quite likely - some of the more recent thinking is that it is linked to a loss of gut bacteria - which makes sense for our case as our boy had antibiotics young, and first reacted to nuts at 4 months.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

CydeWeys 9y ago

India does have a huge problem with lots of people dying from poor food (and other) sanitation practices, though. When your house is burning down you don't notice a light left on in the attic.

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
This is a ridiculous statement, similar in tone to reactions in Western media any time any Indian achievement (space, medicine etc.) is mentioned, and reeks of arrogance. Peanut allergy is largely unheard of in India across a wide range of geographies and socio-economic classes. There are literally hundreds of millions of Indians who do not die of improper sanitation, and who don't have peanut allergies. Instead of learning what people can from experiences around the world (such as the fact that kids' immune systems are more likely to be untrained due to almost unscientific, excessive obsession with hygiene, not letting kids be exposed to dirt and to the elements, using hand sanitizers for the slightest of things etc.), you choose to make an irrelevant 'GOTCHA' snipe.
- jchw 9y ago
  So basically, OP is justified in calling a condition that can kill someone a "first world problem." However, responding to that calling out problems with India's sanitation in response is somehow especially arrogant? Aren't both of those at about the same level of dismissiveness? I'm not advocating for either behavior, but it seems to me that some people only want to others to learn from their experience and not the other way around.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
    Not really. If this was an article about bad sanitation in India, and someone came and said that diseases like typhoid were a third world problem because the first world had good sanitation, that would be okay (even if obvious and unnecessary). The discussion here is about allergies, and OP is right in saying that they are largely a first world problem. The rebuke about sanitation practices is irrelevant to that discussion. It's not as if those Indians who live in cities with good sanitation and manage to not get typhoid have a lot of allergies.

dragonwriter 9y ago

It largely is. That is, globally peanut is among the most common severe food allergies, but it's still fairly rare. But in the developed world (IIRC, particularly the US) popular guidance to mitigate the risk of peanut allergies in very young children (who can't communicate symptoms.as effectively, so, if they have an allergy, are at greater risk of consuming more and/or having treatment delayed) was to avoid any exposure. It turns out that that guidance actually increased the incidence of severe peanut allergies immensely, because it made it much more likely that when people were exposed later, they would develop an allergy, and peanut allergy is far less common where children are usually exposed at a young age.

pmoriarty 9y ago

There's something called the Hygiene Hypothesis which states that "a lack of early childhood exposure to infectious agents, symbiotic microorganisms (such as the gut flora or probiotics), and parasites increases susceptibility to allergic diseases by suppressing the natural development of the immune system".[1] In other words, it could mean that excessive hygiene in childhood could be causing allergies. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis

theprop 9y ago
Probably not so much excessive hygiene, but antibiotic use. Some studies already indicate higher rates of allergies in kids who as toddlers took antibiotics.

jordigh 9y ago

Yeah, disease of affluence, they call these things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_affluence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_affluence It's weird how acknowledged the problem is in the US (and Europe?) and how rare it is elsewhere. Trying to convince people in certain countries that peanut allergies are real can be really difficult, because they have never heard of such a thing. It's also even hard to find information online about the worldwide prevalence of peanut allergies because almost all of the data is US-based, with the occasional tidbit from the UK or continental Europe.