6 ms·

A Striking Rise in Serious Allergy Cases

59 points by jpelecanos 9y ago

vmateixeira 9y ago
Link without paywall, anyone?
- vmateixeira 9y ago
  Alternative source: http://www.cetusnews.com/life/A-Striking-Rise-in-Serious-Allergy-Cases.H1xWVDjuO-.html http://www.cetusnews.com/life/A-Striking-Rise-in-Serious-All...
- Beltiras 9y ago
  Put this bookmarklet on your bookmarks bar: javascript:window.location.href='https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href);
  - vmateixeira 9y ago
    Thanks! :) Very useful!
  - darkstar999 9y ago
    What is their logic in allowing Facebook traffic? Do they have a partnership or something?
    - arikrak 9y ago
      The can't tell if someone's a subscriber when the person opens a link from facebook on their phone, so they just allow all access from facebook. (It's also possible they want to encourage sharing on social networks.)
Beltiras 9y ago
Could this be more claims instead of a higher incidence? The uptick coincides with the ACA, possibly with a little lag.
- vmateixeira 9y ago
  Yes, possibly. For the chances of a higher incidence I would say the way we raise our children these days is very different from when our parents raised us. A lot of the food is processed, many environments were children play are close to sterile, etc. This difference would probably be big enough to be noticed on a 10 year window.
  - irrational 9y ago
    Just a data point, but we have 7 kids and no allergies among them. We eat little processed foods and after school/weekends/summer the kids spend almost all their time outside. The downside is it takes longer to cook meals than just buy something pre-made and the kids need a bath every night because they come home filthy. The upside is no allergies?
  - sneak 9y ago
    > many environments were children play are close to sterile [citation needed]
- firimari 9y ago
  Given that these are claims of anaphylaxis, you would certainly be heading to the doctor no matter what. There would have to be a lot of newly insured people that were previously going to the emergency room and paying out of pocket if it were due to the ACA.
singularity2001 9y ago
Were there any new chemicals allowed/introduced in the food industry in the last 5 years?
- nelsondooley 9y ago
  That's a really good question. "During recent decades more than 100,000 new chemicals have been used in common consumer products"* Also there's the idea that hybrid wheat has caused gluten intolerance * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4214967/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4214967/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573730/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573730/
- adrr 9y ago
  Its not going to be chemical as it would be worldwide. Its more likely how we raise our kids. One interesting hypothesis is that we are too clean, we machine wash everything, we slather our hands with hand sanitizer before we touch babies, our children have stopped playing outside in the dirt and now sit on the couch with an ipad. Further reading: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/02/23/387553285/kids-allergies-and-a-possible-downside-to-squeaky-clean-dishes http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/02/23/38755328...
  - heurist 9y ago
    I was able to eat bread my whole life up to last year. Now whenever I eat it I get so tired I have to sleep. I played outside all the time as a kid... Something else is going on. Also, rural area report more claims than cities. You'd think cities would be "cleaner".
    - irrational 9y ago
      Maybe it's just part of getting old? I've never been lactose intolerant, but around the middle of my 40s I found that if I went to bed after eating a big bowl of ice cream I would wake up with heartburn in the middle of the night. I've learned to pop a few antacids after eating my ice cream before bed.
cs702 9y ago
According to the organization mentioned in the article, food allergies have been on the rise in the US for more than two decades. Here are some facts and statistics they've published online which I find both shocking and illuminating: https://www.foodallergy.org/facts-and-stats https://www.foodallergy.org/facts-and-stats
wslh 9y ago
Just a personal touch: my two daughters had food allergies (e.g. milk, soy). The second one had food allergies to almost everything in a way that you think you are cursed or crazy because there is a lack of research literature in this front. These were the kind of allergies related to immaturity and after the first year they were mostly solved. The "interesting" thing is that for the unsolved ones you can see behavior changes related to food. If you are a parent it is important to write a personal ledger to keep the daily food interactions and think scientifically because medicine doesn't have solutions right now.
arikrak 9y ago
Once people started worrying about allergies, they started avoiding various foods, which caused more allergies... http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/02/23/388450621/feeding-babies-foods-with-peanuts-appears-to-prevent-allergies http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/02/23/388450621/fee...
remarkEon 9y ago
I think I've mentioned this story here before... I grew up with horrible seasonal allergies (pollen and the like), to the point where I even got allergy shots and was heavily medicated. Visiting my cousins on the farm in South Dakota was awful if I didn't have a heavy dose of Claritin or Benadryl, which would basically put me to sleep. Fast forward several years to after college when I was in the Army...I found myself in Ranger School were most medications weren't allowed. So basically I just gutted it out when I started Darby (phase I of III). For the first 72 hours, I experienced the worst allergy attack of my life to the point that I didn't know if I could continue. For reasons that to this day I cannot explain I woke up on day 4 (or 5, I guess) and had no symptoms. None. To this day I require no medication and have no allergy symptoms to speak of. Edit: if there are any Allergists reading, I grew up in the Midwest and was the child of two parents who both grew up on what were basically farms. I was born in an urban center and would only experience a non-urban environment for fleeting weeks in the summer at Boy Scout camp and the like.
wanderr 9y ago
I developed allergies and asthma seemingly out of the blue at around 8 years old, and my allergies grew in scope over time. At first I was just allergic to cats, but eventually that became all animals with fur or feathers, tree pollen and dairy. It's just speculation but in my case I think the factors at play were: Genetics - nobody in my family has allergies but eczema and psoriasis are in the family and that can lead to higher chances of developing allergies Smoking - my mother smoked while pregnant and for years after I was born. Grandparents were chain smokers too so I was exposed to tons of second hand smoke Antibiotics - I don't know why or exactly at what age but there was a time when I was constantly getting ear infections (doctors often remark on the scars when they look in my ears), so I was on antibiotics all the time. If there is a natural balance of fungi and bacteria in our bodies, that was surely thrown off. Today my asthma is mostly cured, I keep an inhaler just in case but use it less than once a year, but my allergies haven't improved at all.
- rihegher 9y ago
  FYI, this is the same scheme about me except there was only me and my sister getting eczema and nobody was smoking in the family. About antiobiotics I had a treatment every fortnight that went from when I was 2,5 years old to when I was 6
- terpua 9y ago
  I've had serious allergies for over 20 years and it had gotten worse over time especially when near an ocean (had to stop diving since it was near impossible to equalize with all the excess mucus). But I recently became vegan and in about 2 weeks time, the allergies went away. I also have a friend who has asthma and when she went vegan, it all but disappeared. There's a lot of documentation about this but doctors don't give this advice probably because nutrition and prevention aren't a big part of their training. But for anyone suffering, give it a try for a couple of weeks. The quality of life gained is awesome.

59 points by jpelecanos 9y ago

vmateixeira 9y ago

Link without paywall, anyone?

vmateixeira 9y ago
Alternative source: http://www.cetusnews.com/life/A-Striking-Rise-in-Serious-Allergy-Cases.H1xWVDjuO-.html http://www.cetusnews.com/life/A-Striking-Rise-in-Serious-All...
Beltiras 9y ago
Put this bookmarklet on your bookmarks bar: javascript:window.location.href='https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href);
- vmateixeira 9y ago
  Thanks! :) Very useful!
- darkstar999 9y ago
  What is their logic in allowing Facebook traffic? Do they have a partnership or something?
  - arikrak 9y ago
    The can't tell if someone's a subscriber when the person opens a link from facebook on their phone, so they just allow all access from facebook. (It's also possible they want to encourage sharing on social networks.)

Beltiras 9y ago

Could this be more claims instead of a higher incidence? The uptick coincides with the ACA, possibly with a little lag.

vmateixeira 9y ago
Yes, possibly. For the chances of a higher incidence I would say the way we raise our children these days is very different from when our parents raised us. A lot of the food is processed, many environments were children play are close to sterile, etc. This difference would probably be big enough to be noticed on a 10 year window.
- irrational 9y ago
  Just a data point, but we have 7 kids and no allergies among them. We eat little processed foods and after school/weekends/summer the kids spend almost all their time outside. The downside is it takes longer to cook meals than just buy something pre-made and the kids need a bath every night because they come home filthy. The upside is no allergies?
- sneak 9y ago
  > many environments were children play are close to sterile [citation needed]
firimari 9y ago
Given that these are claims of anaphylaxis, you would certainly be heading to the doctor no matter what. There would have to be a lot of newly insured people that were previously going to the emergency room and paying out of pocket if it were due to the ACA.

singularity2001 9y ago

Were there any new chemicals allowed/introduced in the food industry in the last 5 years?

nelsondooley 9y ago
That's a really good question. "During recent decades more than 100,000 new chemicals have been used in common consumer products"* Also there's the idea that hybrid wheat has caused gluten intolerance * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4214967/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4214967/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573730/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573730/
adrr 9y ago
Its not going to be chemical as it would be worldwide. Its more likely how we raise our kids. One interesting hypothesis is that we are too clean, we machine wash everything, we slather our hands with hand sanitizer before we touch babies, our children have stopped playing outside in the dirt and now sit on the couch with an ipad. Further reading: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/02/23/387553285/kids-allergies-and-a-possible-downside-to-squeaky-clean-dishes http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/02/23/38755328...
- heurist 9y ago
  I was able to eat bread my whole life up to last year. Now whenever I eat it I get so tired I have to sleep. I played outside all the time as a kid... Something else is going on. Also, rural area report more claims than cities. You'd think cities would be "cleaner".
  - irrational 9y ago
    Maybe it's just part of getting old? I've never been lactose intolerant, but around the middle of my 40s I found that if I went to bed after eating a big bowl of ice cream I would wake up with heartburn in the middle of the night. I've learned to pop a few antacids after eating my ice cream before bed.

cs702 9y ago

According to the organization mentioned in the article, food allergies have been on the rise in the US for more than two decades. Here are some facts and statistics they've published online which I find both shocking and illuminating: https://www.foodallergy.org/facts-and-stats https://www.foodallergy.org/facts-and-stats

wslh 9y ago

Just a personal touch: my two daughters had food allergies (e.g. milk, soy). The second one had food allergies to almost everything in a way that you think you are cursed or crazy because there is a lack of research literature in this front. These were the kind of allergies related to immaturity and after the first year they were mostly solved. The "interesting" thing is that for the unsolved ones you can see behavior changes related to food. If you are a parent it is important to write a personal ledger to keep the daily food interactions and think scientifically because medicine doesn't have solutions right now.

arikrak 9y ago

Once people started worrying about allergies, they started avoiding various foods, which caused more allergies... http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/02/23/388450621/feeding-babies-foods-with-peanuts-appears-to-prevent-allergies http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/02/23/388450621/fee...

remarkEon 9y ago

I think I've mentioned this story here before... I grew up with horrible seasonal allergies (pollen and the like), to the point where I even got allergy shots and was heavily medicated. Visiting my cousins on the farm in South Dakota was awful if I didn't have a heavy dose of Claritin or Benadryl, which would basically put me to sleep. Fast forward several years to after college when I was in the Army...I found myself in Ranger School were most medications weren't allowed. So basically I just gutted it out when I started Darby (phase I of III). For the first 72 hours, I experienced the worst allergy attack of my life to the point that I didn't know if I could continue. For reasons that to this day I cannot explain I woke up on day 4 (or 5, I guess) and had no symptoms. None. To this day I require no medication and have no allergy symptoms to speak of. Edit: if there are any Allergists reading, I grew up in the Midwest and was the child of two parents who both grew up on what were basically farms. I was born in an urban center and would only experience a non-urban environment for fleeting weeks in the summer at Boy Scout camp and the like.

wanderr 9y ago

I developed allergies and asthma seemingly out of the blue at around 8 years old, and my allergies grew in scope over time. At first I was just allergic to cats, but eventually that became all animals with fur or feathers, tree pollen and dairy. It's just speculation but in my case I think the factors at play were: Genetics - nobody in my family has allergies but eczema and psoriasis are in the family and that can lead to higher chances of developing allergies Smoking - my mother smoked while pregnant and for years after I was born. Grandparents were chain smokers too so I was exposed to tons of second hand smoke Antibiotics - I don't know why or exactly at what age but there was a time when I was constantly getting ear infections (doctors often remark on the scars when they look in my ears), so I was on antibiotics all the time. If there is a natural balance of fungi and bacteria in our bodies, that was surely thrown off. Today my asthma is mostly cured, I keep an inhaler just in case but use it less than once a year, but my allergies haven't improved at all.

rihegher 9y ago
FYI, this is the same scheme about me except there was only me and my sister getting eczema and nobody was smoking in the family. About antiobiotics I had a treatment every fortnight that went from when I was 2,5 years old to when I was 6
terpua 9y ago
I've had serious allergies for over 20 years and it had gotten worse over time especially when near an ocean (had to stop diving since it was near impossible to equalize with all the excess mucus). But I recently became vegan and in about 2 weeks time, the allergies went away. I also have a friend who has asthma and when she went vegan, it all but disappeared. There's a lot of documentation about this but doctors don't give this advice probably because nutrition and prevention aren't a big part of their training. But for anyone suffering, give it a try for a couple of weeks. The quality of life gained is awesome.