Currently browsing posts about: Allergies

My once-every-three-weeks column for the San Francisco Chronicle is set up as a Q and A.  I don’t get many questions through the column, but the few that do come in are often quite challenging.  This one is from a school chef wondering how to deal with kids who might be gluten intolerant – and whether gluten intolerance is becoming more common.  Interesting questions!  Here’s what I had to say about them.  If you have questions about food and nutrition that you’d like me to answer, send them to food@sfchronicle.com (put Marion Nestle in the subject line).

A new study reports that children of women who ate peanuts during pregnancy had lower rates of peanut allergies than women who were told not to eat peanuts.  This could be good news.  But I’m baffled by food allergies.  Why are rates rising?  Why don’t we know more about them?  Why isn’t there more research?  I’m getting lots of questions about them lately.  Good places to start: The National Library of Medicine explains the research.  Organizations like the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network and the Food Allergy Initiative provide basic information.  And for personal experience, Allergic Girl has plenty to say on her blog.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a new report out on food allergies.  As everyone suspects, these have become more common in the last 10 years, especially among kids with asthma.  But the increase is really quite small and much smaller than I suspected.  The one big change is in the rate of hospitalizations; these have more than doubled.  Why? What’s really depressing is that nobody really knows.  I have argued for years that we need more research on food allergies.  With a food supply as complicated as ours, having one is no joke.

This week’s “Ask Marion” question on Eating Liberally is about food allergies, something I wouldn’t wish on anyone–too little known, and too much at stake.  Take a look.