The British Nutrition Foundation has found just 1 percent to 2 percent of children and less than 1 percent of adults in the general population have a true food allergy.
Interestingly, press reports put the number of allergic people around 20 percent to 30 percent. A recent study by Norwich Union Healthcare found that the inflated number is due to people self-diagnosing their allergies and food intolerances.
The insurance agency interviewed 250 general practitioners for the study. Three-quarters of the health experts said their patients' reactions were strictly in their minds.
The BNF said the foods most commonly associated with allergies are eggs, milk, soy, fish, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts and gluten-containing cereals.
The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., defines an allergy as an immune-system reaction to protect us from normally harmless substances. The immune system makes antibodies to fight that specific substance, and the antibodies release chemicals to fight it when it enters the body.
The chemicals include compounds that cause symptoms like runny noses, itchy eyes, sneezing, skin rashes and digestion difficulties.
This article is from MyDNA.com
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