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Food Facts - From Antigen Labs
Food allergy has recently been called the many disease because the patient has many symptoms, many doctors, many medicines, many tests, and has spent many bucks before the possibility of food allergy has even been thought of.
The definition of food allergy should be restricted to reactions caused by a specific immune response to food, i.e. – IgE Medicated. Other reactions are better described as food hypersensitivity. Some factors potentially involved in adverse reactions to food are:
- Immune-Allergy, such as IgE, Immune Complex or Cellular.
- Toxic Pharmacologic-Toxin, Biogenic Amines, Microbes.
- Intolerance-Enzyme Defect (Prim, Sec) or Biochemical.
- Psychosomatic.
In general, the larger the number of atopic problems in any particular individual, the greater the chances of food involved. Nearly all foods containing even small amounts of protein seem able to sensitize some individuals.
About 12% of all age groups in the population suffer from adverse reactions to food. Studies for H.A. Sampson E.A. Pastorello suggest that if foods could be effectively eliminated from a patient’s diet, children lost their allergy in 1-3 years and more than a third of the adult patients could tolerate the problem food(s) after 1-2 years.
The developing of tolerance appears to be antigen-dependent: peanut, fish and tree nut allergy seem to persist whereas allergy to egg, milk and wheat usually disappear.
Many common foods are closely related and presence of related proteins is obvious, i.e.-Wheat-rye, cod-haddock, peach-apricot. Another type of relation is a concomitant food allergy such as:
| Birch Pollen |
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Apple, potato, carrot, cherry, peach, apricot, kiwi, chestnuts |
| Ragweed Pollen |
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Cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumber, banana |
| Mugwort Pollen |
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Celery, spices |
| Grass Pollen |
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Corn, wheat, barley, milo |
| Cage Birds |
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Egg yolk, egg-containing products |
| Aspergillus |
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Baking flour |
| Sunflower Pollen |
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Honey (pollen) |
Signs of Food Allergy
| Eyes |
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Dennie’s Lines - Long, silky, uneven eyelashes - Unilateral upper eyelid edema - Upper/lower eyelid eczema
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| Ears |
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Red pinna - Cracking at the earlobe - Cracking behind the ear - Eczema of the ear canal - Otitis Media
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| Nose |
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Allergic nasal crease - Chronic nasal congestion - Dark, blue-purple nasal mucosa
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| Mouth |
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Aphthous stomatitis - Geographic tongue - Black, hairy tongue
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| Oropharynx |
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Lateral pharyngeal bands - Raised lymphoid hyperplasia
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| Hypopharynx |
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Vocal cord edema - Vocal cord inflammation
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| Skin |
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Angioedema - Eczema - Urticaria - Cracked nails-hands and feet - Burned butt syndrome, perioral inflammation
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Sources: Kabi Pharmacia, Allergy which Allergens? Food of plant origin. 1993
Edwin L. Boyd, Signs and Symptoms of Food Allergy. 1994
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