Most Common Food Allergies
| December 12, 2012 | Posted by admin under Allergy |
How common are food allergies? What are some of the most common food allergies?
In theory, almost any supplement and food might be the culprit that sets off allergic hives responses in the body. However, it seems that some foods like mango or onion and shrimp allergy tend to do this far more than others. A few foods are responsible for more than 90 percent of all allergic responses. There are 8 common food allergies, known as the big eight among allergists, which set off the chain reaction in our body and creates allergic responses.
The “Big 8″ Food Allergies
An allergic reaction occurs because the body mistakes the food or parts of it as a danger to the system, sometimes giving rise to strange allergy reaction. It sends out chemicals from the immune system to attack the foreign substance. These chemicals cause the reaction.
Some of the common food allergy symptoms like for peanuts can occur in the form of a skin rash, hives, eczema, swelling of lips headaches or redness. Others affect the gastrointestinal tract and give you diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. When they affect the respiratory tract they make you sneeze, have watery eyes, trigger asthmatic attacks and a runny nose with coughing and wheezing. Not everyone has the same symptoms and some have limited ones.
Those with strong food allergy symptoms may have life threatening conditions if they consume the food that offends.Some use of home remedies may help.
Even though the Dairy society and the government suggest that milk is necessary for good health, not everyone reacts to it well.
Some people exhibit garlic and raw onion intolerance, some are lactose intolerant meaning they can’t digest it properly and need to follow a lactose diet as it causes problems in the gastrointestinal tract. This is not an allergy but the inability to form enough enzymes to digest milk.
Those that are allergic to milk or coffee may find a different set of symptoms or some of the same as those with lactose intolerance. In milk allergies, some people are allergic to the curd, others to the whey and some to both. The curd, the solid lump in sour milk contains about eighty percent of the milk’s proteins. The whey or watery part contains the other twenty percent. It depends on the protein that makes the allergic reaction, whether the person reacts to either.
Eggs are another offender that commonly causes food allergies. The reactions, just like beef or milk, vary from individual to individual and have different levels of severity.
The “Big Eight” food allergies
The most common food allergies are the big 8 – peanuts, nuts from trees like walnuts and soy, pecans, fish, shellfish, and wheat.
Children have allergic reactions to different substances than adults. In children, the most common food allergies and symptoms to cause a reaction are milk protein, eggs, soy, peanuts, nuts and wheat. In adults, the reactions normally come from nuts, fish, wheat, shellfish and citrus fruit, one not on the “Big Eight” list.
Yeast is one of the most common food allergies and it differs from wheat intolerance or the sensitivity known as gluten allergy.
Intolerance to gluten damages the lining of the intestine and causes a variety of other problems because the body lacks the ability to absorb vitamins.
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