Childhood allergies are becoming more common rather than less, experts say. It’s been some time since the official recommendations about treating childhood allergies were updated, but it appears there’s more that could be done to prevent childhood allergies in the first place…
The cure is simple: Start giving them small amounts of Peanut Protein as early as 4 to 6
months of age to help them avoid developing Peanut Allergy later in childhood.
I was shocked to hear that the prevalence of childhood allergies in the U.S. (and, I presume, the Greater Western World) more than tripled between 1997 and 2008, from 1 in 250 to 1 in 70. And the trend is continuing. School statistics say that, on average, there are now two kids with some sort of food allergy in every classroom. As far as I’m concerned, this is utter madness, especially since the bulk of these allergy cases involve the Demon Peanut, and this allergy can now be treated simply, by introducing at first small amounts of Peanut protein to kids’ diets, and slowly increasing it over time.
But recent checks show that parents aren’t adopting this therapy in significant numbers. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s that parents are wary of giving their kids something that could hurt them, even in micro-amounts. Anyway…
More to it than recommendations…
Dr. Scott Sicherer, Director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at New York’s Mount Sinai hospital, told CNBC: “[Childhood allergy] really is almost an epidemic. […] It’s impossible to deny an increase. […] It’s not just our imagination.”
But he’s not just sounding an alarm. He’s written a book, Food Allergies: A Complete Guide for Eating When Your Life Depends on It, which explains food allergies and underlines recommendations for treating and preventing them.
The ‘Cleanliness Theory’
Sicherer has a theory that kids today are coddled too much. Especially when it comes to cleanliness. They spend most of their time indoors, on their butts, in front of screens and not enough time outside playing, getting dirty and otherwise exposing themselves to the germs the rest of us are accustomed to. As a result, their immune systems aren’t as strong as they should be and the kids become prone to all kinds of ailments to which they should just naturally have developed immunities.
“Our immune systems may be getting misdirected and attacking things that they don’t need to, because our immune system is the part of the body that’s supposed to protect us from germs,” Sicherer explains. “But for allergies, it attacks the foods and makes us sick.”
My take…
It’s like I’ve been saying for years. I risk taking myself too seriously, perhaps, but I proposed some time ago, before the medical community took it up, the ‘cleanliness theory’ of why more kids are getting food allergies. When will Gen X and Millennial parents get the hint?
~ Maggie J.