So many allergies! Why?

SueDonim, my son also was sensitive to tartrazine but we didn’t realise until he was in his early teens. He was always hyperactive as a toddler but we didn’t link it with tartrazine until his early teens when he had a glass of orange juice in a cafe and had his first, quite bad, asthma attack. This prompted us to check the ingredients and then it ll made sense.

Baggs

*I think there’s a lot going on with food nowadays that we didn’t have to contend with when we were young. To take the OP’s comment about sesame and poppy seed allergies - I doubt very much that years ago either of those items would be in the weekly shopping basket.*

Exactly, sued! I don't think I had come across sesame seeds or poppy seeds until well into adulthood.

I think it is more that the foodstuffs we buy in supermarkets contain so much that is not food but food reduced to its chemical components.

I can remember back in the 1970s, when foodstuffs began to contain chemical additives asking myself while each chemical may be safe in itself, what happened when it was mixed with other chemical additives? There was no information.

There has also been a huge growth in the use of pesticides, fungicides, artificial fertilisers etc on farms that leave residues in the food products that cannot be removed by washing or cooking.

There are also the residues of human medication in the water supply. Residues from contraceptive pills are affecting fish in rivers, lakes and the sea, we consume these medical by-products as well. Then there are micro plastics...................

I also think many of these allergies were just not recognise. I have never been able to drink fresh milk, eat yoghourt, or soft cheeses, they makes me sick and upset my stomach, but I can eat hard cheese, cheddar etc without a problem. I have only recently discovereed that I am mildly lactose intolerant and this is not uncommon. DS is the same, but my early years at school were made hideous by teachers making me drink my free milk and then punishing me when I was sick because this mild lactose intolerance was not understood.

I remember, back in the early 1950s, when I first started school there was a little boy who used to throw up almost immediately after just one sip of school milk. I think he only did it three or four times before they realised he was 'not just being naughty' and stopped making him drink it. Nowadays he would probably have been diagnosed as lactose intolerant long before he went to school.

If anyone is interested in the topic of what we are eating and the damage ultra processed foods are causing I have just read an excellent book on the subject called Ultra Processed People. I can’t remember the name of the Doctor who wrote it but it’s very well balanced and easy to read, despite the serious subject. I found it a real eye opener. I thought I had a healthy diet and have always cooked from scratch but I discovered that even so called healthy foods can have all manner of non food additives in them. When a business is food, and the object of all business is to sell more and make money, the lengths that they go to to ensure that they have products that don’t go off, are addictive, eaten quickly and without effort, eg. A slice of package bread will last for days and turns to mush as soon as you start to eat it as opposed to a real sourdough which goes stale quickly and requires real chewing to get through. Which is not to say that everyone can afford to buy the sourdough but we should know what we are eating. Apparently children’s jaws are getting smaller because they have such soft foods and the looming danger of antibiotics becoming obsolete is more to do with how many are pumped into the animals people eat than doctors over prescribing! Europe is fairly well regulated but the industry in the USA is self regulated so you can imagine what is going on there! The current traffic light system on food is, many experts agree, not fit for purpose but very hard to get anywhere because those really advocating for change are up against scientific research which dictates policy, but is conducted by scientists who are employed by the big food companies. And who do not declare their conflict of interest. As I say, a terrific and enlightening read.

Arthrawes I was ill with Clostridium Difficile over twenty years ago. I have no idea where I picked it up as I hadn’t had antibiotics recently. I was ill for two months, unable to work, before I was finally admitted to hospital where it was discovered what was making me so ill. After being in hospital for two weeks I was discharged and it took me a further five months to recover fully.

I understand that physical assaults on teachers have risen hugely Marydoll and that is cited by some teachers as why so many are leaving the profession.

I was born in the 1940's and had basic but good foods. Today as others have said we have a lot more choice now and a very wide range of different foods that contain all sorts of things that many people can't eat safely. I contracted Clostridium Difficile some years ago when I had to be very careful what I ate but thankfully I can now eat most 'normal' foods that don't have so many ingredients. It's a difficult one for people today and it's understandable that many will find it hard to eat food that doesn't accept their body's system.

maddyone

I’ve heard it reported today that one in five teachers have been hit by a pupil. I was most certainly kicked.

I had a child jump on my broken foot! I had just gone back to work.

I’ve heard it reported today that one in five teachers have been hit by a pupil. I was most certainly kicked.

I don’t think anyone said it was Monica.

lactose intolerance is not an allergy anymore than celiac disease is.

Actually, some of my DC's teachers were probably guilty of assault too, but not, as far as I know, on any of my DC.

Some teachers were truly dreadful in those days.

AllSorts
Children ate what they were given and suffered for it.

Re teachers. In the last year of juniors that teacher hit me round the head so hard my glasses went flying.
He also made you say thank you if you got the slipper or cane.
Both those implements had names.
The year after I left he went to prison for serious assault on a child.

My daughter was the same with Smarties. My mum used to take her along to the little corner shop from time to time after she'd had her dinner and buy her a sweetie. Some times she was fine, others she'd literally be bouncing off the walls - it took a wee while to work it out, but that only happened on the occasions when she'd had Smarties! Neither of mine were allowed fizzy juice either - but as someone else said, if they'd had it at a party or another child's house, we could always tell as they'd be really hyper.

She also reacted to cola. We only ever had it at the children’s birthday parties
So did one of my DD.
I never bought it and told her to avoid it but always knew if she'd drunk it at another child's birthday party. She'd be hyper and doing zoomies round the room when she came home.

Allergies definitely exist and always have done. They can be life threatening.
Food intolerances also exist, but I think some people jump on the bandwagon. It’s fashionable to say you are intolerant of some foods. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist for some people. They do, just not for the number of people claiming them.

My children rarely had sweets when they were growing up. I wanted to protect their teeth, so they just had them at Christmas/birthdays/Easter. Anyway when doing a birthday party for my son, my then four year old daughter had some Smarties in her party bag. She ate the lot in one go. She turned from a quiet and quite anxious child into a jumping on the furniture (not allowed in our house) running all over the place, laughing, wound up child. It was as if someone had put a long life battery inside her and wound her up. She took a good while to calm down.
I didn’t allow her to have Smarties again for a long time. I assume it was the colours that wound her up. She wasn’t used to anything like that.

She also reacted to cola. We only ever had it at the children’s birthday parties.

I remember reading an article from a Professor of paediatrics saying the trouble with today's children they don't earth enough dirt

So how does this Professor explain about babies born who cannot tolerate lactose, even breast milk because of what their mother is eating.

And yes, despite what some doctors may claim, gluten and other allergens must pass through into breast milk.

Should have said there must have been food allergies about and undiagnosed conditions because the tests weren't available. I was born with a hole in the side of my heart only found out in 2020. My neurological condition was only diagnosed in 2022 and only because my neurologist had my whole genome genetically tested. And it's rare. But I had to laugh when I found out about my heart as I have had 3 major and 2 minor ops all with a dicky heart. Thankfully getting treatment for both .

I remember reading an article from a Professor of paediatrics saying the trouble with today's children they don't earth enough dirt. He went on to explain because of all the cleaning products to kill germs means child do not build up their immunity to beable to fight infections and bugs. This was 41 years ago when I was pregnant with my first. So decided as long hand and face where clean to eat I wouldn't change her clothes if they got dirty unless we where going out. Both my children played in the garden and dug holes and had a patch of garden to plant seeds. I didn't dust everyday or vacuum unless something got spilt. My son was born with an allergy to penicillin. He couldn't have fabric plasters as they gave him a rash . But otherwise they didn't get any allergies.

My ex sister in law was a clean freak and changed the children's clothes as soon as they got a mark on them . As soon as they touched anything she was washing them. All 3 have allergies to various things. She is disinfected the house every day and even the children's toys .

My grandsons haven't got any allergies but 2 have eczema. But there dad had psoriasis. My late husband when he was in his 30's got eczema and hay fever at the same time. No idea why.

Like others have said allergies didn't seem to be about when they was young. I was born in 1958. It was more about polio and whopping cough that worried people. You can tell what generation people are if they have a smallpox scar.

All the veg then was brought from the greengrocer or market stall and always had dirt on. We had a bag just for the potatoes. Fish and chips came in newspaper. And even reading a newspaper the print came off on your hands. Meat was wrapped in white paper at the butchers . Bakeries either wrapped the bread in white paper or you just put it in your bag.
I was well in my teens before my nan had a fridge. As she had a marble slab in the pantry to keep things cold.

All the things they put into processed foods just to make them last long and cut production times have a lot to answer for. But that's just my option.

Food allergies can be proved

Yes, but usually we cannot find out why there is a food allergy, if the parents may have no allergy so it must be something, during pregnancy or since birth that has damaged the immune system.

A lot of children did die young in the past, undiagnosed allergies contributed to that, but it does not explain the large number of children with allergies now. It is well established that older parents have a much higher risk of disabled children due to DNA faults, does this relate to allergies as well.

What % of children have allergies at the present time?

MOnica that is awful, I feel for you

There is also some research re whether starting purées/solids later is contributing to food allergies and intolerances. Introduction at the recommended 6 months is the latest ever recommended. I was apparently on solids at 6 weeks which was recommended at that time (I’m in my 60’s).

But they were there Allsorts I knew about strawberry and shellfish allergies and I, clearly had lactose intolerance. It was just not recognised then, so i was routinely made to drink my school milk and was routinely sick and routinely blamed of deliberately making myself sick on purpose.

I also had a bowel conddition that no one could diagnose because it was recognised when it majorly affected someone with it. Someone like me, who only had it mildly, but still life constraining, the condition wasn't recognised, although it would be nowadays.

Lots of things were around in our childhood, but just not recognised

Never heard of any food allergies growing up, children ate what they were given, just after the war. In my class of 44, one boy had polio, one boy was a slow learner and he used to be put in the corner and called a Dunce. It upset me very much as no one would play with him, he probably had dyslexia but no one knew it but whatever it was very cruel. In those days if you were slow first the board rubber thrown at you. Then the ruler on your knuckles if you persisted, last result the cane. I did have the ruler once for not paying attention.