Food allergies
Is your food making you sick?
Food allergies are on the rise worldwide and range from the small and annoying, to the potentially fatal. Here’s how to tell if you are affected, and what you can do about it.
What are food allergies?
Food allergies are an overreaction of the body’s immune system to a specific but usually harmless part of a food, generally a protein. The body reacts as if the protein is toxic. Food allergies are usually easy to identify – the symptoms can appear quickly, within minutes of eating or even touching the offending food.
What are the symptoms?
Symptoms are often severe and may even be life-threatening and include asthma, vomiting, diarrhoea, skin rash or swelling of the skin and in extreme cases anaphylactic shock (total collapse).
Other symptoms include:
- itching, burning and swelling around the mouth
- runny nose
- abdominal cramps
It can be easy to confuse a food allergy with a food intolerance, so a proper diagnosis of the problem is important. See an Accredited Practising Dietitian.
Common allergenic foods
Nuts, eggs, milk or soy cause about 90 per cent of food allergies. Others include wheat, molluscs such as oysters and mussels; crustaceans such as lobster, prawn; fruit, berries and sulphite derivatives.
How can I tell if I am allergic?
To confirm a food allergy a gentle skin prick test is conducted by an immunologist where a small amount of different allergens (eg nuts, eggs, fish and cow’s milk) are scratched onto the skin. The reaction to the skin prick is used to determine whether there is an allergy.
Treatments
There is no cure for a food allergy so in order to manage an allergy it is necessary to:
- avoid the allergen
- get advice about substitutes
- learn about emergency treatment
In most cases, food allergy is outgrown by school age, however some food allergies (particularly nut allergy) persist into adulthood.
Before you eliminate foods from your diet, make sure you seek advice from a doctor and dietitian.
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