|| 7 February 2019

Adult Onset Food Allergies

Recently one of the Chic & Slim sisterhood had a frightening experience with an allergic reaction that sent her from a pleasant luncheon to the emergency room.

Medical tests later showed that the cause of her anaphylactic reaction was that she had developed a severe allergy to sunflower seeds. These sunflower seeds were in the artisan multigrain bread from which her sandwich was made. (The irony here is that she usually ordered the salad at this restaurant, but because of the E. coli in Romaine warnings at the time, she thought it safer to eat a sandwich.)

Onset of allergies in later life to foods and other substances that one has not previously had an allergy has not yet reached epidemic levels, but incidences are increasing.

I have two pieces of bad news. Adults can suddenly develop allergies to foods they have eaten with no problem their entire previous lives. And adult onset food allergies, unlike childhood allergies, are not likely to go away.

An excellent article I have read on the topic of adult onset food allergies was in the Wall Street Journal that unfortunately does not allow non-subscribers to read that publication’s articles. But if you have or know someone who has a subscription to WSJ online, the article is Doctors Surprised by Scope of Adult-Onset Food Allergies by Sumathi Reddy published on 4 February 2019.

Article on Adult Onset Food Allergies

When I went searching for an accessible article, I found one on the Harvard Medical School website. Harvard Med does allow non-subscribers to read one article before they insist you take out a paid subscription.

This article was written in 2011, but it does have detailed information on the various types of adult onset food allergies. Some information in this article that surprised me was the pollen-food connection — as well as food allergy reactions caused by eating certain foods immediately before exercising.

In extreme cases, adult onset allergic reactions can be life-threatening requiring swift medical attention. If you are not familiar with adult onset food allergies, I would encourage you to read the article linked below.

Harvard Med Article

be chic, stay slim — Anne Barone

Image : sunflower seeds on napkin decorated with sunflowers and bees