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Food Allergies

Food allergies affect approximately 6% of young children and 3-4% of adults in Western countries and their prevalence is increasing.

At present, there is no cure for food allergies and no therapy.

The only option for affected individuals is to avoid the responsible allergens to prevent a reaction.

The emotional and social burden on the individual can be substantial.

However, there is hope on the horizon that treatment might be possible one day. As Sicherer and Sampson (2009) report, studies are currently on the way that investigate a number of therapies, including sublingual or oral immunotherapy, cytokine/anticytokine therapies, treatments using engineered proteins or strategic immunomodulators, injections with anti-IgE antibodies, or Chinese herbal therapies (Sicherer S.H. and Sampson H.A. 2009. Food Allergy: Recent Advances in Pathophysiology and Treatment. Annual Review of Medicine, 60: 261-277).

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The information contained on this site is for general informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for expert medical advice, and does not take your medical history or specific circumstances into consideration. Always seek your doctor's advice if you have a medical or health-related condition. While every effort has been made to ensure that the above information was correct at the time of writing; medical knowledge is constantly being reviewed and updated, and the above information may therefore be superseded by additional knowledge.