Food Allergies Increase in Kids

FROM  DR. BACKMAN AND DR. VEKSLER: We are seeing more food allergy issues among children and adults. There are measures you can take to minimize your reaction and exposure. See health library at left. For the full story dated Oct. 22, 2008 from MD News, click here. 

Child food allergies are up 18% over the last decade, the CDC reports. Four out of every 100 U.S. kids under age 18 now suffer food allergies, which doubles their risk of asthma and triples their risk of skin or respiratory allergies. "It is a significant trend -- food allergies do appear to be continuously increasing over the decade," CDC health statistician Amy Barnum, MSPH , tells WebMD. "And if you look at hospital discharges with any diagnosis related to food allergy, there has been a significant increase." The new CDC data confirms what pediatricians and allergists have been suspecting, says Hugh Sampson, MD, director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York. "There was the impression food allergy is increasing in children, but we only had data on peanut allergy" Sampson tells WebMD. "This report shows it is food allergy in general. That goes along with what a lot of pediatric allergists and pediatricians have been thinking."