Eli5: Why are nut allergies and gluten intolerance so prevalent and serious in certain populations (like in much of the US), and negligible to the point of being even considered a myth in other parts of the world?

Question

Eli5: Why are nut allergies and gluten intolerance so prevalent and serious in certain populations (like in much of the US), and negligible to the point of being even considered a myth in other parts of the world?

In: Biology

Answer 1

So, can we start by examining the assumption that “nut allergies and gluten intolerance so prevalent and serious in certain populations (like in much of the US)”?

What are the actual statistics on this?

A quick search surfaced this from a 2013 study:

> More than half of the countries surveyed (52/89) did not have any data on food allergy prevalence. Only 10% (9/89) of countries had accurate food allergy prevalence data, based on oral food challenges (OFC). The remaining countries (23/89) had data largely based on parent-reporting of a food allergy diagnosis or symptoms, which is recognised to overestimate the prevalence of food allergy.

https://waojournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1939-4551-6-21