There’s always so many people with allergies to nuts but not as many people allergic to other foods. Is there something specific in nuts that makes more people allergic to them?
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People can be, and are, allergic to all kinds of food. Shell fish, bananas, avocado. Depends on who they are, where they are from, genetics. Celery allergies are as common in the Czech as peanut allergies are in America.
Peanut oil is used in a lot of foods. If you give your young child these foods theyre more likely to develop those allergies.
I’ve been a teacher for 16 years. When I first started, we had maybe one or two kids in the whole school of 700 kids that had a peanut allergy. Now, there is at least 30 or so. There is no known cause for this sudden increase in peanut allergies, but there are some theories, one of them being the pesticides used in peanut production: https://robynobrien.com/food-allergies-the-hidden-truth-about-peanuts/
If we knew the definitive answer to this, we’d be in a much better place.
The probable answer here is: chemistry. Peanut proteins are especially allergenic chemicals. This means they bind very easily to the antigen receptors on cells, because of their chemical properties. The antigen presenting cells are the first step in the cascade of chemical reactions that results in allergy symptoms.
The storage proteins that make up peanuts come from several protein families known to be very allergenic. It’s not just one protein that makes peanuts troublesome, it’s a whole host of them. Peanuts share these proteins with tree nuts and legumes, so there is a lot of cross-sensitivity (meaning, if you are allergic to peanuts, you’re more likely to be allergic to nuts, because they share some of the same ingredients).
Seeds of all kinds contain chemicals to protect the seeds from being digested by animals. The general idea is that the animal eats the fruit and excretes the seeds unharmed. Well, in eating nuts and seeds, we’re kind of breaking that contract. We have selectively bred various types of plants whose offspring are safe to eat. But, just because they’re safe doesn’t mean that our bodies are fully read to dive headfirst into eating molecules it still recognizes as poison.
Peanuts are high in a few diverse types of allergens, where other foods might only have one or two closely related proteins. That variety means it’s more likely to contain *something* which trips off an allergy.
Actually I believe more people are allergic to dust and a protein in hay than any other elements. Hay fever is so common there are over the counter meds for it. Filters are made for pollen collection.
This protein passes through to milk products so many dairy allergies are actually linked to this protein.
Because they contain a higher level of proteins that can trigger an allergic response.
Foods that contain proteins can cause an allergic response when the body mistakes those proteins for something harmful. The body’s immune system then goes into defense mode and releases histamines in order to fight off the “invaders.” This leads to the symptoms associated with an allergy, such as itchy skin, watery eyes, sneezing, and a runny nose.
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