I discovered, as an adult, that I have lactose intolerance even I was used to drink 3 cups of milk a day. How is that possible?
Edit: My aunt developed some kind of allergy to shrimps during pregnancy too haha so I guess it’s probably shitty genetics of my family
In: Biology
We don’t really know why adult onset allergies happen we have a better idea for kids but it’s hard to study. There is a little bit of correlation with people who have an allergy to the pollen of a tree later becoming allergic to the nut. So if you are allergic to walnut pollens from childhood you might develp and allergy to the nut, but obviously that doesn’t happen with all adult onset allergies. Sorry that that isn’t helpful but just know that 1 out of 4 adults with allergies had adult onset allergies.
For allergies, the immune system is able to adapt for your whole life, or else you’d never be able to develop immunity to any disease encountered outside of childhood. It’s still not entirely known why people develop food allergies, though some things seem to be more allergenic than others, such as a few plant enzymes that break down proteins.
The immune system does change during pregnancy, in order to avoid killing the developing baby, so perhaps that’s why your aunt developed a food allergy during that time. One hypothesis about why food allergies happen is if food molecules reach parts of the immune system that they would normally be broken down before reaching, the immune system won’t recognize them as harmless.
Your immune system got up one day and said “fuck this noise!!!”. It can happen anytime in your lifetime, of course there many environmental factors at play.
some people will lose the enzyme called lactase in their intestines over time. lactase is essentially a protein that helps to digest lactose. it breaks it down in smaller components so your body can absorb it. if you lack lactase, you can develop an intolerance to lactose, because your intestines cannot digest it well. the lactose cannot be broken down and just stays there. this is not an allergy, but an intolerance. you get diarrhea and bloating, but it’s not threatening. It is very rare to see a baby lacking lactase, but some babies are allergic to milk components and cow protein. This is dangerous for them, because their whole body reacts to it via immune system, like someone who’s allergic to peanuts. they can develop hives, have trouble breathing, as well as vomiting and diarrhea.
Lactose intolerance is not an allergy, its a deficiency of an enzyme. We as babies have the enzyme lactase that breaks down the lactose found in our mother’s milk. As you age this enzyme stops being expressed for whatever reason, probably because humans historically did not consume milk after infancy. For that reason, people lose this enzyme at different times in their lives.
Some people keep the enzyme, those people may have had dairy as a significant part of their diet in the past so that evolution selected for it
I have a weird egg allergy where I wouldn’t be caught dead eating an egg breakfast in public and then walking around downtown for the day. However, if I eat eggs at night, at home, i’m generally fine. it’s weird but eggs are just not a safe food for me. Hard boiled are ok though.
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