Food Allergy Epidemiology

Food allergy has the highest prevalence in the first few years of life, affecting, in fact, about 6% of children under the age of three years. This tends to decrease with age, reaching 10 years of age the incidence is found in adults.

There are no known events related to race, sex among children is more involved than the male sex, while among adults it is more involved than women.

In younger children the foods that cause most food allergies are: cow's milk (2.5%), egg (1.3%), peanuts (0.8%), soybeans (0, 4%), fish (0.1%) and crustaceans (0.1%). Forms due to milk, eggs and soybeans, 80% of cases are resolved with the school age. In contrast, allergies to peanuts, nuts and fish are considered permanent, and 20% of children with these allergies has a resolution in 5 years, although recurrences are possible.

The Mount Sinai Medical Center-USA conducted a telephone survey of more than 13,500 people have reported an increase in food allergies to peanuts, with a prevalence that has increased from 1997 to 2008 from 0.6% to 2.1% in children essentially unchanged compared with rates in adults, even with the limitations on the type of research is indicative of the steady increase in children with this type of food allergy.

Adults but are more susceptible to allergies due to food: shellfish (2%), peanut (0.6%), peanuts (0.5%), and fish (0.4%).

Allergic reactions to food additives in non-protein foods are uncommon. The reactions to plants are relatively common with an incidence of 5%, but are generally severe. It is, also, reported an increase of allergy to sesame seeds, commonly used in bakery products.

Is given a family history of atopic disease and food allergies, although environmental factors have a decisive role in the onset of the disease, as evidenced especially for food allergy to peanuts.

In the USA, allergies are the sixth place among the most common chronic diseases , in addition, 2-3% of admissions are due to allergic reactions to drugs.

Skin allergy is the typical manifestation of food allergy, skin disease and are more common in children younger than 11 years, these forms have increased from 3% to 10% of the sixties of the nineties. Urticaria and angioedema cone cutaneous manifestations most common food allergies, affecting approximately 15% of the population each year. Finally, there are more than 100 people die each year in the U.S. for anaphylactic reactions caused by ingestion of food.