Life-threatening peanut reactions among children have become ‘almost epidemic’, an expert has warned.
Dr Scott Sicherer, director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at New York’s Mount Sinai hospital, said the rise in cases is impossible to deny.
Peanut allergies tripled from affecting one in 250 children to just one in 70 between 1997 and 2008, a study by the institute found.
An obsession with cleanliness, where youngsters are not allowed to play in the dirt, is thought to have weakened their immune systems and driven the rise in allergy cases.
It comes after 15-year-old Megan Lee, from Accrington, died from a severe allergic reaction on New Year’s Day 2017 after she placed an order with an Indian takeaway despite warning them she was allergic to nuts.
Peanut reactions among children have become ‘almost epidemic’, an expert warned (stock)
‘It really is almost an epidemic,’ Dr Sicherer told CNBC. ‘When you’re living with a food allergy, it’s like you’re living in a landmine situation.
‘Every meal, every snack, every party, every social activity — is that food that can hurt me going to be there?’
He added anecdotal reports from school nurses suggest two children in every classroom suffer from a peanut allergy.
Allergies occur when the immune system mistakenly identifies food as a threat and launches an protective response against it.
Symptoms can include sneezing, itchy eyes, wheezing, hives, swelling, and even vomiting and diarrhoea.
In severe cases, this can trigger the life-threatening reaction anaphylaxis, which can cause breathing difficulties, confusion and a loss of consciousness.
Although children often have allergies to other foods, such as dairy and eggs, they usually outgrow these. But peanut allergies tend to be lifelong.
One possible explaination for the rise in peanut allergies is the ‘cleanliness theory’.
This suggests that protecting children from exposure to dirt makes their immune systems weaker.
Last year, the National Institutes of Health stated early exposure to peanut allergies may help to prevent the reaction.
Under new clinical guidelines in the US, parents are advised to introduce peanuts into a baby’s diet ‘as early as four to six months’.
In the UK, parents are advised to give children crushed up peanuts from around six months, if there is no history of allergies in the family.
Food allergy treatments that are in development largely aim to increase tolerance rather than curing the condition.
Dr Sicherer added that increasing tolerance from one hundredth of a peanut to even just two nuts would be a significant breakthrough for child safety.
Around a dozen different treatments are in the pipeline, he said.
His comments come after UK pharmacists were told to check whether young children really need EpiPens, which are routinely doled out by the NHS and used by millions of allergy sufferers.
Amid a ‘critical’ global shortage, the NHS has told chemists to ask parents how many adrenaline pens they have at home before deciding how many to give out.