Wednesday, May 12, 2010

What IS a food allergy?

The New York Times, May 11, 2010, published a great article highlighting the lack of consensus about what IS a food allergy. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases have organized an expert panel to "impose order on the chaos of food allergy testing". The goal of the panel is to clarify diagnosis, definition and testing. Conclusions of the panel will be presented by the end of June 2010.

Until then, some interesting information cited by the panel include:
  • People who test positive for allergies either by skin prick or blood test have less then a 50% chance of actually having an allergy!
  • Having IgE or IgG antibodies does not necessarily mean you are allergic to specific foods. The presence of the antibodies can be transient and rather meaningless.

-Patricia

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