According to EatingWell Magazine, the incidence of food allergies in children has been on the rise for a few decades. Now, almost 6 percent of all children have food allergies. Peanut allergy incidence tripled between 1997 and 2008. The insurance industry found that anaphylactic food reactions, the kind that can cause your airway to constrict and that can be lethal, increased by 377 percent in the past decade.

Why Are Kids Having More Food Allergies? –

According to EatingWell, pediatricians began giving bad advice across the country to new parents, based upon small clinical trials and little other solid evidence to back up their assertions. They were going on the information from a few studies of children who were at risk of food allergies. The advice they were providing should have been only given to parents of children at risk for allergies. Instead, the advice was given to many parents across the country.

The parents were being told to wait to give their children certain foods that might cause an allergic reaction, such as peanuts, eggs and milk, until they were a bit older. This advice proved to be wrong and appears to have produced a generation of children that are far more intolerant of certain foods than in the past.

What Happens in an Allergic Reaction? –

According to Salon, scientists learned in the 1960s that antibodies in our immune system called immunoglobulin E recognize different allergens and then travel to other immune cells in our body, triggering them to produce histamines and other bodily chemicals that create allergic reactions.

The Mayo Clinic states that, in the most severe allergic reactions, those that are anaphylactic, our immune systems over-react and reactions can include a sudden drop in blood pressure and airway constriction so that the patient cannot breathe. Also, patients have a pulse that is rapid, but weak, and they can experience skin rashes, vomiting and nausea. This is a life-threatening and frightening experience for the children and their parents.

Traditional Approaches to Other Types of Allergies, Like Pollen –

According to Salon Magazine, the traditional approach to other kinds of allergies, such as pollen, is to gradually expose the patient to greater doses of the allergen, starting small, until the person exhibits no reactions.

Traditional Approaches to Food Allergies –

Because of the danger of death in an anaphylactic reaction, allergists have been suggesting to parents that they eliminate the allergens from their children’s diets entirely. The problem caused by this approach is that peanuts, eggs and milk are present in many pre-packaged products. It presents a nightmare to parents to try to protect their children from exposure to these very common food products. If the child gets an accidental dose of the food, they may need to receive a quick administration of epinephrine to save their life.

A New, But Controversial Approach –

According to Salon, some practitioners, such as Premier Allergy and Asthma, have begun working with a new approach to food allergies in their patients. The idea is to introduce children to incrementally more and more of the allergen until their system gets used to it and does not over-react. Obviously, this is controversial because patients are having a life-threatening reaction to the food allergen. There is the danger that even the smallest dose of the food could cause a reaction.

This new type of treatment is called oral immunotherapy (OIT). EatingWell reports that a study in 2014 found that OIT helped 84 percent of the kids in the study to be able to eat 20 peanuts, reaction free. When coupled with the asthma drug, omalizumab, patients can often eat more of the previously-offending food more quickly. The FDA will be making a determination on approval for peanut flour capsules as OIT medication by the beginning of 2020.

Patients at Premier Allergy and Asthma have the option of either traditional food allergy treatment and consultation or the OIT treatments. OIT treatment presents a means of helping people live happy lives without fear of foods that literally might kill them otherwise