Looking at the food allergy epidemic

Leading Australian immunologists Professor Sue Prescott and Associate Professor Katie Allen have recently published a paper on food allergy, which they refer to as 'the second wave of the allergy epidemic'.

The so-called 'first wave' of the allergy epidemic refers to respiratory allergies including asthma, allergic rhinitis and inhalant sensitization. While the prevalence of respiratory allergies dramatically increased prior to the escalation in food allergy rates, especially in regions like Australia, the reasons for the increase, and why the escalation of food allergy rates lagged behind, remain unknown.

Up to 10 percent of infants in Australia are now said to be affected by challenge-proven IgE-mediated food allergy, and it was the parents of these children who would have experienced the epidemic of respiratory allergy in their youth. This adds weight to the findings of new studies which suggest environmental factors can produce epigenetic changes in gene expression and disease risk that may be potentially heritable across generations.

The authors express great concern in relation to the impacts of modern lifestyle on the increasing incidence of food allergies, and cite changing dietary patterns, changing intestinal commensal bacteria and vehicular pollution as progressive environmental changes linked to the development of food allergy. They suggest the rising rates of maternal allergy may amplify the effect of environmental changes, and warn that the generation of children born to these allergic parents appear less likely than previous generations to outgrow their food allergies.

'Westernisation' of the developing world appears to significantly contribute to the rising incidence of food allergy, especially in non-Caucasian populations. As such, the global burden of allergic disease is expected to dramatically increase.

Reference: Prescott & Allen. 2011. Pediatric Allergy and Immunology. Vol. 22(2) pp. 155-160. DOI: 10.1111/j.1399-3038.2011.01145.x