Food Allergy

Causes

Normally, your body's immune system defends against potentially harmful substances, such as bacteria, viruses, and toxins. In some people, an immune response is triggered by a substance that is generally harmless, such as a specific food.

The cause of food allergies is not fully understood.

While many people have a food intolerance, food allergies are less common. In a true food allergy, the immune system produces antibodies and histamine in response to the specific food.

Any food can cause an allergic reaction, but a few foods are the main culprits. In children, the most common food allergies are to:

* Eggs
* Milk
* Peanuts
* Shellfish (shrimp, crab, lobster, snails, clams)
* Soy
* Tree nuts
* Wheat

A food allergy frequently starts in childhood, but it can begin at any age. Fortunately, many children will outgrow their allergy to milk, egg, wheat, and soy by the time they are 5 years old if they avoid the offending foods when they are young. Allergies to peanuts, tree nuts, and shellfish tend to be lifelong.

In older children and adults, the most common food allergies are:

* Fish
* Peanuts
* Shellfish
* Tree nuts

Food additives -- such as dyes, thickeners, and preservatives – may rarely cause an allergic or intolerance reaction.

An oral allergy syndrome may occur after eating certain fresh fruits and vegetables. The allergens in these foods are similar to certain pollens. Examples are melon/ragweed pollen and apple/tree pollen.

Many Americans believe they have food allergies, while in reality fewer than 1% have true allergies. Most people's symptoms are caused by intolerances to foods such as:

* Corn products
* Cow's milk and dairy products (See: Lactose intolerance)
* Wheat and other gluten-containing grains (See: Celiac disease)

The body's immune system normally reacts to the presence of toxins, bacteria or viruses by producing a chemical reaction to fight these invaders. However, sometimes the immune system reacts to ordinarily benign substances such as food or pollen, to which it has become sensitive. This overreaction can cause symptoms from the mild (hives) to the severe (anaphylactic shock) upon subsequent exposure to the substance. An actual food allergy, as opposed to simple intolerance due to the lack of digesting enzymes, is indicated by the production of antibodies to the food allergen, and by the release of histamines and other chemicals into the blood.

Symptoms

Symptoms usually begin immediately, seldom more than 2 hours after eating. Rarely, the symptoms may begin hours after eating the offending food.

If you develop symptoms shortly after eating a specific food, you may have a food allergy. Key symptoms include hives, hoarse voice, and wheezing. In severe reactions, you may have low blood pressure and blocked airways.

Other symptoms that may occur include:

* Abdominal pain
* Angioedema (swelling, especially of the eyelids, face, lips, and tongue)
* Diarrhea
* Difficulty swallowing
* Itching of the mouth, throat, eyes, skin, or any area
* Light-headedness or fainting
* Nasal congestion
* Nausea
* Runny nose
* Shortness of breath
* Stomach cramps
* Vomiting

Symptoms of oral allergy syndrome:

* Itchy lips, tongue, and throat
* Swollen lips (sometimes)


Antigens are large molecules (usually proteins) on the surface of cells, viruses, fungi, bacteria, and some non-living substances such as toxins, chemicals, drugs, and foreign particles. The immune system recognizes antigens and produces antibodies that destroy substances containing antigens.

Exams and Tests

A blood or skin test can be done to identify elevated antibody levels (particularly IgE) and confirm that you have an allergy.

Elimination diets involve avoiding the suspected food until the symptoms disappear, then reintroduced to see if allergic reaction develops

Provocation (challenge) testing involves exposing a person to a suspected allergen under controlled circumstances. This may be done in the diet or by breathing in the suspected allergen. This type of test may provoke severe allergic reactions. Challenge testing should only be done by a doctor.

Never try to deliberately cause a reaction or reintroduce a food on your own. These tests should only be performed under the guidance of a health care provider -- especially if your initial reaction was severe.


Dermatitis around the mouth (perioral) is most common in young to middle age women. Frequently, no specific cause is found. However, there appears to be an association with fluorinated steroids. In children, dermatitis around the mouth may be associated with irritation from specific foods or other materials carried to the face on the hands.

Treatment

The only proven treatment for a food allergy is to avoid the food. If you suspect you or your child has a food allergy, consult an allergy specialist.

If you have symptoms on only one area of the body (for example, a hive on the chin after eating the specific food), you may not need any treatment. The symptoms will likely go away in a brief time. Antihistamines may relieve the discomfort. Soothing skin creams may provide some relief.

Consult your doctor if you think you have had an allergic reaction to food, even if it is only a local reaction.

Anyone diagnosed with a food allergy should carry (and know how to use) injectable epinephrine at all times. If a person develops any type of serious or whole-body reaction, even hives, after eating the offending food, they should inject the epinephrine, and then go to the nearest hospital or emergency facility, preferably by ambulance. Seek immediate medical attention after injecting epinephrine for a food reaction.

Outlook (Prognosis)

Avoiding the offending foods may be easy if the food is uncommon or easily identified. However, success may involve a severely restricted diet and often requires diligent reading of all package ingredients and detailed inquiries when eating away from home.

Asthma, eczema, or other disorders may be triggered or worsened by food allergies.

TopPossible Complications

A life-threatening complication is anaphylaxis, a severe, whole-body allergic reaction that can result in death. While people with oral allergy syndrome rarely have an anaphylactic reaction, they should ask their doctor whether they need to carry injectable epinephrine.

Asthma, eczema, or other disorders may be triggered or worsened by food allergies.
Back to TopWhen to Contact a Medical Professional

* Call your local emergency number, such as 911, if you have any serious or whole-body reactions after eating a food (particularly wheezing or difficulty breathing).
* If your doctor prescribed epinephrine for severe reactions, inject it as soon as possible, even BEFORE calling 911. The sooner you inject the epinephrine, the better.
* Anyone who has had an allergic reaction to a food should be evaluated by an allergy specialist.

TopPrevention

Breastfeeding may help prevent allergies. Otherwise, there is no known prevention of food allergies except to delay introducing allergy-causing foods to infants until the gastrointestinal tract has had a chance to mature. The timing for this varies from food to food and from baby to baby.

Once an allergy has developed, carefully avoiding the offending food usually prevents further problems.

TopReferences

American Gastroenterological Association medical position statement: guidelines for the evaluation of food allergies. Gastroenterology. 2001 Mar;120(4):1023-5.

American College of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology. Food allergy: a practice parameter. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2006 Mar;96(3 Suppl 2):S1-68.

Adkinson NF Jr. Middleton’s Allergy: Principles and Practice. 6th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Mosby; 2003.

Review Date: 10/12/2008
Reviewed By: Stuart I. Henochowicz, MD, FACP, Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Rheumatology, Georgetown University Medical School. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.

A.D.A.M., Inc. is accredited by URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (www.urac.org). URAC's accreditation program is an independent audit to verify that A.D.A.M. follows rigorous standards of quality and accountability. A.D.A.M. is among the first to achieve this important distinction for online health information and services. Learn more about A.D.A.M.'s editorial policy, editorial process and privacy policy. A.D.A.M. is also a founding member of Hi-Ethics and subscribes to the principles of the Health on the Net Foundation (www.hon.ch).

A.D.A.M. Copyright
The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed medical professional should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Call 911 for all medical emergencies. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. © 1997- 2008 A.D.A.M., Inc. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.

from New York Times

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New blogger templates (XML) 3 columns

These all are free to download XML templates which will work with the new blogger {blogger beta}.Most of them are 3 columned ones.They have a back link back to this page.You can remove it if your want.If you want to motivate me, the donation option below is all yours.

How to install your template
Step 1.Click on Template title (For eg. "Minima White")

Step 2.Goto Edit template section of your layout tab

Step 3. Upload it from the place where you saved it.

Important: Widgets

By installing any one of these templates, there are chances that all your widgets are lost(means all your customization is lost and only default template would be their).
It is recommended to backup your widgets.
A warning similar to the one given below will be displayed while installing them, Click Yes.

Son Of Moto Template
The bug's fixed and template updated, it should be green now.

Rounder's Template
The template experiences a sidebar drop in IE.Under Scanner

Header Image
It's been observed that the template isn't permitting images.the temporary solution is that you delete the 'Header' page element.Then re-add it using 'Add a Gadget' link in the layout section.

XML Errors
Instead of copy-pasting the code,try downloading it and then uploading.For downloading Right click on the template link you wish to download and select "Save Target As" in IE or "Save Link As" in Firefox.Then upload it from Edit HTML section of the Layout Tab.

Current templates available

Minima White




Minima Black



Minima Blue




Minima Ochre



Son of Moto




Ms.Moto





Dots




Dots Dark




TicTac




Tic Tac Blue




Denim



Denim Washed



Denim Light




897




565



Thisaway



Thisaway Blue




Rounders(01)




Rounders(02)




Rounders(03)



Sand Dollar




Herbert



Scribe




Harbor



from webtalks

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The Claim: Chocolate Can Be Disruptive to Sleep

THE FACTS


Chocolate can stir affection and awaken the taste buds, but some people wonder if it can have a less pleasant side effect: keeping them up at night.

Chocolate contains caffeine, as many people know, but in varying amounts depending on the type. A 1.5-ounce Hershey’s milk chocolate bar, for example, contains nine milligrams, about three times as much caffeine as a cup of decaffeinated coffee. But a dark chocolate Hershey’s candy bar has far more: about 30 milligrams. That is the same as a cup of instant tea, and slightly less than a typical cup of brewed tea, about 40 milligrams.

In other words, a dark chocolate dessert, eaten late enough, might leave you counting plenty of sheep.

And chocolate has other stimulants. One is theobromine, the compound that makes chocolate dangerous to dogs and cats because they metabolize it so slowly. Theobromine, which increases heart rate and causes sleeplessness, is found in small amounts in chocolate, especially dark. The National Sleep Foundation recommends avoiding chocolate — as well as coffee, tea and soft drinks — before bedtime.

But there is an alternative. White chocolate does not contain any theobromine, and little if any caffeine.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Eating chocolate at night can potentially keep you awake.

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New Thinking on How to Protect the Heart

By JANE E. BRODY
Published: January 12, 2009

If last week’s column convinced you that surgery may not be the best way to avoid a heart attack or sudden cardiac death, the next step is finding out what can work as well or better to protect your heart.

Many measures are probably familiar: not smoking, controlling cholesterol and blood pressure, exercising regularly and staying at a healthy weight. But some newer suggestions may surprise you.

It is not that the old advice, like eating a low-fat diet or exercising vigorously, was bad advice; it was based on the best available evidence of the time and can still be very helpful. But as researchers unravel the biochemical reasons for most heart attacks, the advice for avoiding them is changing.

And, you’ll be happy to know, the new suggestions for both diet and exercise are less rigid. The food is tasty, easy to prepare and relatively inexpensive, and you don’t have to sweat for an hour a day to reap the benefits of exercise.

The well-established risk factors for heart disease remain intact: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, abdominal obesity and sedentary living. But behind them a relatively new factor has emerged that may be even more important as a cause of heart attacks than, say, high blood levels of artery-damaging cholesterol.

That factor is C-reactive protein, or CRP, a blood-borne marker of inflammation that, along with coagulation factors, is now increasingly recognized as the driving force behind clots that block blood flow to the heart. Yet patients are rarely tested for CRP, even if they already have heart problems.

Even in people with normal cholesterol, if CRP is elevated, the risk of heart attack is too, said Dr. Michael Ozner, medical director of the Cardiovascular Prevention Institute of South Florida. He thinks that when people have their cholesterol checked, they should also be tested for high-sensitivity CRP.

Diet Revisited

The new dietary advice is actually based on a rather old finding that predates the mantra to eat a low-fat diet. In the Seven Countries Study started in 1958 and first published in 1970, Dr. Ancel Keys of the University of Minnesota and co-authors found that heart disease was rare in the Mediterranean and Asian regions where vegetables, grains, fruits, beans and fish were the dietary mainstays. But in countries like Finland and the United States where plates were typically filled with red meat, cheese and other foods rich in saturated fats, heart disease and cardiac deaths were epidemic.

The finding resulted in the well-known advice to reduce dietary fat and especially saturated fats (those that are firm at room temperature), and to replace these harmful fats with unsaturated ones like vegetable oils. What was missed at the time and has now become increasingly apparent is that the heart-healthy Mediterranean diet is not really low in fat, but its main sources of fat — olive oil and oily fish as well as nuts, seeds and certain vegetables — help to prevent heart disease by improving cholesterol ratios and reducing inflammation.

Virtues Confirmed

It was not until 1999 that the value of a traditional Mediterranean diet was confirmed, when the Lyon Diet Heart Study compared the effects of a Mediterranean-style diet with one that the American Heart Association recommended for patients who had survived a first heart attack.

The study found that within four years, the Mediterranean approach reduced the rates of heart disease recurrence and cardiac death by 50 to 70 percent when compared with the heart association diet.

Several subsequent studies have confirmed the virtues of the Mediterranean approach. For example, a study among more than 3,000 men and women in Greece, published in 2004 by Dr. Christina Chrysohoou of the University of Athens, found that adhering to a Mediterranean diet improved six markers of inflammation and coagulation, including CRP, white blood cell count and fibrinogen.

The same year Kim T. B. Knoops, a nutritionist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and co-authors published a study showing that among men and women ages 70 to 90, those who followed a Mediterranean diet and other healthful practices, like not smoking, had a 50 percent lower rate of deaths from heart disease and all causes.

“The Mediterranean diet is one people can stick to,” said Dr. Ozner, author of “The Miami Mediterranean Diet” and “The Great American Heart Hoax” (BenBella, 2008). “The food is delicious, and the ingredients can be found in any grocery store.

“You should make most of the food yourself,” Dr. Ozner added. “When the diet is stripped of lots of processed foods, you ratchet down inflammation. Among my patients, the compliance rate — those who adopt the diet and stick with it — is greater than 90 percent.”

Among foods that help to reduce the inflammatory marker CRP are cold-water fish like salmon, tuna and mackerel; flax seed; walnuts; and canola oil and margarine based on canola oil. Fish oil capsules are also effective. Dr. Ozner recommends cooking with canola oil and using more expensive and aromatic olive oil for salads.

Other aspects of the Mediterranean diet — vegetables, fruits and red wine (or purple grape juice) — are helpful as well. Their antioxidant properties help prevent the formation of artery-damaging LDL cholesterol.

Other Steps

Several recent studies have linked periodontal disease to an increased risk of heart disease, most likely because gum disease causes low-grade chronic inflammation. So good dental hygiene, with regular periodontal cleanings, can help protect your heart as well as your teeth.

Reducing chronic stress is another important factor. The Interheart study, which examined the effects of stress in more than 27,000 people, found that stress more than doubled the risk of heart attacks.

Dr. Joel Okner, a cardiologist in Chicago, and Jeremy Clorfene, a cardiac psychologist, the authors of “The No Bull Book on Heart Disease” (Sterling, 2009), note that getting enough sleep improves the ability to manage stress.

Practicing the relaxation response once or twice a day by breathing deeply and rhythmically in a quiet place with eyes closed and muscles relaxed can help cool the hottest blood. Other techniques Dr. Ozner recommends include meditation, prayer, yoga, self-hypnosis, laughter, taking a midday nap, getting a dog or cat, taking up a hobby and exercising regularly.

He noted that in a 1996 study, just 15 minutes of exercise five days a week decreased the risk of cardiac death by 46 percent.

Even very brief bouts of exercise can be helpful. A British study published in the current American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that accumulating short bouts — just three minutes each — of brisk walking for a total of 30 minutes a day improved several measures of cardiac risk as effectively as one continuous 30-minute session.

from the NEW YORK TIMES

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The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating

Maybe you should be eating more beets, left, or chopped cabbage. (Credit: Evan Sung for The New York Times, left

(This post was originally published on June 30, 2008, and recently appeared on The New York Times’s list of most-viewed stories for 2008.)

Nutritionist and author Jonny Bowden has created several lists of healthful foods people should be eating but aren’t. But some of his favorites, like purslane, guava and goji berries, aren’t always available at regular grocery stores. I asked Dr. Bowden, author of “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth,” to update his list with some favorite foods that are easy to find but don’t always find their way into our shopping carts. Here’s his advice.

1. Beets: Think of beets as red spinach, Dr. Bowden said, because they are a rich source of folate as well as natural red pigments that may be cancer fighters.
How to eat: Fresh, raw and grated to make a salad. Heating decreases the antioxidant power.
2. Cabbage: Loaded with nutrients like sulforaphane, a chemical said to boost cancer-fighting enzymes.
How to eat: Asian-style slaw or as a crunchy topping on burgers and sandwiches.
3. Swiss chard: A leafy green vegetable packed with carotenoids that protect aging eyes.
How to eat it: Chop and saute in olive oil.
4. Cinnamon: May help control blood sugar and cholesterol.
How to eat it: Sprinkle on coffee or oatmeal.
5. Pomegranate juice: Appears to lower blood pressure and loaded with antioxidants.
How to eat: Just drink it.
6. Dried plums: Okay, so they are really prunes, but they are packed with antioxidants.
How to eat: Wrapped in prosciutto and baked.
7. Pumpkin seeds: The most nutritious part of the pumpkin and packed with magnesium; high levels of the mineral are associated with lower risk for early death.
How to eat: Roasted as a snack, or sprinkled on salad.
8. Sardines: Dr. Bowden calls them “health food in a can.” They are high in omega-3’s, contain virtually no mercury and are loaded with calcium. They also contain iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese as well as a full complement of B vitamins.
How to eat: Choose sardines packed in olive or sardine oil. Eat plain, mixed with salad, on toast, or mashed with dijon mustard and onions as a spread.
9. Turmeric: The “superstar of spices,” it may have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.
How to eat: Mix with scrambled eggs or in any vegetable dish.
10. Frozen blueberries: Even though freezing can degrade some of the nutrients in fruits and vegetables, frozen blueberries are available year-round and don’t spoil; associated with better memory in animal studies.
How to eat: Blended with yogurt or chocolate soy milk and sprinkled with crushed almonds.
11. Canned pumpkin: A low-calorie vegetable that is high in fiber and immune-stimulating vitamin A; fills you up on very few calories.
How to eat: Mix with a little butter, cinnamon and nutmeg.

You can find more details and recipes on the Men’s Health Web site, which published the original version of the list last year.

In my own house, I only have two of these items — pumpkin seeds, which I often roast and put on salads, and frozen blueberries, which I mix with milk, yogurt and other fruits for morning smoothies. How about you? Have any of these foods found their way into your shopping cart?

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