ONE IN 12 CHILDREN IN U.S. HAS A FOOD ALLERGY AND A THIRD OF THOSE CAN BE LIFE THREATENING

One in 12 children in America has a food allergy, according to an alarming new study. And of those children a third had severe allergies that sometimes presented with life-threatening reactions. These included a child's airways being blocked and their blood pressure plummeting.
Previous estimates have put the number of children with allergies far lower at between two and eight in 100 children.

The study, published by Pediatrics, also showed that black and Asian children had higher chances of having a food allergy than white children.

The children surveyed were most commonly allergic to peanuts, milk, and shellfish.
Allergies are a particularly difficult chronic condition because children can't escape food in any part of their daily lives, said lead author Dr Ruchi Gupta, from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

“What I hope this paper will do is open this awareness to how common (food allergy) is and how severe it can be, and develop policies for schools and sporting events and any activities that kids participate in to make it clear that everybody is looking out for these kids,” she said.
“One of our big findings was that two in five kids who had allergies had a severe reaction or a life-threatening reaction,' Dr Gupta said.

'There are a lot of misconceptions of what allergies are,' she added. 'When you think of allergies, you don't think of life-threatening.”