Peanut Allergy & the Hygiene Theory

Do clean houses cause peanut allergies?!?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/05/18/peanut.allergies/index.html

The medical community cannot fully explain the phenomenon. But there are theories. Noticing that developing countries have almost no allergy led doctors to suspect that our society is too germ-free…. [Maybe it's the lack of early vaccinations, unavailability of baby formula, and antibiotics that are contaminated with peanuts? - bfg]

Anne Muñoz-Furlong, head of FAAN, says “Perhaps our homes are too clean — we’ve done too much to take away the job of the immune system. We don’t have parasites, a lot of the childhood diseases you vaccinate and don’t have, so maybe for some people, the immune system is looking for something to do and decides, ‘Aha, I don’t like milk’ or ‘I don’t like peanuts,’” and the body then attacks the food protein as if it were an enemy invader.” [ What a crock! LOL!!! Interesting though. She is making a case for not vaccinating your child. If your child gets the normal childhood illnesses of measles and mumps, the child's immunization system will be too busy to attack food.- bfg]

Another theory researchers are looking at is that children are exposed too early to peanuts. [Ah! now you've got it. You're just looking in the wrong place for the early exposure - bfg]

I found a really good website by an MD that clearly shows how the medical profession totally ignores what is really causing the problem. He really believes the BS about being too clean….

http://www.allerg.qc.ca/peanutallergy.htm#pigpen

-A very interesting article appeared on the front page of the March 20th, 2006 ‘USA Today’ giving more insight into the ‘hygiene theory’ alluded to a couple times elsewhere in this review: To head off allergies, expose your kids to pets and dirt early. Really.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-03-19-allergies-cover_x.htm

Here’s the new wisdom: Early exposure to pets, peanuts and intestinal worms might actually be good for you, because they program the developing immune system to know the difference between real threats, such as germs, and Aunt Millie’s cat. [I'll pass on the intestinal worms but how about the normal childhood disease bacteria of mumps? I think I would prefer that to intestinal parasites.... - bfg]

Evidence to support this view has been mounting for more than a decade. But now, for the first time, researchers are beginning to test remedies based on these theories in patients. Other doctors are trying to make use of novel approaches to retrain the immune system once it’s too late and allergies set in. [What evidence? This is all BS!!! - bfg]

“What we’ve learned is that it may, in fact, be important to be exposed early on to a sufficient quantity of allergy-causing substances to train the immune system that they are not a threat,” says Andy Saxon of the University of California-Los Angeles. “And, in people who already have allergies, we see for the first time where the problems lie, and we have new opportunities to tweak the system.”

Scientists base this radical new thinking about human allergies on a deeper understanding of how the immune system works. They have begun to exploit fresh insights to attack allergies and other immune diseases in unexpected ways. No longer content just to treat allergy symptoms, they hope to outwit the immune system and stop allergic responses before they start. [Ya know.... it might be easier and wiser and CHEAPER to not cause the allergy in the first place. But that is not how modern medicine works. If you create a problem then you come up with another medical procedure and expense to treat the problem you just created... - bfg]

“When you’re born, Day Zero, your immune system is like a new computer. It’s not programmed. You have to add software,” says Joel Weinstock of Tufts New England Medical Center. “Between the ages of zero and 12, you’re learning to read, you’re learning to write, and your immune system is learning to react to things. Part of that is learning to limit reactivity.”

If the new approaches work, millions might benefit. More than 50 million people have allergic diseases, which are the sixth-leading cause of chronic illness in the USA, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), costing the health system $18 billion a year. [Whoa, we don't want to prevent allergic diseases, we want to treat them because it is a major money maker! - bfg]

Asthma alone accounts for 500,000 hospitalizations a year, including 2 million admissions to the emergency room, says a study in the May 2005 Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Since 1980, adult asthma cases have risen by 75% and childhood asthma by 160%, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. [If you add these statistics to the statistics on the various vaccinations, would the new statistics show that the "cure" is better than getting measles, mumps, etc.? - bfg]

To test whether high-dose exposure breeds tolerance, researchers led by Gideon Lack at Imperial College in London are preparing to launch a counterintuitive — and some would say risky — seven-year, U.S.-financed study that will expose infants to peanuts. It’s based on research showing that children who eat peanuts at an early age are less likely to develop peanut allergies. [Talk about dangerous. The children are already being exposed to peanuts at an early age when you give them that vaccine grown in peanut meal! - bfg]

The study is risky because children with unrecognized peanut allergies might suffer anaphylactic shock, a deadly drop in blood pressure often combined with asthma, if they’re exposed to peanuts. [And some of the people who suffered anaphylactic shock died. Why not study eliminating too many vaccinations and eliminating all of the ones given before one year of age! - bfg]

It is amazing the crazy ideas in the medical community about health. Instead of preventing allergies in a safe manner, we will treat the allergies in a dangerous manner and, of course, charge for our services. And here is a 2008 study that says exposing allergic people to peanuts repeatedly is probably a very bad idea:

http://content.karger.com/produktedb/produkte.asp?typ=fulltext&file=000142051

Recurrent Peanut Allergy May Not Be Prevented by Continued Peanut Ingestion
…It has been suggested that recurrent peanut allergy might be prevented by regular ingestion of peanut subsequent to passing an oral food challenge [J Allergy Clin Immunol 2004;114:1195-1201]. We present a case that challenges this thinking by demonstrating that peanut allergy may recur during regular ingestion of significant doses of peanut protein. The case suggests that current practice cannot guarantee freedom from recurrent peanut allergy, and it is important that patients and their families are aware of this.

As far as lack of good dirt being the cause of allergies… they obviously never swabbed my house or that of the working parents around the US. I can still hear my mother talking about how much cleaner houses were kept when she raised us and when she was raised.

Our houses are more toxic since we have thick carpeting that houses dirt, mold, chemicals, pesticides, etc. Ever remove wall-to-wall carpeting? Yuck! Most houses have wall-to-wall carpeting. Dirt gets into it and it stays there. Children are developing peanut allergies as young as 8 months. How many children that age would have been sitting in the dirt 15 years ago? These allergies have doubled recently. We haven’t suddenly become germ-free and cleaner.

Look at how young these kids are getting peanut allergy:

My 18 Month Old Diagnosed With Peanut Allergy - Page 8
12 posts - Last post: Nov 3, 2008
Originally Posted by Ignignokt how come parents all over are reporting that they cannot send their child to school with any peanut products?
www.spartantailgate.com/forums/msu-red-cedar-message-board/320993-my-18-month-old-diagnosed-peanut-allergy-9.html

Peanut Allergy Kid: Tyler’s Peanut Allergy Story
Stay tuned. December 26, 2008 8:34 PM · Lynne said… Thanks so much for this blog! My 20 month old was diagnosed with a peanut allergy at about 13 months. …
www.peanutallergykid.com/2008/07/tylers-peanut-allergy-story.html - 102k -

allergymoms.com : : Blog » Peanut Allergy (over) Reactions
When you witness your 8 month old coming within seconds of losing his life …… My 8 year old son has a death allergy to peanuts and his school recently
www.allergymoms.com/modules/wordpress/index.php?p=256 - 140k

What does your common sense really tell you?

• Peanut allergies are not caused from lack of dirt in your child’s life.

• Peanut allergies are not caused by you eating peanut butter sandwiches when your child is in the room.

• Peanut allergies are not caused by a breastfeeding mother eating peanuts.

Why are peanut allergies increasing? Why does the US Hispanic population have a lower rate of food allergy??

http://www.nsba.org/MainMenu/SchoolHealth/Updates/FoodAllergyRatesIncrease.aspx

Food Allergy Rates Increase among Children

November 18, 2008 - A report released in October of this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) shows that food allergy rates among children is on the rise. The report shows that from 1997 to 2007, the prevalence of reported food allergy increased 18% among children under age 18 years.

Current statistics reveal that four out of 100 children have a food allergy. According to the report, in 2007 alone, approximately 3 million children under age 18 years (3.9%) were reported to have a food or digestive allergy in the previous 12 months. And, from 2004 to 2006, there were approximately 9,500 hospital discharges per year among children under 18 years old that were related to food allergy. Reported food allergy does not appear to differ by sex; however, there are lower reported rates among Hispanic children compared with non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black children.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1381248

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the relationship between acculturation levels of poor Latina women in Los Angeles and their children’s immunization status. Receipt of three doses of diphtheriatetanus-pertussis vaccine and two doses of oral polio vaccine by the age of 12 months was considered adequate immunization. METHODS: Household interviews were conducted in East Los Angeles and South Central Los Angeles with mothers (n = 688) about one randomly selected child aged 12 to 36 months. RESULTS: One fourth of the children were inadequately immunized. Less-acculturated mothers were more likely to have adequately immunized children. Inadequate prenatal care, absence of close family members, the child’s birth position as other than firstborn, and more than one family relocation during the child’s lifetime were associated with inadequate immunization.