Allergies

Thanks for the article on food allergies ["My Turn: Food allergies are answer to medical mystery,"] April 5. I've been suffering from spontaneous hives for the past 10 years. I take a very powerful antihistamine, which helps, but what I've found to be at the root of this problem is severe allergy to palm oil and sunflower oil, which are added to food and cosmetic products. Many years of wandering aimlessly in the grip of the knowledgeable medical profession wasn't too helpful — except for needing my prescription filled for my antihistamine.

Symptoms of weakness and nausea were afflicting me, sometimes disabling me for hours at a time. So I went to an internist, who ran a series of tests, which turned up nothing. Finally, at a loss, he ordered a brain scan. I vividly recall the words of the neurologist when the results came in: "There's nothing wrong with your brain. But you might have a potassium deficiency. If you are feeling low, eat a banana." How easy! I enjoyed slicing a banana onto my Wheaties and milk for breakfast.

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Each time a proposal comes along that would diminish our privacy to further a social good, society's job is to ask whether that good outweighs another stricture on our lives. A proposed state database to track our purchases of various cold and allergy remedies is designed to cut down on illegal methamphetamine manufacture -- a well-intentioned attempt to fight back at a drug that has become a law enforcement nightmare. But this legislation is unlikely to achieve enough benefits to make its downsides worthwhile.

The number of children who have food allergies is not only increasing, it now encompasses 4% of all kids in the United States, according to an analysis of four large, national surveys published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. The study -- the first to make a broad estimate about the prevalence of food allergies among U.S. children -- supports previous studies suggesting that allergy rates are rising rapidly, for reasons that are unclear. Government researchers found that self-reported food allergies increased 18% between 1997 and 2007.

Allergies are on the rise, experts know. What they don't know is why. The most popular theory is the so-called hygiene hypothesis. It holds that our culture's addiction to cleanliness, antiseptics and antibiotics prevents our immune systems from developing the ability to ward off real infections. Our bodies then end up overreacting to things they should be ignoring.

There are various types of food-allergy tests, but beware: They're not all equally accurate. Some, in fact, can be very misleading. By far the best are food challenge tests, in which a person is fed carefully regulated amounts of food, under close supervision, and the amounts are gradually increased. Other tests examine blood or skin reactions. These are more common -- and also less reliable.

Allergies were far from Christie Littauer's mind when she fed creamed spinach to her son Jack for the first time. The 6-month-old had already eaten peas and green beans. Why not try something more exciting? "A few bites into it, he started wheezing," says Littauer, of Henderson, Nev. "He got bright red. Something was obviously wrong."

Do your allergies (or your child's) make it challenging for you to travel abroad? Selectwisely.com helps liberate travelers who have food allergies and other health concerns. What's hot: If you are a traveler who has a food allergy, you can order a translation card that lets restaurant servers and store clerks -- really, anyone who has a hand in serving you food -- know that there's an issue. The site offers cards in more than 25 languages.

I suffer from allergies and asthma. I started taking 2,000 IU of vitamin D daily several months ago. I am also taking turmeric capsules. This spring I have had no allergies, sinus infections and asthma problems. Perhaps these supplements are keeping my immune system from overreacting to pollen. In animal studies, turmeric prevents the release of histamine from mast cells (Molecular Nutrition and Food Research, September 2008).