DETROIT – It's the question many people are asking -- why are we seeing so many food allergies now compared to when we were kids?
To get some perspective on the issue, I turned to a colleague with a professional and personal interest in the matter. Dr. Haejin Kim is a Henry Ford Hospital allergist who herself has a severe peanut allergy, as does her young son.
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As a child, Kim stood out: "During the '70s, it was pretty uncommon for kids to have food allergies. I was the only one, K thru 12 who had a peanut allergy.
Not so anymore.
"In the '90s, we started seeing more and more kids with peanut allergies," said Kim. "Overall, allergic diseases are on the rise."
The question of course is why? Kim has some theories.
"There's something we're doing early in life," said Kim. "Maybe we're keeping things too clean, you know kids nowadays, they just play on video games all day. They don't go out and roll around in the dirt. A large portion of it is going to be genetic, and you can't change your genes. There's not going to be one answer to it. I know people want one answer."
Then there's the confusion over the role of early exposure to foods like peanuts, fueled by recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
For years and years, they recommended - don't give your kid any kind of allergenic food like peanut or egg and fish until they're age 3," said Kim.
Her son was born in 2010, and she followed those recommendations. Unfortunately, her son also developed a peanut allergy.
"The allergy community has known for a while now, for a couple years now, that what we were telling people was not the right thing to do," said Kim. "Had I known this back then would I have changed what I had done? Possibly."
The pendulum of opinion has swung and Kim's recommendation echoes the current thinking.
"For the non-allergenic family, there's no reason to withhold the allergenic foods, so when your child is starting to be interested in table foods, just go ahead and feed them whatever you want as long as it's not a choking hazard and as long as it's OK with your pediatrician in terms of nutritional value," said Kim.
That advice only applies to those families without food allergies. If you or your family has a strong allergic history, you should consult your doctor before introducing allergenic foods.