The ultimate causes of a food allergy are not known, i.e. we do not yet know the real causes of why a person is allergic to a food. There are probably several causes that make the body recognize certain products as harmful and react with an abnormal defensive response such as an allergic response. A food allergy is influenced by factors such as the late introduction of foods in childhood, the way of cooking or the existence of other previous allergies.
Allergy-causing foods
The foods that most frequently cause food allergy vary according to the geographical area in which we live. In our environment, this varies greatly according to the age of the individuals.
In the first year of life, milk is the main cause of food allergy. From one year of age, egg allergy becomes progressively more frequent and from 4 years of age other foods such as fish, nuts, shellfish, legumes and fruits are incorporated. In the Mediterranean, from the age of 10 or 12, the food group that causes allergy most frequently is pinkish fruits.
If a person ingests a food when allergic, the symptoms can vary from a simple itching in the oral region to the maximum intensity of the allergic reaction, which is anaphylactic shock, and can even lead to the death of the allergic person. These reactions may manifest themselves in the form of skin, respiratory or circulatory symptoms.
Treatment of food allergy
Avoiding the ingestion of the food causing the allergy is the best and most common way to treat it. In the case of suffering allergies to certain foods such as nuts or shellfish, or any food that has caused severe symptoms, they are advised to carry adrenaline in pre-filled syringes that they or their parents administer to themselves or their parents in case of symptoms after inadvertent ingestion of these foods.
In the case of certain foods such as milk and egg, a process known as oral tolerance induction is being performed. It is usually performed in children over 4 years of age in whom spontaneous resolution of their food allergy is unlikely and consists of the administration, under close supervision of their allergist, of increasing amounts of the food to which they are allergic in order to achieve in a variable period of time (usually 2-4 months) that the child consumes these foods on a regular basis and with tolerance to them.