In this episode of the What the Health podcast, we discuss the rise in food allergies and their impact on individuals. We explore the reasons behind the increase, highlight the seriousness of allergies and address misconceptions. Our expert guest, Dr. Vincent Ho, shares insights on allergies in children and emphasizes the importance of awareness and precautions. Tune in to learn about the connection between allergies and the gut and strategies to protect against allergic reactions. Don't forget to visit WellWellUSA.com for more health news and support the podcast.

Take advantage of other health and wellness insights. Join our WellWell-Being community at WellWellUSA.com for exclusive discounts on a wide range of health products and services.

Chapter Summaries:

0:00:31 The Rise of Food Allergies: An Unprecedented Phenomenon

0:02:23 Introducing Dr. Vincent Ho: An Expert on Food Allergies

0:10:44 The Seriousness of Food Allergies and Anaphylaxis

0:15:06 The Rise in Food Allergies And The Hygiene Hypothesis

0:23:33 Rise of Adult-Onset Food Allergies and Possible Causes

0:25:28 Common Types of Food Allergies

0:30:25 Sensible Measures for Alerting Possible Reactions to Food Allergens

0:34:16 Sublingual Immunotherapy Shows Promise in Allergy Treatment

0:39:03 Dr. Ho's Book: The Healthy Baby Gut Guide

0:40:24 Health Hacks - How Do You Protect Yourself From Food Allergies

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Connect with Dr. Vincent Ho:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gutdrofficial/

LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/gutdr

Book: The Healthy Baby Gut Guide

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All Things WellWell USA: https://linkin.bio/wellwellusa

EP16 - WW

John Salak: I don't want to sound like some old grumpy guy, even if members of my family think I am. [00:00:36] But in my younger days, think Gilligan's Island and the 69 Mets, food allergies were kind of unheard of. Okay, maybe somebody's distant cousin or relative didn't like peanuts or shellfish, for whatever reason, but you just didn't hear a lot about allergies.

Now it seems like almost everyone is dealing with a food allergy of some sort, and this doesn't count food intolerances, which are a different problem altogether. So what gives? Are we just more aware of allergies, and is there less of a stigma attached to having them? Or are we more susceptible to them?

The response can be more than just annoying, it can be deadly in extreme cases. Currently, this growing problem affects about 20 million adults in the U. S., about 6 percent of the population. It also affects between 4 and 6 million [00:01:48] children, which represents about 6 to 8 percent of that group. Why the increase?

It's likely a combination of factors, including the growing consumption of processed foods, the drive to live clean. Which means our immune systems now overreact to certain foods. Possibly a decrease in vitamin D intake, and even the evolving nature of our gene pools. The bad news is there's no current cure to food allergies.

Welcome to this section of What the Health Podcast.

So we're going to talk to Dr. Ho about this. So one, Dr. Ho, welcome to the broadcast. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. And also, I forgot to mention Dr. Ho just produced a new book on food allergies for young people, and we're going to have him describe that book in a second. So Dr. Ho, welcome .

So my extended family were out at a restaurant and she tried a bit of an egg tar and we noticed that she developed a rash which spread across her face. She started getting a bit wheezy.

There wasn't any EpiPen that was available. So, for a few, I guess, terrifying moments as a parent. This was very concerning and a very worrying time for me. And really when I look back upon it, it was one of the most sort of harrowing events, the thought that you could lose your child at that time.

So, once this happened I was very motivated to really research into allergies and, what I began to realize was that there was a linkage between the gut itself and allergies and I developed a keen interest in the area and I wrote a book which you mentioned the healthy baby gut guide.

And I'm very pleased to be able to talk to you today about what I found personally from my own research about allergies.

And that's kind of frightening to parents out there, I would assume.

Vincent Ho: You're absolutely right. And even though I have a medical background, I'm by no means immune to this stress that's involved when you have a loved one in front of you that's going through a very serious reaction.

There's a reaction and they can rush their kids over to the emergency that can happen. So there's a lot of anxiety out there and I guess what I wanted to do today is to hopefully provide at least some useful information and perhaps some reassurance about allergies.[00:07:12]

John Salak: And that's exactly why we're glad you're here.

And forgive me if someone didn't realize this when I said Western Sydney University, Dr. Ho is a native of Australia and is speaking to us from Australia. And some of the statistics, I wanted to get a handle on how extensive the problem is, how serious it is for younger children.

And then we're going to talk about adolescents and adults in a minute. But the statistics I have on food allergies are from the states, so it's not that we want to be state centric, but I just want to gauge if that's similar to what we might see around the other countries,

Vincent Ho: Yeah. So, when it comes to Western countries, we know that the food allergy rates are generally similar around the world. We know, for example, in Australia, New Zealand that when it comes to food allergies, it's thought that about 10 percent of infants [00:08:24] will have a food allergy, and maybe anywhere from 4 to 8 percent of children will have a food allergy, and with adults, probably one in every 50 people will have a food allergy. So that's probably about on par with the figures in the United States. What is interesting though in both United States and in countries such as Australia and New Zealand is that the numbers of people with food allergy is on the rise. And we know that approximately there's a doubling in each of the last few decades.

John Salak: You talked about the percentages and that's significant no matter where you are, whether it's 1 percent or 10%, it's obviously significant.

Vincent Ho: So allergies can be potentially very serious. So I talked about my daughter. Olivia having a reaction. Unfortunately, she didn't have a condition called anaphylaxis, but anaphylaxis itself is probably the most serious response to a particular food that someone can experience.

So typically, the symptoms might include for young children, difficulty or very noisy breathing, swelling of the tongue, swelling or tightness in the throat. Making it a wheeze or a persistent cough and it can lead to rapidly lowering blood pressure, shock, and even death. So anaphylaxis is very serious.

And we know that about one in every 200 episodes of anaphylaxis. will lead to death. So this is actually a very serious problem. there's probably about 150 children that die from a food allergy, anaphylaxis in the United States every year. About a hundred of those cases are due to peanut [00:11:24] allergies.

a real problem and my personal belief is what the one child that, passes away is one child too many.

John Salak: Absolutely. And we had, again, looking at some initial research and you certainly should correct me if I'm wrong, that milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, wheat are the most common foods in terms of creating a food allergy or igniting a food allergy, but you're mentioning peanuts as one of the.

foods most likely to create an anaphylactic reaction. Are there other foods that are in that same danger zone?

When it comes to particular foods like milk, egg, wheat, and soy those sorts of allergies tend to resolve in childhood in the majority of cases. So the good news is that for some of those foods, you can outgrow it.

John Salak: That's fascinating and frightening at the same time. Given the demographic of young children, let's say before adolescence, is there a group within that infant to say 12 year old range that are most at risk from serious food allergy reactions?

Or is it a matter of infants or, toddlers maybe more at risk mainly simply because they don't communicate or they're more likely to grab a food that they shouldn't?

So it's the adolescent group that is the most at risk. And we think there's a number of reasons for why that might be. Certainly we know that for infants, what happens after. Birth is that there is this sort of reactivity that is there, but this reactivity quickly dampens down.

And that's the group that we have to watch and we have to be very mindful about. But what we also realize is that these children are often, their allergies are usually managed very well by their parents. And as they get a bit older certainly, we know that up to the age of say eight children are relying very heavily on their parents to manage the food [00:14:24] allergies.

But after that age, as they progress into adolescence, they become a bit more aware of the difficulties of managing it and often they are instructed to manage their allergies themselves. And as they get a bit older, maybe there's some beliefs that begin to misalign, when you get to that point as an adolescent, parents know best.

John Salak: That's fascinating. I imagine peer pressure comes into it, the whole idea you're almost indestructible as an adolescent. That's fascinating and kind of frightening. Let's go back a little bit, to the rise in food allergies, because it's something that's, fascinating because I do not remember as many friends having food allergies. I don't remember them being lactose intolerant. I don't remember as many people being gluten intolerant. And for me, I wonder, is it a matter of awareness that we weren't aware that people had these problems, we weren't attuned to them, we [00:15:36] figured you'd just suffer through them.

Or is it a matter that it's rising because of something in the environment, something that's happening with our gut health or whatever it may be. So any enlightenment you can share on that would be most welcome

Vincent Ho: This is a very interesting area and it's an area that I outlined in my book in some detail.

if you don't mind, talk briefly about the hygiene [00:16:48] hypothesis and why it's really

John Salak: important. Absolutely. And I think we've touched on this in other areas of our writing, both on WellWillUSA and in our podcast, but please go ahead.

Vincent Ho: Yeah. So this is a really fascinating story in how the hygiene hypothesis has come about.

And he found a very curious pattern in the data. He found that the more older siblings a child had, They're less likely that he or she was to develop eczema by the age of one year and hay fever by the age of 23. So, he recognized there was some protective effect that the older siblings was passing on to the younger children.

Early child exposure to microbes to protect against the development of allergies by affecting the development of the immune system. And that's what the hygiene hypothesis is about. It's about exposure to these particular microbes protecting against the development of allergies by maturing or affecting the development of the immune system.

So we know that if you've got a very vigorous inflammatory response that can cause some tissue [00:19:12] damage. And so as a way to counteract that, there are other cytokines which are protective against that. So those protective responses, which are anti inflammatory are very good and and they can help.

Early exposure to daycare, household pets, childhood infections, and exposure to a rural farming environment. So those are protective effects against allergy.

And I know that's a simplistic approach, but it seems to fall in line with what you're saying. So that's fascinating. What about our foods themselves? Is food processing or the foods we eat or how the food's prepared is that also creating any impact on food allergies?

Which is used in agriculture that has been linked to the rise in allergies and certainly so that's something and it's been shown with the data sets that can be associated with allergies. We know that pollution itself has been linked to allergies.

So it's part of the difficulties in the research to be able to work out which one, but in general, we can make some observations that exposure to herbicides, exposure to certain types of pesticides can be linked to a rise in allergies.

John Salak: That's fascinating. It sounds like the issue with food allergies sort of is established at a very young age or maybe with birth.

Vincent Ho: This is actually a very important point that you've raised, and I think that there was this myth, if you will, that food allergies was something that was pretty exclusive to, infants and young children, but what we know is that actually, adults are also allergic susceptible to development of allergies, and this is actually a very and really important point.

And we know that nearly 11 percent of adults reported having a food allergy and adult onset food allergies represents about half of those cases. So it's amazing. Yeah, adult food allergies are more common than previously believed. [00:23:24] And they tend to be more severe compared to allergies developed during childhood.

John Salak: Do we know why this is occurring and what type of allergies we're talking about in general? And I, this sounds like it's more the research into this a little more cutting edge. So maybe these answers aren't as apparent.

Vincent Ho: Yeah. we're not entirely clear why this is occurring.

So these microbes were known as what we call them the old friend microbes. And so these old friend microbes have been around with us for a long time, but because of what's been happening with modern industrialization, we don't have access those modern microbes anymore. So there is a hypothesis going around that with adults, given that adults are paying a lot more attention, if you will, to personal hygiene.

The reason for why this is kind of, rise in adult onset food allergies and with that as well, I mentioned before that [00:25:12] the allergies tend to be more severe, but allergies during childhood, I think, in general, that's probably true when we recognize that, when children are very young , their immune systems are maturing, particularly in the first few years of life.

And so the reaction typically is going to be less than a more mature immune system. And that, the thinking behind the severity of an allergic reaction.

Vincent Ho: Yeah, it appears to be across the board.

John Salak: Is it true there's about 170, 175 foods that tend to cause allergies?

Vincent Ho: Well, if you look at very specific, ingredients. I think you're in the ballpark there when it comes to the different types of foods.

I would say, though, that the vast majority, and I would say that, 90 percent of food allergies would be limited to about eight or nine different types of foods. So, with that we can go through them. So egg allergy, for example, is, a very common one.

They are the really common foods that account for more than 90 percent of food allergies out there. And actually what you'll find is, because they are so common, we know that...

John Salak: Now, with adults, we're seeing a rise in allergies that, for these adults, later in life. Is it more dangerous for adults than they may assume because this is coming out of the blue to them, or are they saying, ah, this must be an allergy, I have to take care of it.

It is now. So I think that when it comes to individuals, and think sometimes when it comes to older individuals, it's possible that if they're not, aware of the importance of these food allergies, especially if they've ever had any personal experience with food allergies growing up.

If there's confirmed food allergies, we have to be extremely vigilant. And what I mean by that is that we have to be very careful about reducing exposure to any of these food allergies, particularly for very serious food allergies like peanut allergy. [00:28:48] It's really really important.. We now know with schools, for example, I mean, I think schools and daycares, this general awareness now, but I think that sometimes with carers, they may not be the same awareness.

John Salak: Certainly restaurants will respond to queries from customers?

Do you trust what restaurants are saying to you? But it seems to me, what happens behind the swinging doors of a kitchen in a big restaurant, that's got to be really difficult to maintain that sort of level of oversight.

So I think that we often advise teenagers and adults when they're going out. They can cautiously test a very small amount of the food on their outer lip before putting it in their mouth. And if you get a [00:30:36] warning symptoms such as, burning or a chili like reaction and tingling, swelling, that should alert you to the possibility that a food allergen is present.

John Salak: And you would assume someone who is susceptible to a food allergy would know to do this, especially as a teenager, an adolescent, and then as an adult.

Vincent Ho: Yes, we would assume that. And I think that, young Children with allergies certainly monitored very closely by their parents.

Now, what's very interesting, is that, most allergists think that, yeah, by 12 to 14, adolescents should do it. When they actually ask parents about when they expected their child to be able to manage it, most parents actually felt that kids should be more self managing at an earlier age.

John Salak: That's fascinating considering and again, we've done a podcast and written stories on not necessarily allergies, but really how parents maybe overprotect their children to such an extent that they're not prepared to launch into college by themselves, we [00:32:24] just did some some stories and and podcasts. And this is actually, we call it snow plowing in the States, but this is actually sort of the reverse is that parents say, well, you really gotta take care of yourselves at an earlier age for good reason. So, this begs the question, what about treatments? I don't know if you can use the word cure when it comes to allergies, but what do we see on the horizon and how best can people protect themselves when it comes to allergies?

And we know that in the United States, the FDA has approved an oral immunotherapy for peanuts. There's actually a particular type of peanut powder, which is put into a capsule. And that has actually been approved by the FDA. And that's actually indicated for children with peanut allergies between the ages of four to 17.

And there's been some recent research that's shown that is a very safe type of treatment. And, it's still early days [00:34:48] before it can be recommended widely, but I think it's very promising. So this idea of immunotherapy is a very good one. One other point I should mention as well. And it's an important point which I do talk about in my book.

But it comes down to the recognition that children in the past, certainly over a decade ago, that were of developing peanut allergies because of family history, for example that they should avoid peanuts until they turned three years old at which stage they would have a stronger, more mature immune system.

So this study showed that if you ate peanuts in the first 12 months of life, that resulted in... A significantly smaller proportion of children with a peanut allergy at the age of five, compared to if you avoided peanuts. So now, the [00:36:00] recommendation is about exposing young infants to allergenic foods like peanuts.

Early on in life, in the first 12 months, they should be exposed to all these food allergens.

John Salak: This is all fascinating and there's so many segments that we could dive more deeply into the impact of food allergy on mature adults, treatments, that sort of thing. But before we wrap up, I want you to touch on maybe some of the misconceptions that people have about food allergies, either for infants.

Vincent Ho: So there are a number of myths about food allergies, and I think probably the most common one is that food allergies aren't serious.

We'll get worse and worse. So there's this kind of a myth that happens. Now, the reality is that food allergy reactors are unpredictable. So the way that your body reacts to a food allergen, you just can't predict how it's going to react the next time. So in some cases, yes, it can get worse, but it may not be the case.

So it's driven by a reaction in the body. So what happens is that the immune system is producing a particular kind of an antibody called IgE. When it detects a food allergen. And the I. G. Then is sort of fighting against the food allergen by releasing chemicals such as histamine and that could trigger off the symptoms of an allergic reaction.

So there's a big difference between food... Intolerances and food allergies.

John Salak: Would gluten intolerance come under that as well?

Vincent Ho: Gluten intolerance would come in under that. Yes. Yes.

John Salak: Dr. Ho, this has been great. I know there's so much more we could go into. Also we will post links as to where people can get your book, but please again, tell us the title of your book.

Vincent Ho: So my book is called the Healthy Baby Gut Guide. It's about preventing allergies, building immunity and developing good gut health. From day one.

John Salak: And who is publishing that book this book?

Vincent Ho: So it's published by Greystone books.

John Salak: We will make sure we link that so that people can get that. And we hope that we can have you on again and maybe focus down on any one of these segments as to why it's important and what people can do.

So again, Dr. Ho, thank you so much for your time and today. Thank you so

Vincent Ho: much, Jonathan, for having me on.

John Salak: Before we move on to health hacks, we want to again encourage listeners to take advantage of the hundreds of exclusive discounts WellWell offers on a range of health and wellness products and services. These include everything from fitness and athletic equipment, to dietary supplements, to Personal care products, organic foods and beverages, and more.

Infants and children need a lot of oversight. But beyond this, it starts with knowledge and preparation. So first off, obviously know what you're allergic to, how it affects you, and always have any related medicine on hand. Two, have a printed reaction plan on you in [00:40:48] case someone else needs to take over.

Three, read food labels thoroughly and repeatedly to make sure a substance in question isn't in the food, or perhaps under a different name. Four, wear a medical ID bracelet that covers the information about your allergy. 5. If dining out, don't just rely on the menu for food information. Let the server or manager know exactly what allergies you have so they can pass it on to the chef.

So, again, thanks for listening in, and we hope you'll join us again on What the Health.