Food Insensitivies / Allergies on the Rise in Children

[Joefnh]

I ran across this article today regarding the issue of food allergies becoming more prevalent in western societies. One of the interesting points is children not being exposed to enough bacteria - are we too germ conscious... I believe the topic of being too clean has been covered here before, I just thought this was an interesting look at the topic


http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/08/03/fo ... tml?hpt=C2


"Scientists are still trying to figure out why food allergies seem to be on the rise, especially in industrialized countries such as the United States. Are children not getting exposed to enough bacteria? Should they eat common allergens such as nuts and shellfish at an earlier age? "


--Joe

[Zizzle]

I believe many factors are influencing this western tendency towards allergy and autoimmunity. Gut biodiversity is definitely an issue, but I'm not sure we can say we are too clean. Perhaps the bacteria and viruses that survive (or mutate) our vaccination and sterilizing techniques are more virulent or harmful? I've read that most Latin Americans are colonized with parasites, and the constant battle against them is enough to keep the immune system "busy" and suppressed. They also benefit from more sun for vitamin D, which partly explains why Hispanics begin to suffer from all our western ailments when they move here. One researcher suggested we all should get colonized with selective, less harmful parasites. Leaky gut caused by our abismal diets can also be to blame. In children, this starts with feeding formula instead of breast milk (breastfeeding is much more common in less developed countries). But I'm afraid there is some other environemtal unknown that is feeding this autoimmune epidemic (allergies, autism, celiac, etc) in the last 10 years. Perhaps a new pesticide? New air pollutant? A tipping point in endocrine disruptor exposure? All I can think of is cell phone radiation. It is all around us, there is no long-term evidence of safety, and yet we do know it has the ability to disregulate cell activity...

[harma]

good comment Zizzle. I also don't believe the whole bacteria and virus story. The whole earth everywhere is full with bacteria and viruses. And since we are always talking about paleo people here. Bacteria and viruses is not something paleo people had to deal with, at least not in the way we are doing. A lot of disease (virus and bacteria, but maybe also parasites) we have to deal with nowadays is because our ancestors became farmers. We got the diseases from animals, cows, sheep, goats, chicken etc. Maybe auto immune disease always have been there (since the change of lifestyle from paleo to farmers) only was it not detected. Before modern medicine, people just died and that had quite often no idea why. For example a baby with celiac disease would just die of diarrhea, as many children did. Till almost 100 years ago, in every society infant rate where quite high and I think for people than a baby just died, they didn't wonder why, it happened to almost everybody, is was part of life.

People so often look with the eyes of now to a society of 100 to 1000 years ago. But you can't do that, to see the whole picture you have to look with the eyes of that time to that society.

If it comes to auto immune diseases, I would put my money on food habits. As soon as the western lifestyle is adopted in a society, "modern" diseases follow too. I just won't believe that is only because their world became cleaner. Come on, our colon is as dirty as it could be with all the bacteria's, our whole skin is full with it. Our word may look cleaner, but I don't believe it really is. The best places to get a nasty bacteria is hospital.

[Gloria]

The best places to get a nasty bacteria is hospital.

Good point!

Gloria