Nuts to Nut Sufferers!
Have you ever been on the playground with your kids sharing a snack, and suddenly you’re surrounded by seven more kids who want some of your snack, so you try to divide the last peanut 9 ways? This happens to me all the time. Happened today, in fact. Perhaps that’s why the phrase “1/1000 of a peanut” caught my eye after a Google search for something unrelated. Clicking on the article brought up some interesting news on the latest techniques to combat food allergies.
Many of us have heard about an apparent increase in food allergies and their disastrous results, including the story about the girl from Quebec who was reported to have died after being kissed by her boyfriend who had eaten peanut butter. Thankfully, the boyfriend’s innocence has been proven. But my own niece suffers a cashew nut allergy so severe she risks hospitalization if she inhales their vapors. If we open a can of mixed nuts containing cashews in the same room she’s in, we have to warn her. She can’t chance inhaling the fine-dust-sized crumbs that often coat a lid or that may fall on the table at which we eat and where she may later come and sit. How in heck does something like this happen? Tiny dart frog venom I can almost comprehend as poisonous. Nut dust I cannot. So I’m happy to see that there are some techniques underway with medically proven positive results.
The article says “Four children who have completed years of the treatment are now able to tolerate 13 to 15 peanuts without showing even mild symptoms.” One of the children being treated was exposed to peanut butter at 2 years and her throat closed. Now she voices a dream to one day eat a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. “I’ve never eaten one…Now I probably will someday!”
Oh. My. Gosh. Poor child. I’m old and those are STILL my go-to guilty snack when I’m working alone away from my children (who don’t yet consume mass quantities of sugar). I always buy the King Size, with 4 Reese’s per package, and I never give it a second thought. How must these kids be living, and how must their parents be worrying?!
Besides peanuts as treatment, researchers are finding positive results through using “ancient Chinese herbs.” (Does anybody besides me read that phrase and hear the Calgon detergent commercial in your mind?) My gosh. A few ancient herbs? This is fantastic. We may finally catch up. I hope severe food allergies go the way of Small Pox, Consumption, and Polio. Like poison dart frogs and that commercial, don't nut allergies seem out of date?
--Sweet B
absolute zero on October 24, 2008 at 09:04 AM
"don't nut allergies seem out of date?"
uh, NO...I'm old too, probably older than you, and I am allergic to tree nuts; I can be in the same room, but dont let them touch my food
gb_in_tx on October 24, 2008 at 04:24 PM
Just pointing out that not all severe allergies like the ones illustrated are nut allergies. My wife is similarly allergic to seafood. Any and all seafood. Anaphalaxia. Any trace will set it off. Just a droplet is all it takes. Just the use of contaminated utensils in preparation of a meal. I've seen it with just the vapor from hot seafood before. Just the traces in my mouth hours after eating it myself.
Shannon Love on October 24, 2008 at 04:32 PM
Increased allergies appear to be the price we pay having fewer communicable diseases.
The acclimation therapy seems like a sound approach of I am dubious of anything involving herbs. Chemicals extracted from herbs have obvious medical uses but the active chemicals vary to much from plant to plant to use the entire plant (or pieces of it) as a medicine.
Gideon7 on October 24, 2008 at 05:28 PM
Peanuts are not nuts. (Sorry this is a pet peeve of mine because I am deathly allergic to nuts and so people always try to keep peanuts away from me.) Peanuts are legumes (goobers). Nuts grow on trees; peanuts grow underground, like soybeans and potatoes. Chemically they are very different and trigger allergies in entirely different groups of people.
I luv peanuts :-)
Merry on October 24, 2008 at 05:47 PM
I'd put some stock in the ancient Chinese herbs theory - there are almost no peanut allergies in China. In fact, they're so rare that if you try to talk to restaurant owners about them, you have to endure a period of shocked disbelief.
Barry Wallace on October 25, 2008 at 04:07 AM
I'm always thankful to see this problem (and potential solutions) given public attention. My daughter and son both have severe peanut allergies. My young son's allergy is potentially life-threatening.
David on October 25, 2008 at 09:09 PM
I would not be too sure about the no allergies in China notion. Could it be that the allergy just is not recognized for what it is?
Merry on October 26, 2008 at 01:29 AM
I didn't say there weren't allergies in China - there are lots of them, especially to soy, not to mention issues with dairy (lactose intolerance is more prevalent than dairy allergies, though), some poor folks are allergic to MSG which makes life difficult, to say the least. But there is plenty of research that has noted the dearth of *peanut* allergies in China. I think one theory is that it has something to do with the way peanuts are prepared - almost always boiled, which eliminates some allergens.