Enjoying food is an important constituent of the good life. The possibility to enjoy various dishes makes people feel satisfied. However, sometimes, people are deprived of pleasure from food because of allergies.
Usually, immune system is a functioning in a befitting way, complicated mechanism. This amazing nature miracle is able to protect the body from numerous invaders. Immune system identifies infected cells as well as cells, which is going to be tumors. However, it is not works that good. Allergies are the effects of immune system’s mistaken functioning.
Food allergy - a state of organism, characterized by hypersensitivity to certain kind of food. This body state is defined by the developing of adverse response due to the involvement of immune mechanisms. The presence of protein in the products is the most prevailing allergic element. Most often it is caused by a hit in the blood of certain proteins or polypeptides of food. These types of allergies happen when the body's immune system erroneously recognizes a protein as deleterious. Any foods or substances can cause food allergy. Divergence allergenic activity has products of protein origin that contains animal and vegetable proteins, rarely - polypeptides, haptens that bind to the proteins of the food. The most typical components that can cause the pseudo allergic reaction are carbohydrates, fats, micro - and macro elements. Correspondingly to the estimations of the Food Allergy Research and Education allergy for the certain type of food is a common thing among the Americans. 15 million of the US population suffers from food allergies. ( Kerr, "Common Food Allergies", 2014) Unfortunately, children are more risky to have an allergy to a certain type of foods. According to the statistics, every 13 child in America is forced to live with allergy to food. However, person can have an allergy after many years of using this particular product. The signs of this immune system’s reactions are always the same. They can vary from poorly resolved to severe. ( Kerr, "Common Food Allergies", 2014) This problem can smite skin (itching, urticaria, and edema), digestive tract (abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea), respiration organs (rhinitis, conjunctivitis, bronchospasm) or even heart-vascular system.
The material that can be the reason of such reaction of the organism is named an allergen. The allergic reaction may appear immediately or after some time. In theory, every kind of food may be the reason for allergic response. However, in real life only small kinds of products can be the cause of allergies. There are only eight products, which became the reason for almost 90% of all cases. These eight products include eggs, milk, nuts and, especially, peanuts, which are allocated separately, fish and shellfish, wheat and soy. In addition, mustard seeds may be the reason of food hypersensitiveness. (Nordqvist, "Common food allergies", 2014) Nevertheless, the most usual food allergy is inner response to milk. This kind of allergy is considered the most well studied one. It usually happens in children and infants. Signs of allergy usually appear in the first few months of life (often in the first six). As a rule, kids, who experienced allergy to cow’s milk being infants, grow it out by becoming a three-year-old. A child with an allergy to cow's milk will not necessarily remain so until the end of life. However, almost a fifth part of those, who have it, will live with it in the adulthood. (Nordqvist, "Common food allergies", 2014) The allergy remains in kids with high level of antibodies to milk in their body. The parents may determine either their child will be in a risk group or not by taking simple blood test and measure the antibodies. ("Milk Allergy - Food Allergy Research & Education") Like in any case of allergy, the symptoms may differ from hives, to severe, like anaphylaxis. In some cases, such serious reaction may lead to death. This condition is characterized by swelling throat, a sharp drop in pressure and difficulty in breathing. Though, a person not possibly will experience the same symptoms during different reaction. (Kerr , "Milk Allergies (Milk Protein Allergy)", 2012)
Cow's milk contains proteins with high allergenic activity and are resistant to high temperature, so they can retain activity even after cooking. The allergens in cow’s milk are casein and a whey protein. Yet, the whey protein, in difference from casein, after thermal processing change its structure. Therefore, people, who have allergy only to whey, may consume milk products. After thermal processing, their body will be less sensitive to the cow’s milk. However, those people, who are sensitive to casein are unlikely to meal any of milk containing products.
The sensibility to drinking a cow’s milk may differ from person to person. Someone will have only a weak reaction to the average amount of milk. Other, will be highly sensitive even to the tiny amount of cow’s milk. The allergy to cow’s milk has nothing in common with milk intolerance. Milk intolerance has nothing to do with immune system. People with milk intolerance were born without enzyme ferment. ("Milk Allergy - Food Allergy Research & Education") This ferment is responsible for the decomposition of lactose. Lactose is a sugar, which dairy products contain. (Nordqvist, "Common food allergies", 2014)
Treatment of an allergy to milk is the exclusion it from the diet and replaced with soy or goat's milk. Often, goat’s and soy milk is used to feed babies during their first months in order to avoid the development of the allergy to cow’s milk. Yet, the allergens in the milk of the com and in goat’s milk are similar. This implies that a person with allergy to cow’s milk is also likely to experience the hypersensitiveness to goat’s milk. Therefore, sheep and goat’s milk are not appropriate substitutes for people with cow’s allergy.
It is also important to know, that children, who live with an allergy to cow’s milk are likely to experience the allergic reactions to other products, such as eggs and peanuts. The better part of kids with cow’s allergy, are likely to have such illnesses as allergic rhinitis and asthma.
Often, parents decide to replace cow’s milk to some other. This replacement may be the reason for some other reactions. For example, rice is considered a hypoallergenic grain. Therefore, parents give it to their kids in order to substitute the cow’s milk. Rice milk allergies are exceedingly rare in the Western word. However, they are an usual thing in China and Japan, because the rice there is a basic food there. The signs of the allergy are common, including rashes, redness of the skin, swelling mouth and runny nose. (Kerr , "Milk Allergies (Milk Protein Allergy)", 2012)
Another thing parents replace cow’s milk is almond milk. The substitution of cow’s milk with almond one may cause the chain of allergies. Almond as well as pecans and walnuts are responsible for the allergic reactions. Besides, almost a half of human beings with peanuts allergy are allergic to all the nuts. Compared to milk allergy, which kids can grow out, almond allergy is permanent. According to statistics, about 9% of kids grow out the allergy to nuts. Among common allergy signs, almond allergic response may comprise vomiting, abdominal pain, laboring breath, there is a strong possibility to experience an anaphylactic reaction. For infants the best way to defeat the allergy is breastfeeding. However, the mother, drinking cow’s milk, may transport proteins to her kid through breastfeeding. This may cause an allergic response in child. Yet, the nearly born baby should not obtain any formula at the time of first weeks. However, if the breast milk is not an option, some formulas can be applied.
If the child has no soy allergic reaction, the doctor may recommend soy formula, together with vitamins and minerals. If there is no any improvement after soy formula, parents may use casein-based formulas. In those, the protein is split, so it is not likely to develop the allergic reaction. In addition, there is one more formula, called elementary, which includes the simplest forms of casein. As milk formula is a fountain of useful minerals and vitamins, so many pediatricians recommend to use it until the time a child past one year of the life. ("Milk Allergy - Food Allergy Research & Education") Children and adults can replace cow’s milk with some other, such as soy, almond, coconut or rice. During the diet, there is a possibility of calcium deficient. To improve the situation, people may incorporate other calcium sources. This might be fruit juices together with simsim or hemp seeds. Tofu is also is rich for calcium.
Unfortunate, with time the number of cases with allergy is not going down. Vice versa, they become more often. According to the statistics, the allergy touches almost 35% of the world’s population. From the beginning, the allergy was most common in European countries and America. However, with time, now it can be found in the countries, which are expired to industrial development. If earlier the majority of allergies were associated with asthma or rhinitis, the latest data show that more and more often people, especially children, suffer from food allergies. The amount of people, suffering from allergies is coming up, but there is no answer why this is happening. There may be few reasons why the situation is getting worse. Genetically, the kid, who was born in a family, where both parents live with allergies, is under 80% of having the allergy too. If in the family only mother has allergic reaction, the chances of the child of having an allergy is about 30%. There is a high probability that the child will inherit the kind of allergy that the parents have. ("Why is Allergy Increasing?") The other reason is that nowadays, the food people consume has changed. Today, people eat a lot of processed food. Fruit and vegetables are almost excluded from people’s diets.
According to the latest researches, the increase of the allergies is because of the almost absence of such useful things as vitamin D and fatty acids in fish. It is proofed, that the absence of the fish oil in the child’s diet can lead to the development of asthma. The question about the influence of the pollutants to the development of the allergies is still controversial. ("Why is Allergy Increasing?")
Therefore, there are some factors, which can be the reason of increasing of the allergies. Hopefully, the people’s understanding of these factors in future will lead to the better understanding of the allergy.
References
Kerr, M. (2014, November 26). Common Food Allergies (G. Krucik, Ed.). Retrieved April 25, 2015, from http://www.healthline.com/health/allergies/common-food-allergies#Overview1
Kerr, M. (2012, May 4). Milk Allergies (Milk Protein Allergy) (G. Krucik, Ed.). Retrieved April 25, 2015, from http://www.healthline.com/health/allergies/milk#1
Milk Allergy - Food Allergy Research & Education. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2015, from http://www.foodallergy.org/allergens/milk-allergy
Nordqvist, C. (2014, September 9). Common food allergies. Retrieved April 25, 2015, from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/8624.php
Why is Allergy Increasing? (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2015, from https://www.allergyuk.org/why-is-allergy-increasing/why-is-allergy-increasing
