Author Topic: Increase in peanut allergies  (Read 1654 times)

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Offline LukasMom

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Increase in peanut allergies
« on: January 07, 2006, 23:47:55 pm »
I've heard (somewhere) that this generation of kids has an increased number of peanut allergies.  Now why is that?

When I was a child, my parents gave me some toy bears to play with, and later, when I was four, I had a dangerous reaction to walnuts. 
I still have those bears and I just looked at the labels and they were stuffed with crushed nut shells!
Then I remembered that they used to fill a lot of toys with crushed walnut shells back then (in the 1970's).

So what I'm thinking is, I was exposed to nut shells early and developed the allergy!

Well it may be just a crazy idea, but is there something today's kids are getting exposed to that is filled with peanut shells?  Because otherwise, why are peanut allergies increasing? 

If anybody knows anything about my crazy theory, please tell me.  Thanks for supporting my habit.   :wink:


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Offline agw

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Increase in peanut allergies
« Reply #1 on: January 08, 2006, 01:01:48 am »
I've got lots of hypotheses, none of them very charitable.  :?

The primary hypothesis I have is that we're getting more allergies, especially anaphylactic ones like peanut, because there are more folk with those recessive genes breeding now than before. More carriers mean more births, which means more people with the problem. Then, too, with the "shrinking" of the world, more and more folk are being exposed to such things than ever before. It's an awful combination to be sure.  :(

I know I shouldn't be alive. I suffered from tons of allergies and should have died in childhood from croup and bronchitis. Instead, I survived to breed and pass on the faulty genetics. I've done my best to shield and protect my girls from the risks of developing allergies, but it's in the genes and the genes will tell. Gwynne has already been hospitalized for a bad bout of croup, so who knows if she's going to end up with asthma like her mom, y'know?

Then, too, think of all of the infertility treatments out there now. I can't help but think that there's a biological reason for fertility difficulties; a reason that some people are fertile, but not together. Y'know?

Then there are the environmental agents that are slowly and surely poisoning us all - xenoestrogens, toxic chemicals, vaccinations, sterile/aseptic living, UV light changes, a 24-hour world, noise pollution, light pollution, yadda, yadda, yadda. They're all contributors. They've changed the world in which our bodies' immune systems' work best. There's too little to truly fight, so the immune system fights what it can - anything foreign.

I can liken it to Rambo:First Blood, y'know, the original Rambo. The guy was trained and honed to fight and kill. In the appropriate environment - the battlefield - he was a formidable opponent and did his job very well. When he was put into an less hostile, unsuitable environment where survival was no longer such a threat, however, he wigged out and started attacking harmless folk that tripped his fight-trigger. His skill was no less, but was inappropriately applied. The same kind of thing is happening to the  immune system of allery sufferers. :?

Of course, this is just conjecture based on things I read. It could just be a load of hooey as more research is done.  :wink:

 :)
Alicia
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Offline Kayna

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Increase in peanut allergies
« Reply #2 on: January 08, 2006, 01:11:21 am »
Ugg, I feel the same way. What is going on in our world to trigger so many allergies. I think the lastest research shows that the peanut allergy has increased 50% in the last five years.  :shock: That is so scary speaking as a mom with a son with a severe reaction to peanuts.  :(

I'm hoping since it's becoming more and more aware that some sort of an immunization can be made. Or better yet a cure. :roll:

Selfishly speaking I wish peanuts were illegal.  :oops: I sometimes have trouble sleeping at night because I worry about just how dangerous this allergy is. :cry:
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Offline LukasMom

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Recessive genes
« Reply #3 on: January 08, 2006, 19:29:50 pm »
About the recessive genes, that could be!  I've got all those nerd qualities like myopia, curly hair, allergies, and a dowager's hump from bending over books and computers my whole life!   :lol:  I've also got glaring white skin from living in the Pacific Northwest and never going outside or seeing the light of day!  I'm like a blind glow-in-the-dark cockroach that lives in the depths of some cave and is slowing losing my peripheral limbs!
Oh god I'm a hothouse flower!  And dd's father was too.  Allergies, curly hair, a total brainiac.  At least he had good vision. 
The up side of it is now that we're all so recessively smart and nerdy, we can come up with things like prozac and lazer surgery and hair wands . . . and theories about why peanut allergies are increasing! 
The only hope I have is that two wrongs can make a right and that dd will be the total opposite of her horribly recessive parents and be robust and hearty, maybe even the first girl in her school to play football.  Not that I have any idea what that ball is for. 
Tee-hee  :lol:


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Offline LukasMom

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I can't believe it blanked that out!
« Reply #4 on: January 08, 2006, 19:32:08 pm »
That word was supposed to be cockroach.  The bug that crawls around in the kitchen.  Roach.  There.  It's not a bad word.  You'd have a hard time talking about plumbing on this site!  :wink:


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Offline sunshine88

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Re: Increase in peanut allergies
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2006, 02:46:41 am »
Lukas mom you make me laugh!

Kayna I too which peanuts were illegal.  To me it's almost worse than if we were to allow kids to take guns to school.  I know it could kill me son.  I worry about putting him in a daycare, I worry about him touching a toy that a kid who had peanut butter for breakfast just touched, then there is the whole kissing thing now.  Aaaahh.

But I do have hope that they will find a way to cure it as does my allergist.  They are working on it and it's promising. I think in their lifetimes, hopefully soon, there will be an allergy shot for peanuts. 
 
Joshua born Nov.19, 2002
Jorja born August 9, 2005