About Food Allergies
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What Is an Allergy?
An allergy is when your immune system reacts to a foreign substance, called an allergen. It could be something you eat, inhale into your lungs, inject into your body, or touch.
An allergic reaction can cause coughing, sneezing, hives, rashes, itchy eyes, a runny nose, and a scratchy throat. In severe cases, it can cause low blood pressure, breathing trouble, asthma attacks, and even death if not treated promptly. There is no cure for allergies. You can manage allergies with prevention and treatment. Allergies are among the country's most common, but overlooked, diseases.
Source: https://www.aafa.org/allergy-facts/
The World Today
How Common Are Allergies?
- More than 50 million people in the U.S. experience various types of allergies each year.1
- Allergies are the sixth leading cause of chronic illness in the U.S.1
How Many People Die from Allergies?
- The most common triggers for anaphylaxis are medicines, food, and insect stings.3 Medicines cause the most allergy-related deaths.4
- Black people and older adults in the U.S. have the highest rates of death due to allergic reactions to medicines, food, or unknown allergens.4
Nine foods cause most food allergy reactions. They are milk, soy, eggs, wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, fish, and shellfish.
- About 32 million people have food allergies in the U.S.8,9
- About 26 million (10.8%) U.S. adults have food allergies.8
- About 5.6 million (7.6%) U.S. children have food allergies.9
- In 2018, 4.8 million (6.5%) children under 18 years of age had food allergies over the previous 12 months.7
- In 2018, 6% of Black and Hispanic children had food allergies over the previous 12 months, compared to 6.6% of white children.7
- oFood allergy has increased among U.S. children over the past 20 years, with the greatest increase in Black children.9
Source: https://www.aafa.org/allergy-facts/
