What-Causes-Food-Allergies March Madness!

It's time to fill in your bracket and take your shot! (And, with 3 million kids in the US alone, that's an awfully big pool!)

Vaccines! Always in the Top 8. Maybe it’s the peanut oil, even though peanut oil carries miniscule amounts of protein, even when it’s not highly purified. The timing is suspicious, too. After all, kids get allergy shots at the same time they’re developing allergies…

And the bracket winner is… GMO Foods!

GMO Foods! Another perennial contender. After all, shouldn’t a food cause a food allergy? The timing is suspicious (early 90’s introduction for many GMO foods).  And God knows Monsanto and other big Agra are sleazy…maybe to the point of not caring about our kids?

vs.

Tylenol! A surprise contender, as many parents trust the J&J brand more than Disney. However, acetaminophen has been implicated in other inflammation-linked disorders, including asthma and eczema.

And the bracket winner is… Tylenol!

Breastfeeding! Another entry in the category of "food causes food allergies" is breastfeeding. One recent study found a correlation between it and a higher rate of allergies. (Pediatricians, too!) But if that was all there was to the story, wouldn't every baby who breastfed become allergic? Does it make sense that Mother Nature would set up a system so maladaptive?

vs.

Hygiene Theory! The immune system gets...bored? Really? 100,000 years of human evolution and there's never been a time when the immune system had some down-time? O.k...

And the bracket winner is… Smoking, Obesity and/or High Salt Diets!

Smoking! Or Obesity! Or High Salt Diets! Or any other epigenetically-influencing environmental factor that's changed drastically between last generation and this one. Now you really can blame your parents for ruining your life.

vs.

Microbiome-Changing Chemicals Including Triclosan! Obviously a must-have choice for my own bracket, triclosan has both impressive research and a possible mechanism to explains food allergies going for it.  Will it go all the way this year?

And the bracket winner is… Microbiome-Changing Chemicals Including Triclosan!

Environmental Contaminants, include PAHs One of the hot topics at this year's AAAAI: can air pollution cause food allergies? Cigarette smoke is one source, but so are barbecue grills.

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Global Warming! Or Sunscreen! Really! Changes in our atmosphere may be leading to changes in how children absorb Vitamin D.  Or, it may just be that this generation of parents has slathered on the sunscreen (with new chemicals in the 90s that do a better job of blocking rays).

And the bracket winner is… Global Warming! Or Sunscreen!

Infectious Disease! Maybe it's a virus! Specifically (according to some researchers) respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. We know kids are wheezier after a bout of RSV...but does it really up the risk of sensitization?

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Bad Landscaping! One interesting theory of how sensitization occurs is through exposure to pollen. So what's changed about pollen lately? Landscapers are using more and more plants that are not native to the areas in which they're being planted, resulting in exposure to new types of pollen.

And the bracket winner is… Money!

Money! Did you know that, the higher your income, the more likely your kid is to have a food allergy? Are richer kids simply diagnosed more? Or might it be the new carpets and new paint wealthier parents often introduce into the nursery before Baby is born?

vs.

Refrigerators!  Guess what? Bacteria evolve to adjust to new environments, and one of the harshest new environments we've provided to our bacteria is the refrigerator. Listeria and other bacteria have risen to the challenge, though, and many doctors now believe this "superbug" may be the cause of Crohn's and other intestinal disorders. Is food allergies one of them?

And the bracket winner is… Refrigerators!

Detection Bias! There are still some scientists who believe that this is really all about overdiagnosis. Their argument? They cite the 11% of the population of "sensitized" (allergic on a test only) to peanut vs. the 2-3% who actually demonstrate an allergy when fed peanut. More allergists = more testing = more false diagnoses.

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Pesticides! Oh...and your tap water too. Dichlorophenols are just about everywhere! Oh, and guess what! There's plans to make a new genetically-modified corn bred to be resistant to them...so farmers can spray them all over our food. GREAT idea!

And the bracket winner is… A Dark Horse from Somewhere No One Has Ever Heard Of...

A Dark Horse from Somewhere No One Has Ever Heard Of... Maybe there's a scrappy little causative agent out there that has a lot of HEART and really wants to get in the GAME and TAKE this thing! YEAH!

Did you make your picks?

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Mommy Guilt, Or How I Caused My Child's Allergies

I caused my son's allergies.

I know I did. I just don't know how I did it yet.

Was it the peanuts I ate (or didn't eat) during pregnancy? The medication I took? The hospital birth I chose, where my child was a) exposed to horrible bugs, and b) delivered via c-section, putting him at higher risk for allergies? Was it the formula the nurses gave him while I slumbered away, oblivious, sleeping off the effects of the anesthesia and pain killers?

What about the ear infections he had? We must have given him gallons of antibiotics. Or that horrible illness he had when he was so very little and the doctor told us to alternate Tylenol and Ibuprofen until the fever finally dropped? Did I damage his gut with all the medication so those sensitizing proteins could find their way in?

Or maybe it was the vaccines. Vaccines just feel wrong and they were given right around the time of that first allergic reaction.

Or maybe it was just our yuppie lifestyle. We live in the suburbs. We painted and carpeted his first room. We exposed him to all that urban pollution.

Or what about the things we used in our house? We could have restricted all those processed foods, those kitchen cleaners, the additives in his bath soap and diaper cream. All those baby products...did they contain sensitizing proteins that caused a cutaneous sensitization, setting him up for a food reaction later?

And how SELFISH of my husband and I to conceive in the spring so he was born in the winter! A summer birth would have been so much safer.

Oh, and let's just get down to it: my choice of spouse. After all, he's the one with the environmental allergies. So yes, I caused it, but clearly my husband laid the genetic foundation.

Maybe I introduced solids too early! I was right there with that spoon and jar of applesauce the day he turned 4 months old. I loved the idea of feeding him solids. Maybe it was that simple.

Or not so simple...maybe I didn't feed him solids fast enough. After all, kids in Africa and Israel eat peanuts as babies and THEY don't have nearly as many allergies as we do in the US or Canada.

Or was it the sunscreen? I sunscreened him every day. All those chemicals on his little baby skin...maybe it was the chemicals. Or the Vitamin D! Now they're finding out that allergies and Vitamin D deficiency are tied together! Maybe I sunscreened him TOO much and his body didn't make enough Vitamin D.

Or was it the cat? Or that we didn't have a dog? Did we need barnyard animals? Should I have let him play in the dirt more? Should our house have been cleaner? Dirtier? Was it the dust mites in the pillows? Was there mold or fungus we didn't know about in the walls? Should we have lived in an older house? A newer house?

PHEW!

I types that entire passage in less than 3 minutes. Really. If I let it, the mommy guilt literally POURS out of me. And, every single one of those things I mentioned above has been on the table (or still is on the table) as a possible cause or contributing factor for food allergies.

I think I need a minute.

OK, I'm back. 

I love the "what causes allergies" game. I really do. I've played it for years, read all the research, listened to every crackpot theory and the not-so-crackpot ones. I've considered infecting my child with worms, searched out probiotics not grown on milk culture, considered the trip into Chinatown with the Chinese-speaking friend to hunt down huang bai and ling zhi to concoct my own FAHF-2, EVEN CONSIDERED SWAPPING POOH FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!

I love it because I hate what I have to face if I stop playing. I hate that my kid may have to go through life with these allergies and there's nothing I can do. I'm not going to be that dad from Lorenzo's Oil who camped out in medical libraries until he figured it out and then badgered more than 100 companies to make the medicine he needed. 

I've heard for so long that "a cure is just 5 years away" that I can't undrink the Kool-Aid. He shouldn't have to be going away to college with this burden.

But he is. He is.

I wish on every star. Every penny in the well. Every dandelion. How do you ever stop wishing?

I caused it.

I should have been able to fix it.


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