Food Allergy? Phooey!

More than one in 10 adults has a food allergy, but nearly one in five think they do, according to a new survey.

The survey, administered by NORC at the University of Chicago in 2015 through 2016 was completed by 40,443 U.S. adults and aimed to provide national estimates of the “distribution, severity and factors associated with adult food allergy.” Researchers estimated that 10.8 percent of Americans had one or more food allergies, while 19 percent self-reported having at least one.

“Nearly twice as many adults think that they are allergic to foods, while their symptoms may suggest food intolerance or other food related conditions,” lead author Dr. Ruchi Gupta, from Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Northwestern University, said in a press release. “It is important to see a physician for appropriate testing and diagnosis before completely eliminating foods from the diet.”

Nearly half – 48 percent – of food-allergic adults surveyed reportedly developed their allergy as an adult, and only 24 percent said they have a current prescription for epinephrine, a drug used to treat life-threatening allergic reactions, according to the report, published Friday in the JAMA Network Open journal. An estimated 7.2 million U.S. adults have a food allergy to shellfish, the most prevalent food allergen and one that is commonly developed in adulthood.

“We were surprised to find that adult-onset food allergies were so common,” said Gupta, who is a pediatrics professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “More research is needed to understand why this is occurring and how we might prevent it.”

The main limitation of the survey’s results is its self-report paradigm, it notes. Further, it only considered a food allergy to be convincing if the most severe reaction to a type of food included at least one symptom on the panel’s “stringent symptom list,” including, among others, experiencing hives, lip or tongue swelling, difficulty swallowing, rapid heartbeat or trouble breathing.

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