Allergies aren't the only problem with today's food, scientists start to study and develop treatments for food intolerances

Food allergies are a secret to neither the public nor the medical world.  The majority of the people living in the United States today either know someone with food allergies or suffer from the condition themselves.  

The American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology defines food allergies as a reaction during which your body's natural defenses overreact to exposure to a particular substance, treating it as an invader and sending out chemicals to defend against it.  More than 15 million Americans have a food allergy of some kind; this population is thought to include about 6% of all children and 4% of all adults in the U.S.

Symptoms of food allergies can range over a large scale, varying from very mild reactions to very severe reactions.  The Mayo Clinic lists the most common reactions as being itchy mouth, hives, swelling of lips, face, tongue, and/or throat, and wheezing and/or breathing trouble.  Anaphylaxis, defined as the contraction or swelling of one's throat and airways, is the most severe symptom of food allergies.  Anaphylactic reactions require immediate medical treatment, including quick injection of the adrenaline hormone, epinephrine, and an urgent care unit or hospital emergency room.  Without proper treatment, anaphylaxis can be fatal.

Most doctors and allergists agree that there are eight significant common allergens.  These include milk, peanuts, eggs, tree nuts, soy, fish, wheat, and shellfish. The majority of anaphylaxis cases occur after exposure to one of these eight triggers.

New studies find a more acute human reaction to foods, doctors try to understand the new phenomenon

Food allergies have been a problem for hundreds of years; scientists have had centuries to study, learn about, and perfect their treatment of allergies.  In 2013, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention released a study that found that food allergies in children increased by about 50% from 1997 to 2011.

A new problem, however, has arisen.  More acute reactions to foods, never before observed and studied by people, have arisen recently.  They've been tagged as food sensitivities or food intolerances.

The definition of food intolerance, as described by Medical News Today, is the non-allergic food hypersensitivity leading to difficulty in digesting certain foods.  Generally it shows in the form of gastrointestinal problems, often stomach aches, intestinal gas, diarrhea, and/or nausea. 

An example of a food sensitivity that doctors have already studied and understood is lactose intolerance.  A common misconception is that lactose intolerance is simply an allergy to lactose, the sugar found in milk.  The condition actually constitutes an absence or deficiency in lactase, the enzyme used to digest lactose.  This is in fact the exact definition of a food intolerance.  In lactose intolerance there is no allergic reaction, just an adverse reaction from the body's inability to properly digest the sugar.

News stories today are filled with many new kinds of intolerances, gluten intolerance being one of the more common and upcoming discoveries.  The European Food Information Council recently released the results of a serological test that determined that 1 in 100 Europeans suffer from what has been named Coeliac Disease, or gluten intolerance.  The study also showed that 70% of the world's adult population do not produce enough lactase, and therefore have some degree of lactose intolerance.  Gluten, like lactose, is a simple ingredient found in a huge amount of foods and drinks on the market today; it's a protein found in wheat, barely, and rye. 

With the addition of many more studies and findings, scientists have begun to realize that food intolerances are just as much if not more of a problem than food allergies.  A website dedicated to food allergy and sensitivity awareness brought together studies from the CDC, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the United States Census Bureau to find out just how prevalent a certain food sensitivity is; in this case it was gluten intolerance.  The results were astounding.  The population of people in the world intolerant to gluten is almost twice as large as the population of people allergic to fish, milk, eggs, tree nuts, shellfish, and peanuts combined.  

This realization was one that spiked interest in not only media stations but also in the homes of people around the country.  Food allergies are serious; according to FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education) a food allergy sends a person to the emergency room every 3 minutes.  Food sensitivities, though they produce much milder symptoms than allergies, affect a gigantic international population.  Doctors, researchers, and scientists have begun to figure out why.

Research link the rise in food allergies and intolerances to factors like genetics, environments, and the foods themselves

Heads of research at Allergy UK, the leading national charity providing support, advice, and information for those with allergies and intolerances, were among the first to explore the phenomenon of increased adverse reactions to foods in humans.  They first found that the increase in food allergies around the world was more prominent in developed countries like the UK, the US, and several European countries.  Further research revealed that such increases in allergies can be found in the countries undergoing industrial development.  This discovery contributed to many important findings.  

The latest surveys by the British Allergy Foundation found that 30-35% of people throughout the world are affected by an allergy at some point during their lives.  The same survey also revealed that up to 50% of children in the UK are diagnosed with an allergic condition.  To understand why the UK's allergic population was significantly larger scientists turned to the changes that occur predominantly in modernized and industrialized countries.  The "hygiene hypothesis" is one of the first a most widely observed ideas developed from further investigation.

According to the US National Library of Medicine, the hygiene hypothesis states that the decreasing amount of infections in western and developed countries is at the origin of the increasing incidence of both autoimmune and allergic disease.  The theory is based upon the increase in the amount of westernized people living in cities and urban areas.  Children who live on farms and in rural areas, a much smaller population than 20 years ago, are exposed at a young age to many more environmental bacterias and micro-organisms.  This exposure helps their immune systems learn about and adjust to such infections, whereas inadequate exposure to environmental microbes may result in the adolescent immune systems tending towards allergy.  

Some experts suggest that the increase in food allergy may be due to our higher consumption of processed foods that contain large amounts of allergens.  However, there is no evidence to support this theory and many cultures worldwide traditionally eat high amounts of allergenic foods.  An example is some Asian communities and their consumption of peanuts.

Others suggest that the increasing commonality of food allergens in cosmetic products like shampoo, soap, and moisturizers may be to blame.

Cyndi O'Meara, expert nutritionist and author of "Changing Habits, Changing Lives Cook Book," wrote "There's been a 10 fold increase in people with food intolerances in the UK in the last 25 years."  Her argument: that the problem is largely based upon the chemical make-up of the foods we eat today compared to that of the past.  She blames the "chemically injected, fake, modified foods" for the increase in human food intolerance in the last twenty years.

There is truth to O'Meara's point; genetically modified foods are an extremely prevalent and upcoming problem in the US and in other modernized countries.  Five of the ten most commonly produced crops in the US, pictured on the left as corn, soybean, cotton, papaya, and canola, are sold not only as themselves but added into almost every processed food on the market.  According to the USDA, over 75 percent of these foods are genetically engineered in some way; in some cases that's over an 80 percent increase since 1997.  

The Center for Food Safety reports that over 75 percent of processed foods contains genetically modified ingredients.  There is no way, however, for consumers to watch out or attempt to avoid these ingredients; no labels are required to display the existence of GMOs in food.  

Cyndi O'Meara pushes on the common sense notion that when exposed to foreign substances (like pesticides that are never removed from genetically modified corn), humans should react in an adverse manor.  Human digestive organs were not designed to handle such dangerous and "tough" substances and for that reason a pandemic has begun in the form of food intolerances.

Dietitians and nutritionists race to find proper diagnoses and treatments for the millions with food intolerances


Both allergies and intolerances can be diagnosed through sound methods of testing.  Allergy testing is a considerably common, simple, and scientific process practiced among most allergists and some doctors.  According to FARE, there are 4 effective ways of identifying food allergies: skin prick testing,  blood testing, the oral food challenge, and a trial elimination diet.  Skin testing and blood testing involve the exposure of a person to certain allergens and the observation of their allergic reaction when exposed.  They are the easiest and most common.  Some people, however, choose to utilize a different technique, like oral food challenges or a trial elimination diet.  These, though they are less common, and also effective in determining a person's allergies; they involve the trial and error consumption of the foods in question.

Food intolerances are not as easy to test for and diagnose, though science has come a long way in simplifying and increasing the precision of the testing process.

According to Medical News Daily, there is no "accurate, reliable, and validated" test to identify food intolerance.  The majority of people with a suspected food intolerance turn to a two-step process for diagnosis.  The first is to eliminate the possibility of an existent food allergy via skin or blood testing; the second is to adopt an exclusion diet, or what was previously described as a trial elimination diet.  

A trial elimination diet consists of a long, neat, trial and error process through which a person can identify the foods that bother them.  By eating certain foods and avoiding others a patient can determine whether or not the food they are consuming is the culprit of an intolerance.  This is the most effective way to illuminate food intolerances, though it does come with a few downsides.  The process can be grueling; some people reported up to a year of self-testing until they found real relief from their intolerance.  A food elimination diet also includes actually experiencing the negative symptoms of the condition in order to find the dietary culprit.

Dietitians have not only begun to explore methods of diagnosis for food intolerances, but have delved into research about how to live with them.  The idea of living with food allergies has been researched, tested, and perfected over the years.  Food intolerances are a different story.  People of all ages, lifestyles, and cultures suffer from intolerances; each of their lifestyle changes must be focused upon their specific situation.  

University of Maryland's Sister Maureen Schrimpe, quality coordinator and head nutritionist in dining services, was asked about the services provided for gluten-free students at UMD.

Many environments lack the proper resources and facilities that are key in overcoming food intolerances.  A prime and common example of such an environment is that of a college student.  University campuses seldom provide living conditions with proper kitchen and cooking resources for a person with food intolerances or allergies.  For this reason, the role of dietitians and nutritionists at universities has increased significantly, as parents and students have begun to choose colleges based on their ability to accommodate allergies and intolerances.

Udi's, a successful food business who prides themselves on their motto "full of taste ~ free of gluten," released in 2014 their list of the top 10 gluten free accommodating colleges. Among the highest on the list were big colleges like University of Connecticut and University of New Hampshire. Students at UConn with food intolerances are encouraged to meet with a team of a registered dietitian, a dining hall manager, and a chef to discuss their individual situation.

A huge role of universities is to listen to the needs and wants of their students; when the needs are essential to a student's health they become even more essential to a college students happiness and well-being. Schrimpe weighs in on what she thought was the biggest concern of UMD students with gluten intolerances.

According to the Huffington Post, the most important part about remaining happy and safe while living with food intolerances is always knowing what you're eating.

In a 2015 article about how to survive the holiday season with food intolerances, Alexis Lopez wrote that the few most important things to concentrate on were being careful, being proactive, and bringing your own dish. Preparing one's own food is the easiest way to overcome food intolerances, since the patient can monitor exactly what goes in it; however, college students generally don't possess the luxury of home cooking. For this reason they can only follow Lopez's first two suggestions: to be careful and proactive.

Being careful and proactive when living with intolerances entails one important thing: knowing exactly what you're eating. Food allergies, in this aspect, are easy. Each food company is required to print on their label the existence of any of the eight common allergens. Intolerance to food often doesn't involve one of these allergens; in fact, some of the most common intolerance triggers, like genetically modified foods and food additives, are not required in print on food labels.

University of Maryland's dining services releases their nutrition information online. The page is mostly based on the command that if a student has special needs in the food department they should set up a meeting with Sister Schrimpe to discuss how the university will accommodate their individual needs. Shrimp comments on UMD's ability to let students be "careful and proactive."