Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Why more people are at risk from deadly food allergies
As teenage girl dies after eating poorly labelled shop sandwich..
THE tragic case of schoolgirl Natasha Ednan-laperouse, who died when she unwittingly ate sesame seeds in a poorly labelled Pret a Manger sandwich, has led to calls for all food manufacturers to improve allergy information.
Natasha, 15, collapsed on board a British Airways flight in July 2016 after eating a baguette she had bought at Heathrow Airport.
A coroner concluded she died of anaphylaxis – a severe allergic reaction – caused by eating seeds not listed on the wrapper, and to which she was highly allergic.
This horrifying case highlights how careful people with allergies must be – a growing group in the UK, including up to 8% of children.
“Food allergy is on the rise and has been for some time,” confirms leading charity Allergy UK.
Our immune system mistakenly identifies food proteins as foreign invading germs, causing hives, rashes, itchy mouth and vomiting.
In rare cases it causes anaphylaxis, which can lead to swelling of the tongue and throat, difficulty breathing and potentially deadly low blood pressure.
SENSITIVITY
About 90% of reactions come from eight foods: Milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts (eg almonds), sesame seeds, wheat, fish and shellfish.
There is no known cure, but children who are allergic to milk, soy, wheat or egg tend to “outgrow” the sensitivity.
Allergies to peanut, tree nuts, sesame and seafood tend to be lifelong and can be deadly. They can only be managed by avoiding the allergens.
Sufferers must also carry an Epipen at all times. This selfinjecting device contains adrenaline, which can often reverse a reaction, if administered early enough.
However, the effectiveness of some Epipens is likely to be reviewed following the death of Natasha, as the two pens carried by her father were ineffective – possibly because the needles were too short or the dose was too late. We still don’t know why food allergies are increasing, although theories include… We’re too clean
Improvements in modern living and medicine – in particular fewer germs, and the use of antibiotics – has eliminated many previous bacterial threats.
As a result, our immune systems sit idle, but revved up for an attack, and so end up treating harmless proteins as if they were germs.
For the past three decades, the advice has been to avoid giving children potential allergens, such as eggs and peanuts, until they are two or three – to reduce their risk of developing an allergy.
However, the opposite is thought to be true, with research suggesting if you introduce a food much earlier into the diet – ideally when a baby is weaned at around six months’ old – then they’re much less likely to become allergic. UK studies have backed this, including one in 2008 which found the prevalence of peanut allergy in Jewish children in the UK, where the advice had been to avoid peanuts, was 10 times higher than in Israel, where babies are given peanuts from an early age.
Today’s diets, high in fat, sugar and processed foods, are reducing the diversity of bacteria in our gut. This appears to encourage the development of allergies. Evidence suggests eating a variety of unprocessed foods, especially fruit and veg, may be protective.
Because we spend more time indoors and use sunscreen, deficiency of Vitamin D, which is an important nutrient for a healthy immune system, has increased in the past 30 years.
Australian research has found that babies low in it were more likely to develop food allergies. The EU Food Information for Consumers Regulation and the UK Food Information Regulations 2014 state that if there are any of 14 types of allergens contained within food they should be highlighted on the label. These are: Cereals with gluten, shellfish, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame seeds, sulphur dioxide and sulphites at a particular concentration, lupin and molluscs.
But this only applies to prepackaged food that is made before it reaches the shop or restaurant. Non-prepackaged food, such as the sandwich Natasha bought which was made in store, doesn’t need a label listing the ingredients under current laws. Natasha’s family say changes to the law need to be made “swiftly” to ensure everyone can have confidence about “what allergens are in the food that they buy”. This would mean all foods are labelled – regardless of where they are made or whether they are pre-packaged.
Many advocates such as Allergy UK are calling for companies to set out in writing what allergens are in products by attaching clear labelling to everything.
They want the obligation to fall on businesses to declare allergens – not on customers to ask. This should help prevent what it calls “fatal incidents caused solely by a lack of communication on the allergen content of food”. What’s behind the rise in cases?