Food allergies: the plate under the microscope
Food allergies continue to grow and become a real public health problem. Prevent their appearance, improve screening, treatment … scientific research is at the heart of the struggle.Many studies have also recently addressed this problem. Overview …
As for food allergies, research advance. The mechanisms are increasingly controlled and treatment are the same for …
1. Track lactose intolerance
“Dairy products are our friends for life!” said there was not so long ago, an advertisement. But do you know that many people can not drink a single glass of milk? They have what is called lactose intolerance: they lack the enzyme that helps digest the sugar found in milk. More precisely, they are no longer able to synthesize grow. If persons consume, they suffer from nausea, diarrhea or more serious problems.
But researchers have identified finlandais1 the genetic mutation causing the problem. They studied nine Finnish families and compared to German, the English, Italians, South Korea, the U.S. and French. And they have discovered two mutations closely linked to lactose intolerance.
This identification could develop a test to diagnose this problem easily. This intolerance affects a different number of people in different regions. Thus, virtually 100% of Asians can not tolerate milk, against only 5% of Europeans.
Researchers say this reflects the fact that the ancestor of man could not digest lactose. This capability would have appeared some ten thousand years, in populations practicing intensive farming and drinking milk from their pets. The “mutants” would be in reality the people who manage to digest milk in adulthood!
2. Allergic to food … beware of the makeup!
Allergy to peanuts is booming! The reason: the use of more and more important to peanuts in foods. But the food professionals are not the only ones to blame!The cosmetics are also involved!
According to researchers britanniques2, some skin creams containing peanut oil and increase the risk to develop an allergy to peanuts. The researchers reached this result by examining patterns of 14,000 children, of whom 50 showed allergies to peanuts. They also revealed a greater risk of cross reactivity with soybean: those who drank milk from this plant presented a risk 2.6 times important to be allergic to peanuts.
Tags: Allergy, food allergy