Food Allergies, Unreliable Testing Methods, and Statistics
There's a lot of speculation as to why allergies seem to be on the increase, but here's a possible reason that I haven't heard discussed until now: one of the most popular current methods for diagnosing them is actually not very reliable.
If you (or your kids) have gotten one of those blood allergy tests, you should understand that recent research shows that a positive result on the test correlates with an actual allergy in less than half of the cases. This means that, if you get a positive result, the chance that you actually have the allergy they say you have is less than 50-50.
To make matters worse, they also don't distinguish well between similar proteins in different foods. From the article: "A child who is allergic to peanuts, for instance, might test positive for allergies to soy, green beans, peas and kidney beans. Children with milk allergies may test positive for beef allergy." Without actually being allergic to those other foods.
I know people who have gotten these tests, and taken the results as gospel. They were misled. The only real test of whether you're allergic to something is whether it actually causes you problems when you eat it. All else is guesswork and statistics. (And it's important to understand how to interpret the statistics on medical testing. See my earlier post on that.)
If you (or your kids) have gotten one of those blood allergy tests, you should understand that recent research shows that a positive result on the test correlates with an actual allergy in less than half of the cases. This means that, if you get a positive result, the chance that you actually have the allergy they say you have is less than 50-50.
To make matters worse, they also don't distinguish well between similar proteins in different foods. From the article: "A child who is allergic to peanuts, for instance, might test positive for allergies to soy, green beans, peas and kidney beans. Children with milk allergies may test positive for beef allergy." Without actually being allergic to those other foods.
I know people who have gotten these tests, and taken the results as gospel. They were misled. The only real test of whether you're allergic to something is whether it actually causes you problems when you eat it. All else is guesswork and statistics. (And it's important to understand how to interpret the statistics on medical testing. See my earlier post on that.)