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Allergy rise 'down to diet, family & environment'Date: 20/07/2007 08:57:15
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With the hay fever season now upon us, a national allergy charity has explained that the rising trend of childhood allergies is triggered by a larger number of hereditary, environmental and dietary factors.
According to Allergy UK, Britain is now one of the top three nations in the world for allergies - beaten only by Australia and New Zealand - with allergies thought to affect one in four of the UK population at one stage in their lives.
Diet is one of many factors that combine to increase the prevalence of allergies, especially among children, however the most common allergens are pollen from trees and grasses, house dust mite, moulds, pets such as cats and dogs, insects including wasps and bees, industrial and household chemicals, medicines, and foods such as milk and eggs.
Allergy UK chief executive Muriel Simmons revealed that the prevalence of allergy among children especially was down to the wider variety of food stuffs they are now exposed to.
"I don't think it is so much diet and the way children eat, I think we are now faced with foods we would never have seen years ago," she said.
"Children have a greater access to a wider range of food, so therefore…it is almost natural that more children will react because they're coming into contact with a wider range of food.
"We're seeing kiwi as a food that is causing quite a lot of growth in anaphylaxis […] years and years ago, children would never have met kiwi, so…diet plays a part in that way."
According to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the proportion of children diagnosed by a GP with hay fever or allergic rhinitis tripled between the early 1970s and early 1990s.
Additionally, the weekly GP consultation rate for hay fever and allergic rhinitis was 56 per 100,000 in children aged five to 14-years-old in 2000.
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