Why all these allergies? I don't remember people having nut and gluten allergies when I was young. 50s, 60s.

Lawrence - you may be angry, but that is no reaon for insulting and abusive language to people who answer in good faith. The fact remains that there is a greater incidence of allergies today, than in the 50s and 60s.

I agree - surely the more that we stop kids having things as youngsters/babies like nuts, gluten etc.. the more the body will react to it when it is eventually introduced into their diets? It's like people who clean and clean and clean, you need to be able to build up some natural immunity to things, if we live somewhere sterile we'll never manage to do that!

Felicity O what about pesticides, fast living and and the added STRESS of commercials to be checked for so many diseases. All this adds to malfunctioning of the immune system. Ask my neurologist and immunologist. I am a nurse. Report It

I am a coeliac and was diagnosed at 55, five years ago. When I was a baby, my mother and excellent GP tried to find what was wrong with me and felt that I had an egg allergy. But I didn't get any better until I grew out of it about six or seven. You do that with coeliac disease.

But as I got older my body couldn't cope and I started to suffer a lot of niggling health problems, like joint pains, chronic dandruff, megrains, gallstones, wind, diarrhoea, excessive tiredness, bad skin and lots of other things. I was quickly diagnosed at Addenbrookes and the lot went.

I now feel much better at sixty than I did at fifty.

So why was I not diagnosed as a child?

The methods of testing for coeliac disease were not developed until the mid 1950s, so it would have been impossible for me to have been diagnosed, except possibly by a big London teaching hospital.

Looking back my father was probably a coeliac as he had a lot of symptoms and he died younger than he should, as did his father.

One point to note, is that few of the women in my family have had children, which is probably due to coeliac disease. So if you can't conceive, at least get your folate levels checked, which can often be very low if you are a coeliac.

Recently, I have been on holiday in Kenya. In that country foods are made from proper ingredients. For example, jam is made with sugar and not some glucose concocted from wheat starch, which would give me the trots.

So perhaps another reason for more gluten allergies is that we are eating more gluten in places we don't expect it. We also don't eat the red meats, eggs and liver that are needed to keep our levels up to a healthy one.

If you want to learn more come to the UK-Coeliac group on yahoo, where we discuss living happily with coeliac disease.

James

Gluten sensitivity ( Coeliac disease) is now being realised just how common it is.

People in the 50s and 60s often died of this condition due to lack of diagnosis.

One in 800 are diagnosed presently.
One in 300 are undiagnosed presently, but have symptoms and in the merry-go-round of tests and investigations.
One in 100 people have the genetic make up to develop Coeliac disease!

FYI If you have an auto-immune disease, you might just have undiagnosed gluten sensitive enteropathy.

FYI people diagnosed with IBS are now screened for Coeliac disease.

Do you need any more information.

There probably were allergic people in those days but it just wasn't documented or even recognised.

There is, however, no doubt that these allergies are on the increase. This is mainly due to our bad diet and sedentary lifestyle. Since the 60's and 70's revolting additives have been added to many foods and these can cause people to become allergic to them and also become far more sensitive to normal food. We also exercise far less and as a consequence our immune systems are not as strong.
Because of intensive farming, which uses lots of chemicals, we are not only ingesting/absorbing/breathing in huge amounts of pollutants BUT the actual vitamin/mineral content of foods is greatly decreased.
All these pollutants can make one extremely sensitive.

Another reason might be that nature selected those people to die as soon as they consumed a peanut but now, modern medicine keeps many of us alive who wouln't otherwise be here- this means that we are now passing these problems on to our children, rather than these genes dying out as nature had perhaps intended????

If you want to get REALLY informed about nutrition, food allergies etc, read Patrick Holford's "Nutrition bible" and Udo Erasmus' "Fats that heal, fats that kill". Sound boring but trust me, once you start reading you will be drawn in because of the shocking truth of how are modern diet is a killer, especially white sugar, hydrogenated fat and all refined products (white rice, pasta, bread etc).

Hope it helps.

It's true that allergies are on the increase, as a result of over-clean houses and lifestyles when babies' immune systems are still developing.

The increase in Asthma rates for instance is a direct result of over-frequent vacuuming, meaning there aren't enough dust-mites around during childhood for children to build up a resistance to them.

It must be due to the pollution in the air, the hormones injected into fruit, veg and animals that we eat. Years ago there weren't many allergies around because the world was a healthier place to live in and because very little was known about intollerances and allergies. food allergies have only been researched into recently. Years ago tests were not available for food allergies. When I had a very severe allergy attack I had to wait 3 months for the tests and these had to be imported from Switzerland. This allergy in the end was due to - potatoes! Whoever heard of an English person who had eaten potatoes every day for 30 years allergic to POTATOES!!!As a result of this test I no longer eat them and have to avoid or limit eggplant, tomatoes and aubergines as they all belong to the same family - believe it or not! I am sure however that all this meddling with plants and animals is not good for the environment. If animals are given hormones, we then eat those animals. animals graze on grass which is not healthy and covered in insecticides - same goes for fruit - not a healthy environment at all.

Yes but we are breeding a generation of politically correct little wimps now. They are scared of their own shadow.

You don't hear too many Polish or Indian immigrants whining about irritable bowels, gluten free, lactose intolerant, nut allergy or all the rest of that baloney now DO you.

I've had long talks with various of my family members about this very thing.

Some I imagine was always there- but not identified. But even with that taken into account, you'll find very little food on the market now that hasn't been sprayed with pesticides and artificial fertilizers and even hormones. Not to mention the prevalence of other additives during the processing. And we wonder if that's not the culprit.

Also, keep in mind that our very lifestyle has changed since back then: We didn't have computers or video games, and television was nowhere near as prevalent as it is now. So people actually got outside to work and play.

TO noteckyb.

Before you continue to speak out of your ********! know exactly what you are talking about. Try doing research before as I say speaking out of your **** and insulting people.

I and my mother and 2 daughters suffer from Coeliac disease (gluten intolerance) and I can assure you that it is nothing to do with being a wimp.

I would ask the opinion of my aunt who also suffered, and I mean suffered with condition. Unfortunately I cannot ask her as the condition killed her!!!!!!!!!

It's the excessive cleaning as others said, the use of pesticides on food crops, the fast paced life these days, and the diagnosing of illnesses that provides jobs for some people, as well as the jobs created by advertising allergy prevention , writing about it in papers and magazines etc etc

They were there but they weren't recognized. For example, I used to feel that I had to get up, blow my nose, brush my teeth, take a bath as a daily routine. Nothing wrong with that I thought. I had a sinus problem, but I didn't know it. Someone with allergies, which I have as well, would not know to look for them. My doctor recognized what was occuring with me. Thus, I no longer have a sinus problem. Peace!!

It is the development of the western diet could contribute to the problem - Allergies. It could also be an awarenss issue, the media often reports of allergies and the effects on people. It can also be exacerbated through generations. Hope this helps Adam

Well, I imagine food allergies weren't as well researched then, and anyone with a severe allergy would die before anything could be done.

Thats because they did not know about it then its only recently been found out.My friend Jenn suffers from a Gluten allergy and when ever she has it her nose runs ( i mean really runs) and she can become pretty ill.!:

They make up allergies because they don't like eating them :P THey get spots by the Red Crayon and sick by Carrots and the Olive Green Crayon. :P

1) they usually died the first time they had a severe allergic reaction in the 50s.

even so, i think there are way more people with allergies now.

Thats cause people just suffered with it and it wasnt easy to detect. The amount of people with it is probably the same now then it was then

People can develop allergies at any time in life. I know, I did.

Would people have known what they were then? In those days people still died of old age. Not a specific reason.

The allergies were there, people just didn't know what was making them feel sick.

wasnt easy to detect

all the crap wrong with the world. Global warming pollution