Why are more people allergic to peanuts?

Answer 1

The answer is more likely the overall increased 'sterilization" of our children-- with the resultant thwarting of childrens' immune systems to naturally handle any attacks inside their bodies. Young children today are more protected by their parents against potential threats. For example, they aren't allowed to play in the dirt outside, are constantly having their hands washed with anti-bacterial soap, are not being exposed to any "potentially harmful" foods (peanuts), etc. in the well-intended attempt to avoid illness and disease. However, a result of all these precautions is that the immune systems of today's children are more permanently disabled to handle a vast variety of system compromises-- such as food Allergies.

Answer 2

We can only speculate about the possible reasons for the increase in peanut allergies. We do know that many new chemicals have been added to the environment in the modern, industrial world, and there may be a synergistic effect by which the immune system becomes more sensitized to chemical stimuli of various sorts. Some people have speculated that changes in courtship and marriage practices have created more inbred genetics, because people left to their own devices will often choose mates who are similar to themselves, whereas in arranged marriages, different criteria apply. Improved medical care means that the rate of infant mortality is much lower than it used to be, and as a result many people are living to adulthood, who in an earlier time would never have lived long enough to be able to develop a peanut allergy, or to discover that they had one. Exactly which of those 3 hypotheses may be true, I cannot say, and perhaps the actual explanation is something else entirely.

Additional Data

Although the number of peanut allergies being reported varies from one source to the next, they appear to indicate that peanut allergies are on the rise.

An allergic reaction to peanuts is caused by a person's immune system reacting to proteins within the peanut when the nut is ingested, and those proteins are then delivered to the blood stream. The result is an unpleasant or even life-threatening state of allergic reaction.

The rise in allergies has been noted as anywhere from 17 to as high as 200% in some cases. The reasons for the increase are unclear, although a number of theories have arisen. One explanation involves what's called the "hygiene hypothesis", which states that people are too "clean" in today's modern society. The immune system, throughout a person's life, is constantly attempting to rid the body of foreign material like mutated cells (thus helping to prevent cancer), foreign bacteria and viruses, and other substances. Because the immune system has less stuff to fight, it looks for the next best thing. If it has any predisposition to fighting those harmless peanut proteins, the immune system will do it because it doesn't have "anything better to do", so to speak.

Other theories suggest that causes include: too little exposure to peanuts at a young age, causing the proteins to appear alien to the immune system; cleaner processing of foods due to regulations: or perhaps something as innocuous as more diagnoses today than were reported in the past.

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An Evolutionary PerspectiveIt is also possible that certain groups of people were historically not exposed to peanuts and therefore never developed a way to digest them. The recent trend of globalization brought these people in contact with peanuts for the first time, which they have not yet had the time to adapt to.