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7.1
Food Hypersensitivity – Food
Allergies and Intolerances
Summary
●● Food hypersensitivity can be either an allergic ●● Food hypersensitivity is less common than
reaction involving the immune system or an parents report and is diagnosed by one or more
intolerance that is an adverse reaction to food of the following: clinical history, skin prick
not involving the immune system. tests, blood tests, food challenge or trial
exclusion diet.
●● Symptoms of food allergy that appear rapidly
involve the production of immunoglobulin E ●● European law requires that the following foods
(IgE). A slower onset of symptoms at least two must be listed in the ingredients list on the
hours after eating the food may not involve IgE. label if they are present in a food: milk, cereals
containing gluten, eggs, fish, shellfish, peanuts
●● Common foods that children in the UK have or ground nuts, tree nuts, soybeans, celery,
adverse reactions to are milk, eggs, fish, mustard, sesame seeds, lupin, sulphur dioxide
peanuts and other tree nuts. and sulphites.
The number of children who are allergic or shelflife and less likely to be fresh from a local
intolerant to foods may be rising and the increase producer.
depends on the country they live in and the foods
involved. For example, peanut allergy may be Food Hypersensitivity
increasing in some countries and milk allergy
increasing in other countries. This changing Although most people use the term ‘food allergy’
pattern is difficult to explain but may be due to loosely to cover all unpleasant reactions to food,
factors such as: the current clinical classification is based on the
type of adverse response to food (Johansson et al.
●● exposure to a wider range of chemicals in the 2004). ‘Food hypersensitivity’ is the umbrella term
environment, many of which have only been used to cover all the different types of physiological
introduced in the last 50 or so years reactions to foods (Figure 7.1.1). Food allergy
triggers the immune system to respond to a food
●● exposure to a less diverse range of microorganisms protein, whereas the term ‘food intolerance’ is used
due to lifestyle factors, including how clean when the immune system is not involved and the
homes are kept reactions may be triggered by chemicals in a food
that are either naturally occurring or have been
●● improving public health measures including added in the processing of that food.
immunizations that prevent infections in
infants and toddlers Current management of food hypersensitivity is
to exclude the food causing the problem, but the
●● the changes in food and drinks consumed as
they are more likely to be processed with a long
