Parents overstate children's allergies

Researchers have found that, contrary to popular belief, the rate of food hypersensitivity is not rising.

In a three-year, £600,000 project funded by the Food Standards Agency, researchers studied nearly all the babies born in one year on the Isle of Wight.

They found parents were too quick to assume their child had an allergy or intolerance to a specific food. And they discovered that food hypersensitivity rates were unchanged since a previous study 20 years ago.

Dr Carina Venter, who led the research, said: "People have become more aware of food allergies, particularly peanut allergy. Mums tend to put down every rash, tummy ache, diarrhoea and crying to food allergy or intolerance. Also, some babies might react strongly to some common foods, but outgrow this allergy or intolerance within a year or two."

Of the 807 babies in the study, more than one in three (272) were claimed by their parents to have an allergy or intolerance to one or more foods. But in fact, fewer than 60 babies proved to be allergic to any food by the age of three. That represented almost a fivefold over-estimation of the problem.

The foods most commonly blamed by mothers for causing a reaction were milk, eggs, fruit (mainly strawberries and citrus fruit), tomatoes (including tomato sauce), additives (colourings and preservatives), wheat, peanuts, fish and soya.

The most likely foods to cause an allergic reaction in the children were, in descending order: peanuts, eggs, milk, wheat, brazil and almond nuts, gluten, hazelnuts, cashew nuts and corn.