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Researchers are giving us new insight into the problem of food allergies and intolerances. A 

 out of Brigham and Women's Hospital finds 3.6 percent of Americans are dealing with those problems.
The study, published in 

The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

, looked at the electronic health records of 2.7 million people and identified 97,482 with one or more food allergies or intolerances.


Researchers defined allergies and intolerances as anything resulting in an adverse reaction to a food, including hives, anaphylaxis or shortness of breath.

Women and girls were found to be more likely to suffer from the problem — 4.2 percent compared to 2.9 percent among males. And people of Asian descent were the likeliest subgroup to be affected at a rate of 4.3 percent.

, it can be difficult to determine what actually constitutes a food allergy and so pinning down how many people are afflicted can be tricky. And even if patients are diagnosed with an allergy, they can outgrow it; about one in five people outgrow their peanut allergy.


The most common allergens are shellfish, fruit and vegetables, dairy and peanuts, in that order, according to the study.

 food allergies are estimated to cost the United States $25 billion dollars a year. And yet we may be under-equipped to accurately evaluate and diagnose them, since there are fewer than 7,000 allergists and immunologists in the country. Zhou adds that only 20 percent of patients with a peanut allergy actually received followup testing.  Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Health

A new study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital finds that women and people of Asian descent are the most at risk and that shellfish is the most common allergen.

3.6 percent of Americans found to have food allergies or intolerances

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