Groundnuts or peanuts are among the foods that cause the most allergies in children and adults. Why do they have such a reputation? Where does sensitivity to these allergens come from? A researcher tells us more.
- In Europe and North America, more than 6 million people are affected by food allergies (dairy products, shellfish, wheat, etc.), ie 8% of children and 2 to 3% of adults. Peanuts are one of the 5 foods responsible for 75% of allergies in children along with eggs, cow’s milk, fish and nuts.
- The groundnut, whose seed is the peanut, belongs to the family of legumes, like soybeans, lentils, chickpeas or kidney beans. Contrary to popular belief, it is therefore not a nut strictly speaking like walnuts, almonds or chestnuts.
Some consume them frantically while having a drink on the terrace, while others cannot even approach them. Peanut allergy, better known as peanuts, affects between 0.5% and 0.7% of the French population. A tiny amount ingested can be enough to cause a strong reaction of the immune system, which goes out of order and gets carried away. Even a simple touch can be fatal. Peanut allergy would thus be responsible for more than half of deaths due to food allergy.
On the list of common allergenic foods, dairy products, shellfish, wheat and especially peanuts are high on the list. And the prevalence of the population is constantly increasing in developed countries. But why do some ingredients cause allergies, and why are some people more sensitive than others? Araceli Díaz-Perales Díaz-Perales, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, provides some answers.
Food allergies are specific to geography
“You suffer from allergies to the foods you eat most frequently”she explains in a article published by the Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) of the European Commission. This is why, according to the researcher, food allergies tend to be correlated with geographic area. For example, countries that consume more nuts tend to have higher levels of tree nut allergies.
How peanuts are eaten also makes a difference. The UK has higher rates of peanut allergies than Spain, although the two countries consume more or less equivalent amounts. According to Araceli Díaz-Perales, this could be due to the fact that the British population eats more peanuts in a processed form and therefore rich in fat (butter, oils, confectionery, snacks…).
Where does allergen sensitivity come from?
Another lesson: sensitivity to certain allergens does not necessarily start in the intestine, but could develop through the respiratory tract, or even the skin (particularly through cosmetics based on vegetable oils). It can thus happen that people thus ‘sensitized’ to the allergen end up developing allergic symptoms through food, according to Díaz-Perales. “The health of your skin is so important in preventing food allergies”she adds, excluding the use of harsh cleaning products that damage the microbiome and the superficial protective layer of our skin, which “allows allergens to enter and leads to sensitization to certain foods”.
Finally, stress could play a role in allergen sensitivity, the article concludes. “The hormonal system, the immune system and neural development are closely linked; any change in one affects the others.” It is therefore possible that our increasingly hectic and stressful lives are making us more vulnerable. Treatments, fortunately, are progressing from year to year.
