Almond Allergy: An Overview on Prevalence, Thresholds, Regulations and Allergen Detection.

Giuseppina Mandalari,Alan R Mackie

doi:10.3390/nu10111706

Giuseppina Mandalari, Alan R Mackie

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/nu10111706

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Journal: Nutrients	Publication Date: Nov 8, 2018
Citations: 23	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Messina, University of Leeds

Abstract

Food allergy has been on the increase for many years. The prevalence of allergy to different foods varies widely depending on type of food, frequency of consumption and geographic location. Data from the literature suggests that the prevalence of tree nut allergy is of the order of 1% in the general population. Almond is one such tree nut that is frequently eaten in many parts of the world and represents a potential allergenic hazard. Given the need to label products that contain allergens, a number of different methods of direct and indirect detection have been developed. However, in the absence of population-based threshold data, and given that almond allergy is rare, the sensitivity of the required detection is unknown and thus aims as low as possible. Typically, this is less than 1 ppm, which matches the thresholds that have been shown for other allergens. This review highlights the lack of quantitative data on prevalence and thresholds for almonds, which is limiting progress in consumer protection.

Highlights

IntroductionSicherer and Sampson [4] have highlighted the apparent increase in food allergy with documented rates as high as 10%
Food allergy is defined as “an adverse health effect arising from a specific immune response that occurs reproducibly on exposure to a given food,” by the 2010 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (NIAID/NIH)-supported Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Food Allergy [1,2,3]
A number of hypotheses have been proposed in relation to the increased prevalence of food allergy, including the following risk factors: atopic dermatitis, increased hygiene/cleanliness with associated reduction to pathogen-exposure, microbiome changes, allergens avoidance in early life as well as dual allergen exposure, nutritional factors, such as vitamin D insufficiency, reduced antioxidants consumption and obesity [3,5,6,7].The aim of this review is to highlight the lack of reliable data on almond allergy, partially due to the fact that almond allergy is rare

Summary

Introduction

Sicherer and Sampson [4] have highlighted the apparent increase in food allergy with documented rates as high as 10%. This increase seems to be related to a number of genetic, epigenetic and environmental risk factors. A number of hypotheses have been proposed in relation to the increased prevalence of food allergy, including the following risk factors: atopic dermatitis, increased hygiene/cleanliness with associated reduction to pathogen-exposure, microbiome changes, allergens avoidance in early life as well as dual allergen exposure, nutritional factors, such as vitamin D insufficiency, reduced antioxidants consumption and obesity [3,5,6,7].The aim of this review is to highlight the lack of reliable data on almond allergy, partially due to the fact that almond allergy is rare. We describe the data on the prevalence of tree nut allergy with particular focus on almond

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