Learn about food allergies

What is a Food Allergy?

Food allergy is a serious and potentially life-threatening medical condition affecting millions of persons worldwide. One in every 13 children in the US has a food allergy, and every 3 minutes, a food allergy reaction sends someone to the emergency room.

What Causes a Food Allergy?

The job of the body’s immune system is to identify and destroy germs (such as bacteria or viruses) that make you sick. A food allergy happens when your immune system overreacts to a harmless food protein : an allergen.

The nine most common food allergens are: milk, egg, peanut, sesame, tree nuts, soy, wheat, fish and shellfish.

Family history appears to play a role in whether someone develops a food allergy. If you have other kinds of allergic reactions, like eczema or hay fever, you have a greater risk of food allergy. This is also true of asthma.

Food allergies are not the same as food intolerances, and food allergy symptoms overlap with symptoms of other medical conditions. It is therefore important to have your food allergy confirmed by an appropriate evaluation with an allergist.

Allergic Reactions

Allergic reactions varies from person to person and are unpredictable. Symptoms of a food allergy reaction can range from mild, such as hives, to severe, such as anaphylaxis.

If you have an allergy to any of the above foods, keep an epinephrine auto-injector (such as an EpiPen®, Auvi-Q™ or Adrenaclick®) with you at all times. Epinephrine is the first-line treatment for anaphylaxis.

We are here to help

Our mission is to improve the quality of life and the health of individuals with food allergies, and to provide them hope through the promise of new treatments.

Please contact us to learn how to make the world safer for people with food allergies.