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Children and adults can be allergic to all kinds of different foods, but where do those allergies come from? Are you born with food allergies, or can you develop them later in life? In this video, allergist Katie Marks-Cogan breaks down the science behind food allergies, including what causes them and when they really develop.
Key Takeaways
- No one is born with food allergies. They develop over time.
- Food allergies are caused by a mix of genetics and environmental and dietary exposures when you're young.
- It's possible to develop food allergies as an adult from exposure to certain environmental allergens, like pollen.
Video Transcript
No one is born with a food allergy. Food allergies develop over time. As I mentioned before, food allergies are multifactorial. They are a mix of your genetics and your environmental and dietary exposures early in life. If you avoid eating certain allergenic foods, like eggs or peanuts, in infancy, then you don't train your immune system. If your first ingestion of these foods comes later in life, your immune system is more likely to treat them like an invader and cause an allergic reaction. Even though they're common in children, adults can develop food allergies too. Food allergies we develop as adults are sometimes caused by environmental, also known as airborne, allergens. For instance, some adults can suffer from pollen food syndrome. They become sensitized to different pollen from trees, grasses, or weeds, and their immune system confuses certain proteins in foods for that pollen. Often, eating the food cooked rather than raw does not cause a reaction because cooking denatures, or breaks down, the protein and our immune system doesn't recognize it.
