The Increase of Allergies and Sensitivities Articles | Environment

Allergies and sensitivities seem to be on the increase, more and more people seem to be suffering from them nowadays. Food allergies and sensitivities seem to especially be on the increase and many health problems are associated with them.

What are the reasons for the increase in food allergies and sensitivities over the past few years? The leading theories are that a combination of consuming high amounts of similar foods on a regular basis, consuming food with preservatives, consuming foods with added food colourings, consuming foods with added flavour enhancers, the use of antibiotics during rearing of food, the use of herbicides and pesticides in production of food are all playing havoc with our immune systems. The adulteration of the food we eat by the food industries is making our immune systems react to every day food.

It is believed that the average person eats the same ten foods per week; this is a major facture in the increase of hypersensitivity in today’s modern society. Our digestive systems are becoming insufficient which is allowing food particles to retain their antigenicity and to enter our systemic circulation which provokes our immune system to react to them as they were a foreign protein. Food allergy and sensitivitivies can cause health problems such as aches and pains, ADHD, anxiety, arthriti, asthma, bloating, Celiac disease, chronic fatigue, chronic infections, dizziness, eczema, enuresis (bed wetting), fibromyalgia, hyperactivity, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, lethargy, migraine, nausea, PMS, psoriasis, recurrent ear infection, recurrent sinus infections, Rhinitis Sinusitis and Urticaria.

Food sensitivities and allergies cause the body to be constantly combating what it sees as a foreign invader, the immune system expands large amounts of energy trying to defend the body. This constant battle against what should be harmless food proteins can lead the body to let in via the back door more serious health problems such as cancers and autoimmune conditions.

Life style and environment also plays a large part in the body’s susceptibility to allergies. Atmospheric pollution which is high in busy cities has a detrimental effect on human health. Examples of sources of pollution are burning fossil fuels, agricultural spraying, smelting and waste incineration. Many people find that their food allergies get better when they leave city life. People are not only effected by outdoor pollution but also indoor pollution, our homes are full of pollutants such as formaldehyde, tobacco smoke, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, asbestos, dust mites, toxins from plastics, xylene from paint, toluene di-isocyanate from varnish.

The human body is constantly working in harmony; it’s regularly systems stopping trouble before it ever happens. Health problems only occur when the body’s defences become over run. This is called body overload, it is important to understand body overload to understand allergies. The human body can cope with small amounts of different stressors such as stress, environmental pollution, alcohol and nutritional deficiency all of which are common in modern life. The problem comes when the body tries to cope with more than one stressor and it reaches its threshold level, it can only take one allergen and the threshold will be reach causing all sorts of health problems. This explains why someone who has a food allergy can eat that food on holiday whilst they are relaxed and in a cleaner environment, for example a beach holiday but when they come back to their stressful city job they become unhealthy again. When the human body gets affect by an allergen it will show up in its weak organ, this is an organ that will show an allergic reaction first. For example; someone with hay fever may well get a runny nose – their target organ.

The human body is finding it hard to cope with life in the 20th century because it has not really changed that much since the Stone Age. On the other hand, life in the 20th century is very different to that of what a Stone Age man would be used to. Our ancestors did not eat grains or dairy foods, their diets consisted of fresh meat and fish, fruits, nuts and water. In contrast, our modern day diet consists of wheat, dairy products, processed foods, refined foods, foods with additives and preservatives, high amounts of salt within our food, foods sprayed with pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, microwave foods, foods with high amounts of sugar, smoked meats and fish and stimulants such as tea, coffee and alcohol. With this nutritional bombardment upon our stone aged bodies it is no wonder why allergies and sensitivities are on the increase.

Some scientists think that man has not adapted yet to tolerate grain products as we only started to be cultivating grain ten thousand years ago, a short time in evolution. This may explain why allergies to wheat are very common.

Another modern day invention which was not around a lot in Stone Age times is heat. Stone Age man eat a lot of raw food, cooking destroys a lot of valuable nutrients and enzymes. Raw food also needs a lot of chewing which not only breaks down the food but also mixes essential digestive enzyme when it is in the mouth enabling proper digestion of the food in the stomach. Today; most processed and fast food is soft which does not help with proper digestion.

In conclusion, modern day food that is produced by the food industry is high in fat, high in sugar, highly process, high in salt, high in chemicals and dowsed in pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. Although our bodies have not changed much since the Stone Age our diet is far from the simple foods that our ancestors consumed. Adulterated food together with environmental pollution and modern day stress that we endure in our city has lead to the increase of allergies and sensitivities in the 20th century.