Allergies on the rise: the cure is "desensitisation"

It is estimated that allergies, both respiratory and food-related, will afflict up to 40% of the population within the next 30 years.

So says Prof. Roberto Bernardini, president of the Italian Society of Paediatric Allergology and Immunology, in a short interview published by the weekly Donna di Repubblica, which sums up the main causes of this progressive spread of allergic phenomena in 3 points: first of all genetic predisposition, which on its own would explain nothing, however, without taking into account the "growing consumption of heat-stable and gastro-stable proteins, the ones with the strongest allergic impact, and an ever lower consumption of fruit and vegetables".

Furthermore, fruit, even when consumed in larger quantities, risks containing very strong allergenic factors, due to the presence of proteins, the chitinases, which plants develop when they are forced into rapid growth.

But the lifestyle we lead nowadays also weighs heavily on the development of allergic conditions: "we condition our bacterial flora and prevent it from ensuring a proper immune response".

The figures point to 6% of children in Italy suffering from food allergies and 15% of children suffering from respiratory allergies, but 90% of allergy cases tend to resolve naturally after the age of 6.

Milk and eggs, but also nuts and fish, turn out to be the foods with the strongest allergenic factors, but the way to beat allergies seems to be "desensitisation", which can be achieved with children by administering increasing doses of the product that causes the allergic reaction.