www.huffingtonpost.c om/glenn-d-braunstei n-md/peanut-allergie s_b_2885819.htmA few points from the article
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But self-reports of peanut allergies are rising. One study found that, between 1997 and 2002, the number of children with peanut allergies doubled, though reports did not increase among adults.
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For a time, the hygiene hypothesis was at the forefront of possible explanations. That theory holds that our modern obsession with extreme cleanliness, including antibacterial soaps and hand sanitizers, leave our children with fewer tools to fight off germs. Excessive cleanliness, experts reason, interrupts the normal development of the immune system, resulting in an increase in allergies.
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And, as the New York Times Magazine reported recently, Stanford University researcher Kari Nadeau, M.D., Ph.D., is experimenting with children who have multiple food allergies by desensitizing them simultaneously for all the foods they cannot tolerate, starting with even smaller microdoses. She's had considerable success, but even when children begin to tolerate foods that once threatened their lives, they must eat minimal amounts of the foods every day in order to maintain the tolerance. 4951