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Nut Allergies Research Paper

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According to the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 3 million Americans now have some sort of a nut allergy. Children, in particular, seemed to be especially sensitive to nuts. The number of children living with a nut allergy have nearly tripled from 1997 to 2008. This number is staggering and begs the question, why is there a significant increase in nut allergies for Americans?

The Cause

There are many theories about what exactly is causing the increase in nut allergies. Doctors have agreed that it seems to be a number of factors that have contributed to this First World Problem. Here are a few:

• Hygiene: Society seems to have an obsession with extreme cleanliness. The constant use of hand sanitizers and antibacterial soaps leaves our immune systems weak and defenseless. In the case of children, the excessive cleanliness disrupts the normal development of the immune system, which would normally aid in fighting off food allergies. However, nut allergies have been …show more content…

Many years ago, we worked on farms and our bodies were tough and could fight off all sorts of bacteria. Now we’ve become a drug-induced society, thinking medication is the cure for everything and our immune systems have become even weaker as a result of it.

• Diet: The Western diet has dramatically changed over the last 20 years. Much of our food is overdosed with GMO’s, chemicals sugar and animal fat, and children are eating that food at a very young age. Our decrease in gut bacteria plays a large role into how we’re able to stave off negativity in the body. In a study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they compared the gut flora of African children with children from Italy. It found, by in large, the African children had much a much stronger flora because their diet was mostly vegetarian and mimicked the diet of how humans ate 10,000 years ago.

The

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