11 Most Common Food Allergies in Adults

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Valentine’s day is coming, and if you don’t know whether to give those chocolate-covered peanuts or almonds to your significant other, better check if she or he suffers from one of the most common food allergies are in adults first!

Food allergies are caused by an over-reaction of the body’s immune system to proteins in food. These proteins that cause an allergic reaction are called allergens and are found not just the most common food but also around us. Medically, there are a lot of types of allergies, and food allergies are just one of them. Personally, I suffer from allergic rhinitis and shellfish allergy. Allergic rhinitis is a type of allergy caused by inhalation of certain allergens, with mine being dust. The good thing about food allergies is that a majority of them are outgrown after childhood, but some persist throughout our lifetime. You might want to check the most common food allergies in children if you are a parent as it gives helpful information on childhood allergies.

Evan Lorne/Shutterstock.com 11 Most Common Food Allergies in Adults

Evan Lorne/Shutterstock.com

As said earlier, food allergies are caused by ingestion, or even inhalation, of these allergens. Symptoms of food allergies will be hives, wheals, wheezing and stomach cramps. These are the mild symptoms of a food allergy. However, some foods cause more severe reactions, with some being fatal. This type of fatal reaction is called anaphylaxis, and its symptoms, in addition to the above, are a tight, hoarse throat, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, rapid heartbeat and a low blood pressure. Patients also report a sense of ‘impending doom”. A more severe form, called the anaphylactic shock, can occur if your blood vessels dilate so much to cause a significant drop in your blood pressure, which may lead to cardiac arrest. Management for anaphylaxis is epinephrine, which is usually marketed as EpiPen auto-injector. It is very important to know what triggers your allergies and how severe can your allergies get.

Insider Monkey scoured the web for information on the most common food allergies in adults, with which we based our list from. Information from the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology provided much of the content, with supplementation coming from Medscape, Food Allergy Research and Resource Program and Food Allergy Information.

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