Food allergies affect six to eight percent of children in the US and these numbers are growing. In addition to that the incidents of multiple allergies and severe allergies requiring hospital time are on the rise as well. It is rare but some of these allergies can kill with severe allergic reactions called anaphylactic reactions shutting down the airways, without immediate medical attention the allergic person can die. This has created many new studies that are currently underway to pinpoint and unravel what precisely triggers the malfunction of the immune system that causes these allergies.

Food allergies are an abnormal response by a person’s immune system. In first phase of the immune system response the antibody called immunoglobulin or IgE is produced in our blood stream. In the next phase when a food that causes a reaction is eaten the IgE senses it and signals for the immune system to release histamine into your blood stream. This histamine is what causes the symptoms that we generally know as allergy.

A new study is underway that will examine whether pesticides or genetically engineered food may have something to do with the mechanism that is responsible for the allergic reaction. The study will examine how a gene called thymic stromal lymphopoietin will react in the body’s gastrointestinal tract under varying circumstances, with the hope of better understanding this genes role in the allergic reaction. This gene has a key role in the development of allergic inflammation in the skin and lung. The goal of the study is to better understand the process by which a person’s allergies are initially triggered and what environmental and hereditary factors may play a role in this.

To this date nobody is really sure what causes food allergies yet, but that may change soon. Doctors do know that the children of parents that have food allergies are more likely to have food allergies as well. But often they are not the same allergies, leaving researchers to wonder what exactly triggers these allergies, a question that will hopefully be answered soon.