Britons 'among the least likely to suffer from food sensitivity'

Robin McKie
The Observer, Sunday 14 March 2010

A study revealed that apples can be a common trigger for food senstivities. Photograph: Alamy

British people are some of the least likely in the western world to suffer from food sensitivity reactions. This is the conclusion of a study of more than 4,500 adults from 13 countries carried out by Imperial College London.

The study found that nations varied in the rate of individuals who reacted to at least one food. At the top end of the spectrum, about 25% of people in Portland, Oregon, in the US, displayed food sensitivity reactions, compared with 11% in Iceland and Spain. Britain and France were next at 14%.

For the study, published in the journal Allergy, the researchers tested participants' blood for antibodies against a range of foods. This gauges food sensitivity, which refers to an immune system response to a food's proteins. Not everyone who is sensitive to a food displays symptoms of a clinical allergy, such as wheezing, swelling or digestive problems.

Results from the study revealed that, along with the US, Germany, Italy and Norway had the highest prevalence of food sensitivity, with about 22% of people from each country showing antibodies against some type of food.

However, the researchers also discovered that countries tended to have similar specific foods that triggered reactions. Hazelnuts, peaches, shrimp, wheat and apples emerged as the most common. At the other end of the spectrum, fish, eggs and cow's milk – normally viewed as the foodstuffs most like to trigger allergic reactions – turned out to be least common causes of sensitivity.

Those patterns were fairly consistent across countries – more consistent than would be expected by chance, according to the researchers, led by Dr Peter Burney of Imperial College London.

Across countries, less than 1% of people had sensitivities to fish, eggs or milk while 7% of people had sensitivity to hazelnuts. The next most common causes of sensitivity were peaches, shrimp and wheat, which each affected about 5% of people across countries.