ALL IN YOUR HEAD:

Even though common wisdom holds that allergies of all kinds have been on the rise in recent years, researchers actually have very little data on allergies in adults since many of them never get diagnosed by a physician. Some studies have attempted to use hospitalization data as a proxy, but that only picks up people with sufficiently serious allergies to go to the ER for anaphylaxis. Another study used data from NHANES, a massive national survey study that occurs every few years, to look at actual blood test results.

This new study, out last week in the journal JAMA Network Open, took a far broader approach, and focused solely on food allergies: Researchers based out of Northwestern University surveyed some 40,443 American adults and asked them a series of questions designed to figure out how many people actually had food allergies versus how many just thought they did. What they found? Although one in five people surveyed reported having an allergy, only about one in 10 actually does.

Tweet   @brothersjudd