Talk:Food allergy

Editing Causes and Prevention sections?
Another person mentioned this before in the Archives discussions, but I was thinking of renaming "Causes" to "Most Common Food Allergies" since that section doesn't actually explain any causes of food allergy other than direct ingestion (which is more of a cause of allergic reaction, not allergic sensitization). I was also going to add information about the link between gut microbiome and food allergy in either the Causes or Research section. The Prevention section has a few issues too. It mentions using a strict diet to avoid allergic reaction, which again, goes back to the confusion between allergic reactions and allergic sensitization. In terms of allergy prevention, I think about the ways that one can prevent or reduce the development of allergy in the first place, not how allergic reactions can be managed. That seems more related to the Treatment section. Another problem is the bit about inhalation exposure, which I feel doesn't relate to prevention and should be up in what is currently called "Causes" (but could include a subsection that discusses the triggers of allergic reactions). Any thoughts on this? Bliu133 (talk) 20:28, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * My thoughts on this are that people see "Causes" as what causes an allergic reaction rather than what causes an allergy in the first place, and that "Prevention" similarly is about preventing an allergic reaction rather than preventing development of allergy in the first place. Perhaps the start of each of those sections needs to clarify. The Prevention section has a bit on infant food introduction strategies that touch on causing an allergy. The treatment section has content on avoiding consumption of allergens, which is really prevention, and also on treating allergic reactions. The Research section touches on probiotic and prebiotic, but not microbiome. So yeah, the article needs some work. Note that most of the articles on individual food allergies (egg, fish, shellfish, peanuts, milk...) have Causes and Prevention sections that address allergic reactions versus allergy. David notMD (talk) 03:53, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You're right, I see that other allergy articles, like the fish allergy and peanut allergy articles, discuss the Causes section in terms of what triggers reactions, so I won't change the header though I might put some subheaders for better organization. In that case, I'll add some information about the gut microbiome and possibly bacteriotherapy in the Research section. Bliu133 (talk) 15:44, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good approach. Some of the individual food allergy articles are at GA status, so for those (but also the others), aim to have any refs you add meet WP:MEDRS requirements - not in in vitro or animal research, or even individual clinical trials, but rather journal review, systematic review or meta-analysis articles. David notMD (talk) 03:12, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Got it. I'm pretty sure all of the references I've added so far have been review articles and/or meta-analysis articles, and I also saw the note about citation formatting, so I'll try to be more aware of that. Another thing though, I was thinking about changing the header, "Other than oral ingestion," to "Routes of exposure" because I was going to mention both oral ingestion and non-oral sensitization routes in the same section. Thoughts on this? I also wrote a few sentences about some theories for increased allergic sensitization and was wondering where I could put it. Causes or Research or...? Bliu133 (talk) 23:00, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Drug treatment added February 2024
Under Treatment, a subsection was added to cover new indication for an existing asthma treatment drug. David notMD (talk) 19:14, 8 March 2024 (UTC)