BOOKS

The History of the Peanut Allergy Epidemic by Heather Fraser

A new book which suggests that the peanut allergy epidemic, which has seen a thousand-fold increase in the incidence of peanut allergy in children over the last 12 years, was a disaster waiting to happen, which could have been foreseen by anyone studying the medical literature on injection, vaccination and allergy.

Read Michelle Berriedale-Johnson's review here

Available from: www.peanutallergyepidemic.com - ISBN: 1-449-91665-1

Price: C$19.99 plus shipping for the printed book and at a mere £7.63 as an E-book from www.peanutallergyepidemic.com

Food Hypersensitivity: Diagnosing and Managing Food Allergies and Intolerance
Edited by Isabel Skypala and Carina Venter

Alex Gazzola reports

Due to their exceptional complexity, adverse reactions to food deserve a meticulously researched and exhaustive analysis – and this book can claim to be it. The editors, both allergy dietitians, have assembled a twenty-strong team of specialists to contribute chapters on every aspect of the subject: diagnosis, management, prevention, nutrition, and more.

For starters, Skypala and Venter would do away with the ill-defined term ‘food intolerance’. Instead, they would have all reactions to food sit under the umbrella term ‘food hypersensitivity’ (FHS), with ‘food
allergy’ reserved strictly for immune responses.

That dealt with, we launch into the dizzying array of reactions to which humans are susceptible from the lactase deficiency and IgE-mediated nut allergy to sensitivity to biogenic amines, and to nickel – and precisely how the skin, respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, nervous system etc can be chronically affected by FHS.
Diagnosis is the biggie, and the authors stress we have no 100% reliable test for any FHS; apart from food allergy, only an exclusion diet will provide a reliable diagnosis. Complementary diagnostic techniques are covered, but, they maintain, the absence of any rigorous research supporting kinesiology and its ilk tells you all you need to know about their trustworthiness.

This book is designed for practitioners, doctors, nurses and students and the medical terminology and referencing may alienate the lay reader in places. Far more accessible, though, are the nutrition and lifestyle sections on staying healthy and safe. Skypala’s chapter on fruits, vegetables and oral allergy syndrome (allergy caused by hay fever – surprisingly common) may appeal to allergy-trivia fans: the varying degrees of allergenicity of different apple types, and some of the more obscure foods implicated in allergy: cassava, dill, turnip… Excellent too are the appendices detailing food challenge procedures – reassuring to those about to undergo allergy testing.

Overall, perseverance will reward you with a comprehensive knowledge of FHS as it is understood today, which should be helpful in dealing with doctors and allergists – and alternativists with their magical cures and testing machines. Well-indexed, and conveniently divided up into logical, often bite-size sections, it is easy to find the bits you want and skip the bits you don’t.

Hopefully this intelligent, stimulating book may draw more dietitians and doctors into specialising in allergy – much needed for the ever growing scourge of FHS.

Available from Wiley-Blackwell, ISBN: 978-1-4051-7036-9

Buy this book

The second of Allergy UK’s Blossom Campaign booklets offering guidance to parents of children with allergies has just been published.

Put together in consultation with the Children’s Allergy Service at Guy’s and St Thomas’s, the booklets are informative and easy to follow – an excellent introduction for parents of newly diagnosed allergic children. Now available are Pregnancy and the first year of life, Symptoms, diagnosis and available treatments, Treatments and allergy control and Living with Allergy – a child’s world.

www.blossomcampaign.org 01322 619898

Food Allergy and Your Child by Alice Willitts and Deborah Carter

The first thing you should do when you leave the doctor’s surgery with a diagnosis of food allergy is to go and buy this book. Not because it will solve all your problems - although it will help you deal with a lot of them - but because it will bring you comfort and support.

Whatever is coming your way, Alice Willitts (mother of Zac) and Deborah Carter (mother of Thomas) have been there before you. And they have made notes of all the practical things you need to know - who was most helpful, what websites to consult, how to approach unsympathetic doctors and - vitally important but often overlooked - how to recognise and deal with the emotional fall out that the situation may have on both the allergic child and on the rest of the family.

The book starts with some ‘fast-track’ information about food allergy which you are unlikely to have got from your doctor. Subsequent chapters deal with shopping and preparing food, socialising, holidays and travel, trusting others to look after your child and the future for an allergic child and the rest of the family.

The style is simple and straightforward and the text is liberally sprinkled with their own personal comments and those of the parents of other allergic children on specific events and situations. These are particularly valuable as not only do they humanise what can otherwise be a very dry subject but they will reassure parents of newly diagnosed children that no matter how scared, inadequate, guilty, stressed out or paranoid they may feel, these feelings are shared by many other parents in a similar situation.

Food allergy and your child by Alice Willitts and Deborah Carter is published by Class Health (ISBN 978-1-85959-186-4) and costs £17.99 from good bookshops.

Buy this book

Food Allergies - Enjoying life with a severe food allergy - Second Edition - by Tanya Wright

Tanya’s original book on food allergy has been an invaluable source of reference to thousands of allergic people since it was published in 2001, so it is great to be able to welcome a second updated and enlarged edition. The book opens with an overview of food allergy and food allergy tests before going on to a detailed chapter on anaphylaxis and how to deal with an anaphylactic emergency.

A short section on food allergy in children - how to cope at school and as a teenager - is followed by a detailed investigation of the food that food allergics will be able to eat - and enjoy! A long section on special diets includes both suggestions for replacement foods and nutrient advice - with special reference to calcium, a concern amongst many adults and parents with reference to dairy-free diets. There is also detailed advice for parents on allergy prevention in pregnancy and alternative feeds for allergic infants - plus guidance for those eating away from home and travelling abroad - including translations of common food allergens into seven European languages.

Finally, an excellent resource section includes advice on the benefits available, a lengthy glossary and loads of addresses for foods, products, books, magazines and and support organisations. As David Reading says, ‘required reading for those with food allergies’.

Published by Class Publishing - ISBN 978-1-85959-146-8
Recommended Retail Price: £19.99

Buy this Book

An Allergic Chapter in my Life by Lucy Pettitt

Anaphylactic to egg when he was one year old, by the time he was two Samuel Pettitt was also avoiding cow, goat and sheep milk, soya, gluten, citrus fruits and foods high in salicylates. Gradually, under the careful tutelage of his mother Lucy, Samuel grew out of all of his allergies until, in his early teens, the only food he was still avoiding completely was egg.

Now 14, Samuel has just had an egg challenge - and has come through with flying colours. He was able to eat an egg custard followed by a whole hard-boiled egg with absolutely no reaction at all.

An Allergic chapter in my Life is Lucy’s story of those fourteen years - the panic over Samuel’s early delayed visual response, the concerns over his stomach cramps and diarrhoea on weaning, culminating in a full anaphylactic reaction to egg when he was two - and then the long road of devising alternative foods that he could eat and enjoy both alone and with friends. Lucy’s story is interspersed with Samuel’s poetry - for which he has already, at the age of 14, achieved an A grade at GCSE.

The book costs £11.98 inc P&P from PO Box 195, Totnes, TQ9 9BG - cheques should be made payable to spectrumymotion. Lucy also gives talks about hers and Samuel’s allergy experience.
Check out her website at www.spectrumymotion.co.uk

Buy this book

The Complete Guide to Food Allergy and Intolerance by Prof. Jonathan Brostoff and Linda Gamlin

The definitive work on food allergy by the UK's foremost expert - essential reading for anyone involved in food allergy.

Published by Bloomsbury - ISBN 0-7475-3430-6
Recommended Retail Price: £20.00

Buy this Book

The Allergy Bible by Linda Gamlin

You would expect something good from the co-author of the definitive text on food allergy (see above) but Linda Gamlin's Allergy Bible far exceeds expectations. Although coming from a conventional medical and research background, she approaches the subject with an admirably open mind, considering objectively all aspects of this baffling condition.

Starting from the basic question - what is an allergy? - she describes a highly confusing and complex subject in great depths, yet in language that the interested layman can understand. Having covered the general principles she goes on to look in detail at each of the immune reactions and 'allergic diseases' - hay fever, rhinitis, asthma, eczema, urticaria, contact dermatitis, anaphylaxis, insect sting, food allergy/sensitivity/intolerance, colic, psychological reactions to food, candida, chemical intolerance.

The chapter on Medical Help, while offering a balanced way forward, graphically illustrates the controversies that rend the medical world on the subject of allergy - and the disservice done to patients both by dogmatic medical orthodoxy and by un-validated quackery. Chapters 4 - 8 give practical guidance on how to avoid allergens and irritants, a comprehensive review of the drugs (plus side effects) and other treatments currently available, advice on allergy/intolerance diets, a well balanced review of complementary therapies in relation to allergy, and advice as to how to protect children from allergies.

An excellent book - a MUST for anyone involved in allergy or its treatment.

Published by Quadrille - ISBN 1-902757-54-8 Recommended Retail Price: £20.00

Buy this Book

Dietary Management of Food Allergies by Dr Janice Joneja

The second edition of Dr Joneja's massive tome on the dietary management of food allergies is a monumental work. It leads both clinician and patient, step by step, through the most taxing of elimination diets and challenge tests and enables them to design appropriate diets for each individual.

Including every kind of diet, potential allergy or sensitivity, heavily referenced but easy to follow, Dr Joneja's book is an invaluable tool for any health professional (or pro-active patient) in managing food sensitivity related health problems.

Published by JA Hall Publications - ISBN 0-9682098-2-3
Recommended Retail Price: US$59

Buy This Book

Back to top