Welcome to the Food Intolerance and Food Allergy Newsletter (May 2009).

This newsletter is produced by Sharla Race who is the owner of the Food Can Make You Ill web site.

The newsletter can be viewed online.

New on the web site

Article: Water Allergy (Aquagenic Urticaria)

For someone suffering from a water allergy, contact with any form of water can lead to an outbreak of painful hives and welts on the skin.

This is an exceedingly difficult condition to deal with - imagine not being able to take a shower or risk going out in the rain. In some cases antihistamines help reduce the severity of the symptoms but not in all cases. Like most allergies, the best treatment is avoidance.

A 30-year-old woman with aquagenic urticaria developed hives every time she came in contact with a water source such as tap water, snow or sweat.

In one case, contact with water led to severe itching and wheals within five minutes. The severity of the symptoms was not affected by water temperature or type of water.

The full article, complete with references, is in the library:
http://www.foodcanmakeyouill.co.uk/library/articles/water.html

A young woman with the condition recently made the news in the UK.
Woman faces life of water allergy

Articles on other subjects can be accessed from the main library page:
http://www.foodcanmakeyouill.co.uk/library/index.html

Research Update: Arsenic in Rice

The Food Standards Agency in the UK recently published results from two studies: one on arsenic levels in rice drinks and one on cooking methods to reduce arsenic levels in rice. They now recommend that toddlers and young children should not have rice drinks, often known as rice milk, as a replacement for cows’ milk, breast milk or infant formula.
More details

Books: Antioxidants

Antioxidants: The truth about BHA, BHT, TBHQ and other antioxidants used as food additives is my latest eBook publication. You can find our more, view the contents page, and see the references used by clicking the link below:
http://www.foodcanmakeyouill.co.uk/bookshop/antioxidants.html

Healthy Eating?

Salad
Salad used to be something we ate only in the summer months. Worldwide food distribution now means that we have salad available all year round and one of the most popular forms appears to be ready washed and bagged salad leaves.

The salad leaves and vegetables are flown in and transported to packing houses. The salad is then cut or separated into individual leaves by hand, washed in chlorine, dried and sorted, packed into pillows of plastic in which the normal levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide have been altered.

One study, carried out in 2002, tested the levels of several nutrients (including Vitamin C) in the blood of people who had eaten fresh lettuce and those who had eaten the bagged/prepared type (both from the same source). Those who had eaten the fresh lettuce showed an increase in antioxidant levels in their blood, those who had eaten the lettuce stored in bags for 3 days showed no increase.

I assume one still gets some roughage from the bagged salad but it would seem that vitamins and minerals are in short supply. Fresh unprocessed lettuce is healthier (and cheaper).

Reference
Serafinie Mauro; Bugianesi Rossana; Salucci Monica; Azzini Elena; Raguzzini Anna; Maiani Giuseppe
Effect of acute ingestion of fresh and stored lettuce (Lactuca sativa) on plasma total antioxidant capacity and antioxidant levels in human subjects.
The British journal of nutrition 2002;88(6):615-23.

In the News

Alternative allergy test deceptive, says ACCC
The Australian consumer watchdog has launched urgent legal action against a chain of alternative allergy treatment clinics, accusing it of false, misleading and deceptive conduct.

The UK Food Standards Agency reported that some restaurants and caterers are to display calories on menus.
Quite honestly I’d prefer it if they displayed the ingredients in full.

Ben & Jerry's stunt highlights concern over clones in food chain
Ben & Jerry’s has fessed up to creating an online presence for a fictitious company selling cloned milk as a publicity stunt, as campaigners believe that the offspring of cloned animals have already entered the food chain.

Low Folate May Be Linked to Allergies
Study Shows Low Folate Levels May Have Link to Risk for Allergy and Asthma

Smoking protects against allergies
A research team from Utrecht University in the Netherlands has shown that cigarette smoke can prevent allergies by decreasing the reaction of immune cells to allergens.
The abstract for this article can be accessed on PubMed

Food Adulteration

Food manufacturers are continuously looking at ways to enhance foodstuffs. The links below are to a few of the latest ideas circulating:

Bacteria eating viruses help fight food pathogens: EFSA study
This is an option being looked at in Europe but, as the article notes, is already in use in the USA: “The US Food and Drug Administration first approved the use of bacteria eating viruses as food additives in ready-to-eat meat and poultry to protect against Listeria three years ago.”

Synthetic Lycopene
Synthetic lycopene has been approved in the EU for foods including fruit/vegetable juice-based drinks , foods intended for use in energy-restricted diets for weight reduction, breakfast cereals, fats and dressings, soups other than tomato soups, and bread (including crispy breads).

Adding antioxidants often enables food manufacturers to claim health benefits for the food products.
Dairy could mask bitter taste of antioxidants
Milk could be the ideal functional food matrix for delivery of polyphenolic-rich antioxidant extracts, suggests new research from South America. [There’s an interesting observation in the Readers Comments section that points out that milk added to tea reduces astringency but also renders the polyphenols no longer biologically active / available.]

Other Web Sites

Eating Without Casein
A Practical Primer for People with Allergies to Milk

World Health Organisation
Lots of information on health issues that affect us all including the latest news on the spread of influenza A(H1N1).
I have included this link because information on the spread of the latest influenza virus is very limited – it is now rarely mentioned on UK news bulletins yet the virus continues to spread.

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Any comments or feedback to sharla@foodcanmakeyouill.co.uk

Food Can Make You Ill
Your Complete Guide to Food Intolerance and Food Allergy
www.foodcanmakeyouill.co.uk