It’s Evolution’s Job to Make Us Strong Enough to Reproduce

So why are we getting weaker?

As regular readers know, I’m gluten-free and alcohol-free these days.

Between you and me, I’ve got the side-eye on dairy at the moment too. I love hard cheeses. The Four Great Cheeses of the World are Cheshire, Caerphilly, Wensleydale and Lancashire, and I won’t take any argument from you. These are blunt facts; not a matter of opinion.

But I’m not sure the cheese likes me as much as I like it.

Hay Fever? I Get It

At the age of three or so, I was sitting on my grandmother’s knee, gazing through her front window into the summer sky.

“Sun making you sneeze?” she chuckled as I exploded a third cloud of saliva into the warm air.

It’s the earliest memory I have which relates to the pollen allergy with which I have suffered all my life. It’s not quite as bad now as it was when I was a child, but it’s enough to make me feel miserable throughout the entire month of June each year. As a youngster, it was the only allergy I had heard about and it seemed to be common in our rural community.

Which is ironic.

Are You Nuts?

While studying for my General Studies “A” Level, I watched a series of TV documentaries.

The topics covered went on to provide material for intra-class debates. It was interesting work, and I can still recall many of the themes discussed. Episodes included euthanasia, addiction, sexuality, crime, and food allergies.

Food allergies?

By this time, I had heard something about people having problems with shellfish. It made them ill and was thought to be a serious condition. Were there other foods that folk had issues with? The doctor, in his interview during that episode of the series, was quick to explain.

The scene took place in a hospital, where a young boy had been admitted as an emergency case: the result of anaphylactic shock. His doctor pointed to a chair in the waiting room.

“If our young patient had sat in that chair, following someone else who had been eating peanuts there,” he stated, “it would make him extremely ill within seconds.”

Blimey. Really? Just from sharing a chair?

“If he actually ate a full peanut himself, he could die.”

At the age of eighteen, I was faced with a new fact that changed my view of the world completely. A person could eat a seemingly innocent food item, something that everyone around them was enjoying, and it could kill them.

Why does this happen?

You’re Overreacting

So what are allergies anyway?

The British National Health Service offers this definition:

An allergy is where your body reacts to something that’s normally harmless like pollen, dust or animal fur. The symptoms can be mild, but for some people they can be very serious.

Allergies of one form or another have a meaningful effect on the lives of at least 25% of the human population.

Whether the cause is the aforementioned pollen or foodstuffs, or whether it be dust mite protein, mold, or medicine, the body sees the substance as a deadly threat and the immune system kicks in to deal with it.

Antibodies are triggered and set about to do their work. As allergen and antibody collide, chemicals are released. These include histamine, and it is this that causes the distressing symptoms of an “allergic reaction”.

These symptoms can be grouped as follows:

• Digestive
• Skin/tissue
• Respiratory

Upset stomach, diarrhea, itching, swelling and, you know, stopping breathing.

Allergies are not to be sniffed at.

But Was It Always Like This?

As indicated earlier, I was eighteen before I heard about food allergies.

(Food intolerances and allergies are two different things. An intolerance is not caused by an overreaction in the immune system; it is a symptom of your body not being able to digest a substance. I’m grouping them for this discussion.)

I was a widely-read, inquisitive student. Something of the amateur scientist. I didn’t know anyone who suffered from an intolerance to food, let alone an allergy.

I knew plenty of fussy eaters, but that’s different.

It feels “new”, this phenomenon.

But is it something that is on the rise amongst the human population, or is it one of those conditions that has always existed, but about which we are only now developing an understanding?

“It’s not just because we’re getting better at diagnostics, because we’re actually not,” states Kari Nadeau, allergy specialist at Stanford University and author of The End of Food Allergy. “We are becoming more aware of it, but that’s not increasing the diagnosis.”

Studies find that not only is the number of people who have a problem with a particular food on the rise, but the number of distinct trigger foods itself is increasing.

The most modern research points to conclusions regarding microorganisms, particularly those found in the gut. In our ever-more sanitized world, we may no longer be meeting the microbes that could protect us. Further, the overuse of antibiotics, especially in the young, could be exacerbating the effect, in addition to causing other serious, long-term problems for the human race.

It appears, then, that we have an increasing issue on our hands, rather than simply being more aware of it.

Bite the Hand That Feeds You? Maybe You Should

“Killing with kindness” takes on quite the specific meaning when your maiden aunt is once again trying to force a prawn cocktail on you, deaf to your protests that it could bring your swift demise.

The law, both here in the UK and elsewhere, lists 14 food allergens that must be declared when selling comestibles:

• Celery
• Cereals containing gluten
• Crustaceans
• Eggs
• Fish
• Lupin
• Milk
• Molluscs
• Mustard
• Nuts
• Peanuts
• Sesame seeds
• Soya
• Sulfur Dioxide

Even trace amounts of these items can cause serious medical issues for anyone having an allergy or intolerance to them.

It’s not an exhaustive list — just the legally required one — and there can be no guarantee that new food items won’t become problematic in the future.

Whilst this story contains the usual “I am not a medic” disclaimer, I’ve found it interesting looking into these matters with you. If you suspect that you have a food allergy or intolerance, please speak to your doctor directly.

Or you could, you know, wing it like I did with gluten and just decide to cut it out yourself.

In any case, don’t hesitate to take action if you feel that food is making you ill.

What does the future hold for us all? Will food ultimately be the end of us? Will we evolve to consume our nutrition via different means?

Either way, please forgive any strange faces I pull as the acid reflux kicks in and the stomach pains start: I’m going to choke down this chunk of Cheshire cheese.

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Hi, I’m Mark.

I’m a writer from the UK who loves exploring life in this marvellous universe and sharing what I find.

Thanks for spending your time with me today.

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