Few outgrow seafood allergies

Few outgrow seafood allergies

New AllerGen-supported research suggests that people allergic to fish and shellfish do not usually outgrow these allergies.

Published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, the study used data collected by survey and by accessing medical records over a period of up to six years, from 63 patients with allergies to fish, shellfish or both. It found that each year, less than one percent of these patients saw their allergy resolve—a very low rate of resolution, according to the authors.

“Fish and shellfish allergy accounts for the majority of life-threatening (anaphylaxis) reactions in adults, but has attracted much less research attention than other food allergies, such as peanut,” commented AllerGen investigator and senior author Dr. Moshe Ben-Shoshan (Montreal Children’s Hospital and the Research Institute of McGill University Health Centre) to Reuters.

“Patients need to understand the likely course of their food allergy and [until now there have been] no data on the natural resolution of this important allergy.”

The study authors note that, although limited by a small sample size, this is the first cohort study to assess resolution of seafood allergy, and they call for “larger studies … to confirm these findings and to identify factors potentially associated with resolution.”