City Kids Vulnerable to Food Allergies

Children living in cities are more likely to have food allergies compared to those who live in rural areas. This was found in a study carried out in United States led by Ruchi Gupta, M.D. She works as an assistant professor of paediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a physician at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.

According to the research led by Gupta, urban kids are more prone to get peanut and shellfish allergies compared to those from rural communities. The major findings of the study are:

• Close to 10 per cent of children living in urban centres have food allergies, but only 6.2 per cent of children in rural areas suffer from them.
• Peanut allergies occur twice as much in urban centres compared to rural communities. It is 2.8 per cent and 1.3 per cent respectively.
• The study also revealed that there was no sign of variance in the severity of allergies with regards to rural or urban place of living. Close to 40 per cent of children allergic to food experienced a severe reaction which could prove to be fatal.

More than 38000 children aged 18 or below from all areas of population were studied.