Severe allergies were thrust back into the spotlight a little over a week ago when a Canadian teen, who was allergic to peanuts, was killed after kissing her boyfriend.

Allergy Prevention



o A nationwide survey found that 54.6 percent of U.S. citizens test positive for one or more allergens.



o Food allergies occur in 6-8 percent of children four years old and younger, and in 4 percent of adults.

Source: www.niaid.nih.gov

The boyfriend had eaten peanut butter earlier in the day.

Although severe allergies usually just invade the news for a day or two after a particularly tragic death, they are a daily issue for millions of Americans, especially college students.

Bailey Cato, political science junior, is one of those students.

Her caffeine allergy forces her to avoid college staples like Coke and coffee. She can't drink any soda or tea that has caffeine and reads the ingredient lists of every new skin or hair care product she buys.

Cato's allergy is not something she's always had to deal with. Until her senior year in high school, Cato drank two glasses of tea a day and didn't pay attention to the ingredients in her skin care products. The summer before she started college, though, she started passing out for no apparent reason.

"It was a gradual thing," Cato said. "The first time I passed out it was after giving blood, and they just said, 'Oh, you gave too much blood.' But then these really intense dizzy spells and passing out started happening every day."

"I went to a neurologist and they didn't find anything wrong with my nervous system. But the cardiologist had seen this once before, and he suggested that I completely cut caffeine out of my diet."

Cato stopped drinking tea and using a lotion that had caffeine in it. The dizzy spells and fainting stopped, and doctors decided that consistently using a lotion with caffeine in it had pushed her to develop a caffeine allergy.

Since Cato gave up caffeine, she hasn't had any physical problems but sometimes struggles with her allergy in other ways.

"Especially in the beginning, I had to read everything," Cato said. "There's shampoo with caffeine and makeup with caffeine. I can't use anything with tea extract."

The fact that Cato's allergy set in relatively recently is indicative of a nationwide increase in the prevalence of allergies, according to a survey in the 2005 Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Not only are more children being diagnosed with allergies, more young adults are developing allergies after childhood.

When Alisha Walker, University College freshman, was a sophomore in high school, she broke out in hives. Doctors eventually diagnosed her with an ammonia allergy.

Although her aversion to ammonia is recent, Walker said she has dealt with allergies her entire life. She's allergic to wheat, dust, ragweed, cats and most trees. She said it's not hard to avoid wheat bread and ammonia, but it's impossible to avoid airborne allergens.

Walker also has to exercise some caution in the cafeteria, where she never knows if new foods will cause a reaction.

College presents a unique challenge for students with severe allergies. The transition from home, where friends and family are aware of allergies and meals are planned with the students in mind, to college, where food is served to a largely allergy-free population, can be difficult.

Students with severe allergies can discuss their needs with Dorothy Flowers, assistant director of Food Services. Flowers said she conducts interviews with incoming students as early as July so that they can discuss the students' allergies and review menu options.

Flowers works to make Couch Cafeteria safe for students with severe allergies by providing allergen-free food and removing dangerous items from the environment.

"What we've done this year is to take a look at the products we use, looking for hidden wheat or oat or those things that affect ciliacs," Flowers said. "And on our veggie bar, we do gluten-free desserts."

She said gluten, nuts, soy and eggs are the most common allergens students have to avoid, but the danger isn't necessarily limited to food.

"One year we had a student who was allergic to latex," Flowers said. "And balloons are a key part of the atmosphere for our holiday meals. So for that year, we didn't display latex balloons, we just bought mylar."
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