Are food allergies more common now?

Question 1

food allergies

Answer 1

medical problems that are caused by eating certain foods.

Some people have food allergies. They can become very ill if they eat certain foods such as peanuts, shellfish, milk and so on.
do you have any food allergies? Fortunately I don’t, but my daughter is allergic to tree nuts, and so she gets very ill if she eats those.

One of the most common food allergies is to peanuts. Now, what kind of food is a peanut?

Question 2

robust studies

Answer 2

detailed, thorough and accurate research.
A study is a piece of research and if you say a study is robust, it means that it was ‘very detailed and conducted thoroughly to a high standard’.

think we can be very confident if you look back over, say, 30 or 40 years that there are much more allergic problems around now than there were. So, for example, very robust studies that look at prevalence of things like eczema, food allergy do show really significant increases over 20, 30 years,

Question 3

prevalence

Answer 3

a noun referring to how often or how frequent something is.
Prevalence is a noun that refers to how common something is, how often it happens.

very robust studies that look at prevalence of things like eczema, food allergy do show really significant increases over 20, 30 years, for example.

Question 4

eczema

Answer 4

a medical condition of the skin.
This is a skin condition that usually happens in childhood. The skin can get, red, itchy and painful over different parts of the body.

I think we can be very confident, if you look back over, say, 30 or 40 years that there are much more allergic problems around now than there were. So, for example, very robust studies that look at prevalence of things like eczema, food allergy do show really significant increases over 20, 30 years, for example.

Question 5

a significant increase

Answer 5

a large, noticeable rise in the number of something.
This means there has been a ‘clear and obvious rise’.

So, for example, very robust studies that look at prevalence of things like eczema, food allergy do show really significant increases over 20, 30 years, for example.

Question 6

to put something down to something

Answer 6

to say that one thing is the reason for another.

Also check: stems from

We certainly can’t put it down to genetics. And we now understand that there is a key role for eczema. So, there’s a pretty direct relationship between whether you’ve got eczema during infancy and your likelihood of getting a food allergy.

you couldn’t put the increase in food allergies down to genetics.