Vierk Katherine A, Koehler Kathleen M, Fein Sara B, Street Debra A
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, US Food and Drug Administration, College Park, MD 20740, USA.
J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2007 Jun;119(6):1504-10. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2007.03.011. Epub 2007 Apr 23.
Few population-based studies in the United States have determined the prevalence of food allergy in adults and the problems these individuals might have with reading food labels.
The objectives of this study are to report the prevalence of self-reported food allergy, to identify the characteristics of food allergy reactions, and to describe the use of labels among adults with food allergy.
Questions from the US Food and Drug Administration's 2001 Food Safety Survey were analyzed to determine the prevalence of food allergy and opinions about food labels in the management of food allergy.
The prevalence of self-reported food allergy is 9.1% among all survey respondents, with 5.3% of all respondents reporting a doctor-diagnosed food allergy. The prevalence of food allergy to the 8 most common allergens (peanut, tree nuts, egg, milk, wheat, soybeans, fish, and crustacean shellfish) is self-reported as 2.7% among respondents with doctors' diagnoses. Several label issues, such as words on some ingredient lists being too technical or hard to understand and food labels not always alerting persons to new ingredients, were reported as serious or very serious obstacles for managing an allergy.
The prevalence of self-reported doctor-diagnosed food allergy among US adults is 5.3%, and a large portion of adults with food allergy found certain label issues a serious problem for managing their food allergy.
The findings provide a needed source of population-based prevalence data of food allergy among US adults. Label issues identified are useful in understanding the difficulties of managing a food allergy.
在美国，很少有基于人群的研究确定成人食物过敏的患病率以及这些个体在阅读食品标签时可能遇到的问题。
本研究的目的是报告自我报告的食物过敏患病率，确定食物过敏反应的特征，并描述食物过敏成人对标签的使用情况。
分析了美国食品药品监督管理局2001年食品安全调查中的问题，以确定食物过敏的患病率以及关于食品标签在食物过敏管理中的意见。
在所有调查受访者中，自我报告的食物过敏患病率为9.1%，所有受访者中有5.3%报告有医生诊断的食物过敏。在有医生诊断的受访者中，对8种最常见过敏原（花生、坚果、鸡蛋、牛奶、小麦、大豆、鱼和甲壳类贝类）的食物过敏自我报告患病率为2.7%。一些标签问题，如某些成分列表上的文字过于专业或难以理解，以及食品标签并不总是提醒人们注意新成分，被报告为管理过敏的严重或非常严重的障碍。
美国成年人中自我报告的医生诊断食物过敏患病率为5.3%，很大一部分食物过敏成人发现某些标签问题是管理其食物过敏的严重问题。
这些发现提供了美国成年人食物过敏基于人群的患病率数据的必要来源。确定的标签问题有助于理解管理食物过敏的困难。
