PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN FOOD ALLERGY
Some doctors believe that true, IgE-mediated allergy can produce mental symptoms as well as physical ones, but others would dispute this. Certainly, some studies have shown that those with serious allergic disorders, such as asthma, tend to have more emotional and social problems. The difficulty lies in separating cause and effect. The disabling symptoms of the allergy, and the restrictions incurred by having to avoid certain allergens, is bound to cause mental suffering. Indeed, studies that have compared asthmatic children with children suffering from other physical handicaps find little difference in the level of psychological problems.
One study showed that some children had high IgE levels for foods that caused behavioural problems, so it seems that this could sometimes be a true allergic symptom. However this is a controversial area, and conventional allergists do not seem eager to welcome behavioural disorders such as hyperactivity into their domain.However, there are innumerable reports of children with allergic disorders such as asthma or perennial rhinitis (runny or congested nose) who also show a cluster of symptoms that includes an inability to keep still, excitability, clumsiness, poor memory and short attention span. These symptoms, often known collectively as hyperactivity or the hyperkinetic syndrome are dealt with more fully in Chapter Eleven. Some of these children show an interesting reaction when the allergenic foods are removed from the diet and other allergens avoided: their mental and behavioural symptoms clear up at the same time as their physical ones. Reintroducing those foods brings the bad behaviour back along with the wheezing or runny nose. Although the mental symptoms could be a result of the physical ones, this seems unlikely.
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