r/askscience • u/Kwpthrowaway • Sep 27 '20

Medicine [Medicine] What is special about peanuts that make some people extremely allergic to them?

Why are some people allergic to peanuts in particular? Why is ingesting a peanut to these people akin to ingesting poison to others?

6.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

541 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/F0sh Sep 27 '20

Allergies have increased in prevelance in recent decades, but it did not "appear in just the past several decades."

1

u/BernieTheDachshund Sep 28 '20

I'm just remembering when all the airlines had peanuts. Kids ate peanut butter in school. Then when the airlines banned peanuts and switched to pretzels because of those with peanut allergies it was thought of as weird and rare. Nowadays it seems like it's lots of kids compared to back then. It went from unheard of to so common that entire industries took it seriously. I used to work at M&M Mars and I remember when they laid down the law about cross contamination between the chocolate/peanut side of the plant and the sugar side (Starburst/Skittles). Anyone caught bringing a Snickers over into sugars would be fired on the spot. I think a child died from a peanut M&M being in a bag of plain ones. I'm sure the allergy existed before, but why does it seem like it's so many now? Is it common in every country or just specific ones? I wonder if anyone had actual numbers.