- Half of all Europeans may be suffering from some sort
of allergy by 2015 if the escalating epidemic, which is responsible for
millions of children missing school and being hospitalised and for adults
staying off work, remains unchecked, scientists believe.
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- The dire prediction comes as the biggest-ever research
project into the causes of allergy and asthma is about to be launched in
Europe. Scientists from many countries will coordinate their efforts in
an attempt to find out why rates are soaring and why children in the UK
have the third highest rate of asthma in the world.
-
- The inexorable rise in allergies is causing serious concern.
By 2015, researchers predict that half of us will have an allergy which
in some cases, such as bee or wasp stings, will be fatal and in others
will seriously compromise our quality of life.
-
- More than a third of people with allergies cannot go
to restaurants or have to avoid triggers such as perfumes, cleaning fluid
and animals. Asthma alone is responsible for an estimated 9bn working days
lost each year in the European Union.
-
- Allergies among children are most worrying of all, and
are responsible for the growing numbers suffering from asthma. Thirty years
ago, about a third of asthma cases were said to be caused by allergy. Now
it is 80%. Asthma is the main reason children miss school and is the leading
cause of the hospitalisation of children in the world.
-
- UK children are particularly hard hit. A study by the
International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood found that the
UK has more teenage asthma cases than any other country in Europe, with
32.2% of 13 to 14-year-olds affected. Ireland came next, with 29.1%, followed
by Malta and Finland on 16%.
-
- Scientists think our genes may be partly responsible.
Only two countries in the world had worse teenage asthma figures - Australia
and New Zealand.
-
- In those countries, said Paul van Cauwenberge, dean of
the medical faculty of the University of Ghent in Belgium, "close
to 50% of children are allergic. It has become almost more normal to be
allergic than not". In the UK, he said, 40% of children have some
sort of allergy.
-
- Professor Van Cauwenberge is coordinator of the five-year
research programme that will bring together 25 universities and research
institutes to tackle nine issues which scientists believe hold the key
to the allergy epidemic. The European commission is expected to put in
Ä14.4m (about £9.8m) at its launch on Thursday.
-
- The project, called the Global Allergy and Asthma European
Network, will bring together the fragmented information and evidence on
allergies that already exists and build on it. "I hope that after
two years we will already have some answers and within five years we will
have final answers," he said.
-
- A key focus will be on the hypothesis that the rise in
allergies could be directly linked to the way we live, in bacteria-free
homes eating semi-sterile food. Children exposed to more infections in
early life are less prone to allergies and children raised on farms are
less likely than others to get hay fever, asthma and eczema.
-
- Scientists at Southampton University will be coordinating
the research on food allergies, which will include an investigation into
whether changes in diet could prevent allergies developing.
-
- Other researchers will investigate why people who work
in offices are more susceptible. Gender is also an issue - in infancy,
boys are more likely to be asthmatic than girls, but the trend is reverse
by adolescence. Pollution from diesel particles is also implicated. "People
living within 50 metres of a motorway have more chance of developing allergies,"
said Prof Van Cauwenberge.
-
- He hopes that better treatments and simple diagnostic
tests, particularly for food allergies in children, will emerge during
the project.
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- The allergy epidemic: who suffers most
-
- The percentage of teenagers aged 13 to 14 in Europe reported
to be wheezing in a 12-month period
-
- United Kingdom: 32.2
- Ireland: 29.1
- Malta: 16
- Finland: 16
- Germany: 13.8
- France: 13.5
- Sweden: 12.9
- Belgium: 12
- Austria: 11.6
- Estonia: 10.8
- Spain: 10.3
- Portugal: 9.5
- Uzbekistan: 9.2
- Italy: 8.9
- Latvia: 8.4
- Poland: 8.1
- Russian federation: 4.4
- Greece: 3.7
- Georgia: 3.6
- Romania: 3
- Albania: 2.6
-
- Source: WHO
-
- * Figures based on children responding to written
- questionnaires in the ISAAC study 1995-96.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1144653,00.html
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