Food Allergies: A Complete Guide for Eating When Your Life Depends on It (A Johns Hopkins Press Health Book)

The essential guide for anyone who suffers from food allergies.

Posing the urgent questions that anyone with food allergies will think to ask―and then some―Food Allergies provides practical, sensitive, and scientific guidance on the topics that affect your life. Allergy expert Scott H. Sicherer addresses the full spectrum of food allergies, from mild to life threatening and from single foods to food families, clearing up misconceptions along the way. He explores how exposure to foods can bring about an allergic response, describes the symptoms of food allergy, and illuminates how food allergies develop.

Organized in an accessible Q&A format and illustrated with case studies, the book thoroughly explains how to prevent exposure to a known allergen at home, at school, in restaurants, and elsewhere. Dr. Sicherer also gives valuable advice about what to do if exposure occurs, including how to handle an anaphylactic emergency. Finally, he describes tests for diagnosing food allergies and chronic health problems caused by food allergies, such as eczema, hives, and respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms.

In this thoroughly updated new edition, Dr. Sicherer
• describes new approaches to prevent food allergies
• presents cutting-edge theories on risk factors for developing food allergies
• describes innovative allergy tests to improve diagnosis
• explains how to administer emergency medications for severe reactions
• focuses on new allergens of concern, such as pink peppercorns
• analyzes studies suggesting that resolution of an allergy might be predictable
• talks about the role of "healthy diet"
• lists additional resources, including allergy-related apps
• provides revised school food allergy guidelines
• offers insights into food allergy bullying―and advice to reduce it

Dr. Sicherer also reviews food reactions that are not allergic (such as lactose intolerance and celiac disease), advises how to get adequate nutrition when you must avoid dietary staples, and discusses whether allergies ever go away (they do―and sometimes they return).

Scott H. Sicherer, MD, is a professor of pediatrics and the director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is the deputy editor of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and the author of Understanding and Managing Your Child's Food Allergies and Food Allergies: A Complete Guide for Eating When Your Life Depends on It.