Claims that food allergy constitutes a growing epidemic in the United States took a big knock recently. Around 20% of American adults claim to have a food allergy, but a robust investigation led by Prof Ruchi Gupta of Northwestern University in Chicago found - after reviewing a sample of 40,400 US adults - that only about half that number in reality had “convincing” signs of true allergy. Even 11% of adults could be an exaggeration as most allergy claims have never been clinically confirmed. This finding relates to US adults; food allergy figures for children are different. Over-diagnosis by non-specialists, and self-diagnosis using over the counter unvalidated testing kits giving false positive results, and widespread confusion between intolerance, sensitivity and genuine allergy are among the factors inflating the figures. Needless food exclusions, distorted eating patterns and family stress can result. Experts were surprised by this finding and called it a wake-up call for the clinical allergy community. Read the paper in JAMA Network Open for 4th January 2019 here: