On Wednesday I went, for the first time, to the Food Standards Agency’s annual presentation, this year focused on their work in the field of food allergy, and on the departure of the splendid Dr Andrew Wadge who has headed up the scientific arm of the FSA since 2000. (He pointed out that, whatever the failings of the department – and what department does not have its failings – its workings were now totally open to public scrutiny, a very great change from the closed door mentality which had been bedevilled food policy in the last century.)
Setting aside their much argued-over work on allergen labelling, the agency has also been active in a number of research projects which were outlined by the keynote speaker, Professor Ian Kimber, Professor of Toxicology at the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Manchester. Pleasingly, the department actually gets £21 million each year to spend on research, although. obviously, not all of that by a long chalk goes on food allergy.
For Professor Kimber’s general comments on allergy see the Foodsmatter site here; meanwhile, the current FSA funded or partially funded research he described includes:
EAT (Enquiring about Tolerance) which is trying to discover whether the early introduction of allergenic foods alongside continued breastfeeding reduces the incidence of food allergy.
LEAP (Learning Early About Peanuts) is trying to find out whether introducing peanuts at an early age to highly atopic children at risk of peanut allergy may prevent the development of the allergy.
The BASELINE study which is trying to determine whether an abnormal skin barrier function, which may be genetically determined, can predate or predict food allergy sensitisation.
Allergy thresholds. The on-going efforts to establish thresholds (amounts) for allergenic ingredients at which the majority of seriously allergic people will not react.
Allergens in prepacked food. Surveys to establish how accurate in terms of labelling a range of foods on the market actually is.
The TRACE study is aiming to discover how much peanut is needed to cause a reaction in adults and whether this is affected by extrinsic stress factors such as sleep deprivation or exercise.
Future research projects will include:
• Adult allergy. The rate of allergy amongst children over the last 30 years has been significantly higher than that among adults – but many of those children have now grown up. How has that changed the incidence of allergy in adults and indeed, the nature of the allergy.
• Food intolerance as opposed to allergy.
For a more detailed report on Professor Kimber’s presentation see the Foodsmatter site here.
[…] This is not really a change of heart as I have always been aware that they, and in particular their allergy department (decimated by the cuts a few years ago), were doing a worthy job in providing good and reliable information via their allergy site. But, as I think we probably all do, I had tended to ignore the fact that what they do is largely prescribed by their European colleagues. What I had also forgotten was that the FSA also fund/are involved in some really useful research – I will give a few details of some of this in the next post. […]