Live from the TRACE study...

As I write I am lying in a hospital bed as part of the TRACE peanut study... it's 4.25am. I'm here overnight as part of a sleep deprivation element to today's challenge. So far I've been allowed just two hours sleep between 1 and 3am.

Why am I here? It's all in the name of science. Medicine can never be expected to move on unless people who suffer with illnesses give some time to be prodded. In this case though, we're not looking for a cure, it's more to do with improving day to day life for people with peanut allergies. Anyone who has closely scrutinised a label will understand the prevalence of 'may contain nut traces' labels. Most manufacturers don't even bother telling you what nut they are referring to, rendering the warning useless and vague. This increases the chance of someone 'risking it' since they can't properly decide on the risk anyway.

The TRACE Peanut Study aims to address this by finding out exactly how much peanut will cause an allergic reaction in those with a peanut allergy by conducting ‘challenges’ on around 100 people. The focus area of the study is on two ‘extrinsic’ factors known to influence allergic thresholds (exercise and tiredness).

In the next few hours all hands will be on deck and I will start process of ingesting the one thing I spend my life avoiding. Watch this space!

Three days to go!

Just three days to go until the #14Allergens legislation comes into effect.

From 13 December 2014, all food businesses will need to provide information about the
allergenic ingredients used in food sold or provided by them.  Businesses which are
providing food sold prepacked and non-prepacked (loose) such as food sold in a restaurant or
takeaway must ensure they are compliant by Saturday. This nice guide describes some of the changes.

Also included is packaged food. From Saturday, businesses and manufacturers must identify the 14 allergens through the use of bold font or similar within the ingredients list. This change will help people with allergies assess the real level of risk and ideally bring down the use of lazy 'may contain phrases'.

There are 14 allergens that must be identified when present, are described in this FSA infographic.

Hurrah! We're up and running!

As a long suffering peanut allergic person (not a sufferer!) I've finally decided to go for a blog on this topic, nicely timed with the new EU legislation coming into force on Saturday 13th December.

It's my hope to share a bit of news and thoughts about allergies on this. It would appear that either allergies are increasing at a serious rate or media attention towards them is increasing... which is it? I'm not quite sure but the FSA's says hospital admissions for allergies were up 500% between 1990 and 2007... I'd imagine the last 7 years have only seen this get even worse. Having been there myself once in 2014 it's too easy to become part of the statistics.

Check out #14allergens on Twitter for the latest news...

AND don't forget to follow us @allergyfairyUK