Allergy is on the rise. It affects 1 in 5 adults, and the rise in children is astonishing.

1 in 3 will suffer asthma

1 in 6 will suffer eczema 

And there has been a huge rise in food allergy now affecting 1 in 13 children, including a 5x increase in peanut allergy.

All this brings a huge amount of disruption to peoples lives, fear and the rising wait times for allergy clinics is a well known phenomena. Working as a GP and in A&E, I have seen 1000s of children with these issues and that’s why I wanted to talk about what things we can do to prevent food allergy using the research available today.

Dr Vincent Ho is a clinical academic gastroenterologist and Senior Lecturer at the School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney. He is also a practising gastroenterologist. More recently he published ‘The Healthy Baby Gut Guide‘. A book packed with sensible advice, surprising scientific discoveries and a nutritionist-approved nine-week infant meal plan to help you navigate the introduction of foods for your baby which I think is essential reading for every parent and parent-to-be.

There’s lot to cover today but by the end of the episode you should be able to understand:

• The concepts of immune tolerance and the hypotheses behind why we are seeing a rise
• Why early exposure to common allergenic food is key
• The genetic and environmental links allergy including BPA and phthalates
• What the first 1000 days refers to and why this is critical for supporting a normal immune system
• How maternal diet impacts food allergy
• The evidence for supplements such as fish oils, probiotics and vitamin D for mothers
• The benefits of breast milk, probiotics and a diverse diet for kids
• How to introduce known allergens into your babies diet from 6 months in a systematic and safe manner using an anti-allergy meal plan
• And the future for allergy therapy

This is a fantastic episode and if you’re looking to get pregnant or have a high risk for allergy, I highly recommend Vincent’s book, it’s a wonderful resource.

I’m doing a new thing which is our podcast recipe of the week, a recipe that reflects the topic of conversation on the pod! This week’s recipe is my easy ‘Crispy Black bean bowl’ which you can find on the app here: https://apple.co/3G0zC0Z (iphone only, android users please bear with me)

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