Many People Who Claim to Have a Food Allergy Actually Don’t

About how many people do you know who claim to have food allergies? While some of them might be legitimate, many purported food-allergy claims may be false alarms.

That’s according to new research that finds that 1 in 10 people in the U.S. are afflicted with food allergies, while nearly twice that number mistakenly believe themselves to be food-allergic.

Researchers surveyed more than 40,000 adults living across the country, finding that about 10 percent were allergic to one or more foods.

In fact, developing food allergies in adulthood happens more frequently than expected, the scientists reported. They learned from the surveys that about 48 percent of the subjects who had food allergies first experienced at least one of them as an adult.

If a person suspects that they have a food allergy, it is critical that they visit a doctor for testing and diagnosis before attempting to correct the problem by eliminating foods from their diet, Gupta said in the statement.