Nut and peanut allergy
Nut allergy and peanut allergy can be extremely dangerous, life threatening in fact, so it is very important to take notice of any sensitivity to nuts or peanuts.
One of the first things which comes to light in investigating
these allergies is that peanuts are not nuts at all, they are legumes. They
belong to the plant family Leguminosae, which includes green peas, soya beans,
kidney beans, and
lentils. Peanuts are also known as ground nuts, earth nuts and monkey nuts.
The difference between nuts and legumes is that legumes bear pods, containing seeds, they have no nuts. The seeds of the peanut plant are the peanuts, so they are actually seeds, not nuts.
This is relevant, as the fact that someone has peanut allergy does not mean they must be allergic to nuts and if they haev nut allergy, they may not have a corresponding peanut allergy.
The peanut, as a legume, is not related at all botanically to nuts such as almonds, brazil nuts or hazel nuts.
The peanut is a native species of South America and is now also grown in North America, Africa, Europe and India.
It is some of the proteins in the peanut which can cause the allergy, or hypersensetivity, which can be fatal. These are called glycoproteins.
Peanuts have only been available in the UK since the time of the 1940s, the time of the second world war. As well as being eaten from their shells, they are very popular in peanut butter, used in sandwiches and cooking, and many other foods contain either peanuts or peanut oil, including biscuits, cakes, sweets, ice cream, spreads, vegetarian dishes and prepared foods, particularly Chinese, Indonesian and Thai dishes.
It is not only food which contains peanuts, it can be found in adhesives, linoleum, plastics and creams, including nipple creams used by mothers during breast feeding.
It will be understood that it is very difficult for people sensitive to peanuts to avoid contact with products containig peanuts, but it is essential that they try to do so. It is not only eating peanuts which can be harmful, nursing babies can be at risk from nipple creams used by their mothers, food prepared in a factory which at other times processes peanuts can be harmful, and even sitting near someone who has recently eaten peanuts can be a risk in severe cases.
Symptoms can be relatively mild, such as tingling of the lips and mouth, or more severe, skin rash, asthma, abdominal pain, vomiting and in extreme cases anaphylaxis (pronounced anna-phil-axis), otherwise known as anaphylactic shock, which can be extremely serious, even fatal.