Allergies

Allergies affect roughly 50 million Americans but are not well understood from a scientific standpoint. In an analysis from 2017 which used hospital admissions for anaphylaxis as a guideline, they found that food allergy rates have nearly doubled and that climate change is increasing the amount of pollen in the United States. The analysis helped deduce the most common allergies in America. They found that rye, followed by dust mites (D. farinae and D. pteronyssinus) are the most common allergies affecting approximately 20% of the population. Food, as well as indoor allergens, are much lower on the list and affect a small percent of the population (2%). This data was taken from a representative sample but the analysis found that tracking allergies is a difficult process. They noted that self-reported data is unreliable and gaining access to private diagnostic data is tricky because of patient confidentiality.