Abstract
Data is limited or scarce in Indian children on food allergies and their
incidence in India. We set to find out the incidence, prevalence,
presenting symptoms and the common food allergens in our single center
prototype study. To prove the non-existence of data we searched
Scientific databases1,2. Literature review in PubMed/ Google scholar/med
base using keywords “Food “ +“ allergy ”+”statistics “+
“children”+ “SAARC countries” didn’t reveal any results. Most of the
papers related to food allergy were from the Western countries or they
were anecdotal Indian data. The growing Indian population, increased
usage of processed food, challenges posed by childhood obesity, reduced
exposure to external triggers, rising cases of paediatric allergies
makes it worthwhile to explore this rather grey area in India. Food
allergies will have to be checked comprehensively and various parameters
need to be critically analysed before lab- diagnosing food allergy.
Increasing awareness in clinician’s diagnosis about food allergy and its
existence has made us review different studies which have been done in
the past few decades. It is an interesting fact to find that there has
been no data published in India on this subject and we have attempted to
look at an epidemiological cross sectional data of all children who
presented with symptoms suggestive of Food allergy, Food protein induced
Enterocolitis colitis syndrome or any other related symptoms there in
our tertiary centre hospital at Chennai,Tamilndau,India.