What is food allergy?

Some people react with what doctors call a hypersensitivity reaction when eating certain foods or additives. Typically it is commonly used foods that cause the reactions.

For an adverse reaction to be called a food hypersensitivity, the symptoms of an individual must be of a certain kind, specifically:

• Appear when a person eats the problem food
• Disappear or diminish when a person avoids the problem food, and
• Reappear when the person reintroduces the problem food.

Food hypersensitivity is divided into two types, food allergy and non-allergic food hypersensitivity. See the subpages for more information.

More information

Nomenclature for allergy:

• Johansson SGO et al. (2001). “A revised nomenclature for allergy: An EAACI position statement from the EAACI nomenclature task force.” Allergy 56, 813-824.
• Johansson SGO et al. (2004). “Revised nomenclature for allergy for global use: Report of the Nomenclature Review Committee of the World Allergy Organization, October 2003.” J Allergy Clin Immunol 113 (5), 832-836.