About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Risk factors
By Mayo Clinic staffIt isn't clear why some people develop allergies while others don't. However, people with certain risk factors have a greater chance of developing peanut allergy.
Food allergy risk factors include:
- Age. Food allergies are most common in children, especially toddlers and infants. As you grow older, your digestive system matures and your body is less likely to react to food that triggers allergies.
- Past allergy to peanuts. Some children with peanut allergy outgrow it. However, even if you seem to have outgrown peanut allergy, it may recur.
- Other allergies. If you're already allergic to one food, you may be at increased risk of becoming allergic to another. Likewise, having another type of allergy, such as hay fever, increases your risk of having a food allergy.
- Family members with allergies. You're at increased risk of peanut allergy if other allergies, especially other types of food allergies, are common in your family.
- Atopic dermatitis. Some people with the skin condition atopic dermatitis (eczema) also have a food allergy.
While some people think food allergies are linked to childhood hyperactivity and to arthritis, there's no evidence to support this.
- Nowak-Wegrzyn A, et al. Adverse reactions to foods. Medical Clinics of North America. 2006;90:97.
- Skripak JM. Educational clinical case series: Peanut and tree nut allergy in childhood. Pediatric Allergy and Immunology. 2008;19:368.
- Atkins D. Food allergy: Diagnosis and management. Primary Care Clinics in Office Practice. 2008;35:119.
- Food allergy: An overview. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/foodAllergy/PDF/foodallergy.pdf. Accessed Jan. 20, 2009.
- Li JT. (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. March 9, 2010.
- Ben-Shoshan M, et al. Is the prevalence of peanut allergy increasing? A 5-year follow-up study in children in Montreal. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 2009;123:783.
- Ko J, et al. Use of complementary and alternative medicine by food-allergic patients. Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. 2006;97:365.
- Li X. Traditional Chinese herbal remedies for asthma and food allergy. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 2007;120:25.
- Peanuts. Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network. http://www.foodallergy.org/page/peanuts. Accessed Feb. 24, 2010.
Find Mayo Clinic on