Food Allergy on MedlinePlus

There is a friendly family debate in our house that goes something like this:

Matt: Choosy moms choose Jif.

Melissa: Um, no thank you, I'd rather have my Smucker's All Natural Reduced Fat Peanut Butter.

(Ignore the weird stripped peanut butter and jelly concoction. That just looks gross.)



We are in the Immunology Block right now and today we touched on allergies. Here are some pictures:The first picture shows a reaction to peanut butter. The young man went to Little Italy and actually ordered spaghetti, but as it turns out, the chef's secret sauce recipe (according to our lecturer today) included a spoon of peanut butter.

The second picture shows on unfortunate little boy who has an allergy to milk. He was in the school cafeteria, not drinking milk, but then his buddy across the table decided to use his straw from the milk carton to blow air across the table. (Again, according to our lecturer) A drop of milk touched the little boy's skin on his face and the allergic reaction kicked in.

To kill two birds with one stone, I decided to check out MedlinePlus by searching for "peanut allergy." If you click on this site you can see a crazy amount of good information on all food allergies. Latest news, diagnosis and symptoms, pages on specific conditions, links to clinical trials for the disease, organizations, law and policy, children or teenagers or women specific information, and patient handouts about diets and reading labels are all right there.

One link on the MedlinePlus - Food Allergy site is a video "If I had an allergic reaction." Interesting and super useful for new moms! (*Bridge)