I really don't know how I feel about this article, it starts unfortunately with a mom whose blaming antibiotics and that could result in a similar to a anti-vaccine sentiment and its really...
I really don't know how I feel about this article, it starts unfortunately with a mom whose blaming antibiotics and that could result in a similar to a anti-vaccine sentiment and its really speculative bordering on harmful misinformation. I mean only two had high fevers and got antibiotics yet all 3 have allergies granted one is "easier". Mom also goes into how she won't share spaces unless she can be the sole cleaner and it makes me wonder what she uses to clean, how clean things need to be in her overall world or is it purely related to food preparation.
Than they get into the nuance of the issue, where the reality is we see an overall society increase. Than goes back to speculation of sources, which feels a lot like the sudden drop in crime statistics debate. Where it is lead, plastics, anything etc.
All I know is there used to be a concept of avoiding allergians like peanut butter until a certain age but now it's recommended to introduce allergians between 4 to 6 months when you start solids. Also now there are a series of shots you can get to work on reversing allergies at least for some. So exposure does seem important, initially speaking.
I think there will be great strides in this area of science in the meantime I think we have to be open to the fact the goal posts and answers are going to shift as we come to better understanding of allergies and autoimmune diseases as well.
We likely have to be ready to better fight the pollution we are doing to our own bodies via water systems, plastics, etc. Much like I remember the 90s smoking indoor bans started happening and they talked about respiratory allergies decreasing around that time.
I just worry how these grassroots movements will function in this day and age, I feel like the way we are grouped in society the same smoking bans passed in the past would struggle to be passed today. So it's going to be tough once we do get a better sense of some of the issues impacting people.
I felt the exact same way reading this article and had to hold my nose to get through the whacky almost conspiratorial personal anecdotes to find the pieces that were useful. I'm not as interested...
I felt the exact same way reading this article and had to hold my nose to get through the whacky almost conspiratorial personal anecdotes to find the pieces that were useful. I'm not as interested in what one mom theorizes is the cause among some active online chat group, but rather in what real studies by established institutions are actually pointing toward.
I probably wouldn't have felt so frustrated if they brought up the scientific information at the front and than took the anecdotal information and weaved it in with were still uncertain, but some...
I probably wouldn't have felt so frustrated if they brought up the scientific information at the front and than took the anecdotal information and weaved it in with were still uncertain, but some parents believe this or that and there's some evidence for x,y,z belief but the ordering of information in this article makes me uneasy with any of the information presented; which is disappointing because there is a good discussion to be had about the over prescribing of antibiotics historically and the dangers of antibiotic resistance diseases.
I have a sense that there are precious few of these left around. So much “science” is industry funded, which strongly incentivizes results that favor the sponsor.
real studies by established institutions
I have a sense that there are precious few of these left around. So much “science” is industry funded, which strongly incentivizes results that favor the sponsor.
Certainly, there's enough to critique about the modern science industry and the way 'bad' behaviours are incentivized, but I think there's value in being a bit more nuanced in discussing these...
Certainly, there's enough to critique about the modern science industry and the way 'bad' behaviours are incentivized, but I think there's value in being a bit more nuanced in discussing these issues, so folks are critical of individual datasets without dismissing valuable bodies of knowledge (not trying to pick on your comment in particular).
The adage 'publish or perish' (and more modern equivalents like 'promote or perish') highlights that scientists may feel pressured into cherry-picking, fabricating, or otherwise manipulating data to advance their careers. Regardless of funding source. This is where (hopefully, ideally) similar studies can support or refute results. Many journals also require data to be made available, either in supplemental materials or by request, to help prevent such manipulation (though, I'm not really sure of effectiveness?). For more 'mature' topics with a larger body of research, systemic reviews and meta-analyses are particularly useful for seeing overarching trends in findings.
As for funding source, this is a personal opinion (which I probably picked up somewhere), but I'm more concerned that it drives what is studied (or not), compared to 'fundamental science' studies.
I think they could have done a better job with the anecdote weaving, but towards the end I think it comes full circle. I think you're supposed to empathise with her confusion and then realize...
I think they could have done a better job with the anecdote weaving, but towards the end I think it comes full circle. I think you're supposed to empathise with her confusion and then realize there are so many unknowns that blaming yourself is a pointless exercise or optimising for the wrong thing (e.g. an antibiotic might screw up your microbiome but at least you're alive).
I think I found the anecdote particularly helpful because the first people I thought I might send this to are two families. Yet, I hesitate at the thought of them even stumbling upon it because I really don't want them to think "is there a way I fell short?" One is a first-time parent and is extremely intentional-- for example, like in the article mentioned, she did not want people to touch her child without washing their hands. To be told that her c-section might have been disadvantageous might cause her undue stress. The other has a child with emerging-now-confirmed autism, and the parents worked tirelessly trying to do something, no doubt reading studies and also "studies," altering their child's diet, visiting doctors all over, etc. I think having it implied "this is all because of something you did" would hurt them. I feel for the mother interviewed.
Full article thoughts: it was a good read. I am hoping we can get more concrete news for adults on the microbiome soon. It is somewhat crazy how we can eat food from all over the world yet have less bacteria in our gut than like, cavemen (assuming less is bad). I have been working on eating more local but even then, it's not clear to me that it's much more diverse for the gut than buying frozen versions from a store.
I did the same and my kid has asthma and is severely allergic to dogs. Tbh I'm sure allergies have always existed but the body was usually too busy fighting the next deadly disease.
I did the same and my kid has asthma and is severely allergic to dogs.
Tbh I'm sure allergies have always existed but the body was usually too busy fighting the next deadly disease.
For example, (at least some) intestinal parasites actively suppress the immune system to avoid being detected by it, which can have the side effect of curing allergies.
but the body was usually too busy fighting the next deadly disease.
For example, (at least some) intestinal parasites actively suppress the immune system to avoid being detected by it, which can have the side effect of curing allergies.
That's not quite it. It's more that having a regular set of diseases to fight helps the immune system remain "calibrated" to not overreact to non-threatening stimulii.
Tbh I'm sure allergies have always existed but the body was usually too busy fighting the next deadly disease.
That's not quite it. It's more that having a regular set of diseases to fight helps the immune system remain "calibrated" to not overreact to non-threatening stimulii.
That's a myth. You don't want to be ill. Illnesses are bad for your immune system. They damage it. Even "just" the common cold can cause you to permanently lose your sense of smell, "just" food...
That's a myth. You don't want to be ill. Illnesses are bad for your immune system. They damage it. Even "just" the common cold can cause you to permanently lose your sense of smell, "just" food poisoning can screw up your digestive system for life and "just" the flu can cause ME, CFS, and autoimmune disease. There are even 7 viruses that have been found to cause cancer.
"You do not want to catch any disease" - my friend the immunologist.
None of the things you listed after this are "damage" to the immune system. They're rare complications from illnesses. If you never get ill then your immune system will be weak and vulnerable to...
Illnesses are bad for your immune system. They damage it.
None of the things you listed after this are "damage" to the immune system. They're rare complications from illnesses. If you never get ill then your immune system will be weak and vulnerable to every little inflection until it can train up a baseline of anti-bodies to combat what's in your environment. Talk to any pediatrician and they'll tell you it's beneficial for kids to get the random, normal playground viruses. Toddlers basically have a permanent case of the sniffles because their immune systems are developing resistances to the environment.
I think it depends on if dirt was their only meal or if it was just good fun for a kid outside. I'll assume it was the latter and you're doing a great job. Really how else would they know what...
I think it depends on if dirt was their only meal or if it was just good fun for a kid outside. I'll assume it was the latter and you're doing a great job. Really how else would they know what dirt tastes like to use as a comparison later in life?
I think it will take us awhile to unpack allergies and our new approach to it. So far it seems positive introducing them at the 6 month mark, and it seems to prevent allergies from occurring...
I think it will take us awhile to unpack allergies and our new approach to it. So far it seems positive introducing them at the 6 month mark, and it seems to prevent allergies from occurring (peanut, tree nut, and shellfish).
I don't think it's appropriate to draw gut-biome conclusions from this or to really comment on obesity.
I still roll my eyes when I read anything about the gut biome and health. The dominant paradigm in medicine is still that most diseases are mediated by a receptor binding to something and that a...
I still roll my eyes when I read anything about the gut biome and health.
The dominant paradigm in medicine is still that most diseases are mediated by a receptor binding to something and that a molecule that bunds to the receptor or the ligand to change the process. This is the basis of the whole pharmaceutical industry.
It is certainly a research paradigm to find some relationship between the gut biome and health but it is still not a clinical paradigm. Probiotics are the ultimate scam supplement sold by the likes of Amway and seem to be one of those “pills that mother gives you that don’t do anything at all” that Grace Slick warned you about.
Your digestive biome is definately an important thing because it helps you digest your food. You can get sick if your biome is out of whack. It's the things outside of the scope of digestion that...
Your digestive biome is definately an important thing because it helps you digest your food. You can get sick if your biome is out of whack. It's the things outside of the scope of digestion that are less clear and deserve more scrutiny.
Probiotics are pretty bunk generally speaking, but so is just about every supplement out there. It's like vitamins; in most cases it's better to change the food you are eating instead. The bacteria in your gut is just like the bacteria in compost; you have to feed it properly or you're not going to get the right kind of ecosystem.
Even with probiotics, the main problem with them is they're taken orally rather than as a suppository. Lower gut bacteria tend to die in the stomach when taken orally.
Even with probiotics, the main problem with them is they're taken orally rather than as a suppository. Lower gut bacteria tend to die in the stomach when taken orally.
I agree that your stomach biome is important, but it requires more study and outside of what we already understand i.e. H.Pylori, it isn't as cut and dry as most authors make it sound.
I agree that your stomach biome is important, but it requires more study and outside of what we already understand i.e. H.Pylori, it isn't as cut and dry as most authors make it sound.
That's the gist of what I was trying to say. It's important, but we don't really understand it well enough. There's a lot of the human body we don't understand enough about. The Appendix, for...
That's the gist of what I was trying to say. It's important, but we don't really understand it well enough.
There's a lot of the human body we don't understand enough about. The Appendix, for instance, until recently was considered to be a "useless organ" that we cut out whenever it seemed to be causing problems. We've only just started to understand why we have it.
The beliefs about gut biome, etc. are basically modern old wives' tales. The medical-scientific jury is still out on what's causing the allergy epidemic, but everyday people are experiencing it in...
The beliefs about gut biome, etc. are basically modern old wives' tales. The medical-scientific jury is still out on what's causing the allergy epidemic, but everyday people are experiencing it in their daily lives and among their loved ones. And parents want to do something for their children. Driven by love parents cannot help being helpless. So in lieu of conclusive information, these kinds of folk theories proliferate.
Tying this in with a starved and decreasing bacteria in the gut microbiome seems to make sense. Results from studies examining the links to a robust microbiome diversity and other health...
Tying this in with a starved and decreasing bacteria in the gut microbiome seems to make sense. Results from studies examining the links to a robust microbiome diversity and other health conditions seem to back up this importance and highlight a growing trend in the general understanding of these connections.
I'd be interested to see the results of studies that compare the prevalence of conditions like allergies in the general population between regions of the world with a modern industrial diet and regions with a mostly raw "third-world" diet.
I'm not sure that the facts are all in on this case, but after reading this and other articles on this topic, i find myself personally developing a growing suspicion and cynicism around things like US-produced chicken and beef, along with most snack foods, as well as basically anything that is processed and sold in a box, jar, or bag with an increased shelf life.
It's not that I believe any one dietary item is the singular culprit (and studies that look at the safety of, for example, one additive ingredient are pointless in this respect) but it's more the cumulative long-term impact of all these food items, additives, antibiotics, and chemicals in our diet that has me concerned about my own diminished gut health and its ripple effects on my immune system and other conditions.
I for one have noticed an increase in allergies and sensitivities in my own life over the past ten years that I have sworn is not "all in my head." I get brain fog and a heavy whole-body lethargy about twenty minutes after eating eggs now. Every time. That never happened in my twenties.
I don't think it's appropriate to draw any conclusions as of yet. While there is at least one study done which does conclude there is a link between antibiotic use and allergies, we have to keep...
Exemplary
I don't think it's appropriate to draw any conclusions as of yet. While there is at least one study done which does conclude there is a link between antibiotic use and allergies, we have to keep in mind the age old saying correlation does not imply causation. This is a large part of the reason why anecdotes are not useful for drawing conclusions in science. They should only be used to draw a hypothesis, and can inform the criteria of a study.
I do want to touch on one more topic: it is more and more commonly held that the appendix regulates the density and quality of the intestinal flora. If the question being raised is "does starved and decreasing bacteria in the gut microbiome cause allergies?" then the place to look would be for an increase in studies in people who have had their appendix removed. I haven't searched too hard, but I can't find many studies related to this. I did find this one which shows children with allergies have a lower risk of developing complicated appendicitis. Again, I'm not sure what to say other than: I don't think it's appropriate to draw any conclusions as of yet.
If it were as simple as gut bacteria, than the solution would simply be putting appropriate probiotic strains in baby formula so that children who are born of medically necessary C-sections, and are bottle fed through medical necessity could be as healthy as possible.
You jump through a lot of topics in your post, and I apologize that I'm not going to attempt to touch on each one. Hopefully someone with more time comes by soon who can engage you further on the rest.
[edit to add]
I for one have noticed an increase in allergies and sensitivities in my own life over the past ten years that I have sworn is not "all in my head." I get brain fog and a heavy whole-body lethargy about twenty minutes after eating eggs now. Every time. That never happened in my twenties.
I've had a similar anecdotal experience over the last 4 years. I thought it was eggs, then lactose intolerance, tomato allergy, pork allergy, SIBO, alpha-gal syndrome, histamine intolerance, and several other things. I was diagnosed with "IBS-D" 3 years ago but low FODMAP didn't help. Turns out I have both severe sleep apnea, and Celiac disease, both of which took years to diagnose and was largely done by me ordering tests privately on hunches (both have been confirmed by doctors now though). If I had stuck with my anecdotal proccess of eliminating foods I never would have figured it out, because it takes 6+ months gluten free for the small intestine to heal. This is the danger of drawing conclusions from anecdotal evidence. At one point I eliminated almost everything except chicken and rice from my diet for two weeks and felt no better. I tried eating nothing but Soylent for a time and felt no better.
Hard to draw any conclusions. There's so much we still don't know about the human body, and each body is unique. I think there's a climate change angle to it as well. Our biodomes are changing a...
Hard to draw any conclusions. There's so much we still don't know about the human body, and each body is unique. I think there's a climate change angle to it as well. Our biodomes are changing a lot. Personally, I never had any allergies as a kid, but developed bad hay fever summer allergies to grasses, weeds, dust mites only starting in my mid 20s. Luckily allergy shots (immunotherapy) has reduced my symptoms a TON, though it is a long term treatment and not a total cure. it does seem like there are more and more kids with allergies, including food allergies.
I had an incident of anaphylaxis when I was a small child. I remember going to my family doctor and getting prick tests that were not conclusive. I never had problems with foods but developed...
I had an incident of anaphylaxis when I was a small child. I remember going to my family doctor and getting prick tests that were not conclusive.
I never had problems with foods but developed asthma around the time I turned thirty, it turned out I was allergic to just about all the common inhalants (hay fever, dust, cats, …) and I got a course of immunotherapy as well as a steroid inhaler. I had an asthma exacerbation that wasn’t controlled with oral steroids, investigation turned out it was complicated by heartburn and when I treated the heartburn the asthma cleared up and after a while I didn’t need meds for my asthma.
I still have some hay fever symptoms but they are pretty weak now, I think the immunotherapy helped a lot. That’s a good thing because as I’ve gotten older I’ve tolerated oral antihistamines less and less.
I really don't know how I feel about this article, it starts unfortunately with a mom whose blaming antibiotics and that could result in a similar to a anti-vaccine sentiment and its really speculative bordering on harmful misinformation. I mean only two had high fevers and got antibiotics yet all 3 have allergies granted one is "easier". Mom also goes into how she won't share spaces unless she can be the sole cleaner and it makes me wonder what she uses to clean, how clean things need to be in her overall world or is it purely related to food preparation.
Than they get into the nuance of the issue, where the reality is we see an overall society increase. Than goes back to speculation of sources, which feels a lot like the sudden drop in crime statistics debate. Where it is lead, plastics, anything etc.
All I know is there used to be a concept of avoiding allergians like peanut butter until a certain age but now it's recommended to introduce allergians between 4 to 6 months when you start solids. Also now there are a series of shots you can get to work on reversing allergies at least for some. So exposure does seem important, initially speaking.
I think there will be great strides in this area of science in the meantime I think we have to be open to the fact the goal posts and answers are going to shift as we come to better understanding of allergies and autoimmune diseases as well.
We likely have to be ready to better fight the pollution we are doing to our own bodies via water systems, plastics, etc. Much like I remember the 90s smoking indoor bans started happening and they talked about respiratory allergies decreasing around that time.
I just worry how these grassroots movements will function in this day and age, I feel like the way we are grouped in society the same smoking bans passed in the past would struggle to be passed today. So it's going to be tough once we do get a better sense of some of the issues impacting people.
I felt the exact same way reading this article and had to hold my nose to get through the whacky almost conspiratorial personal anecdotes to find the pieces that were useful. I'm not as interested in what one mom theorizes is the cause among some active online chat group, but rather in what real studies by established institutions are actually pointing toward.
I probably wouldn't have felt so frustrated if they brought up the scientific information at the front and than took the anecdotal information and weaved it in with were still uncertain, but some parents believe this or that and there's some evidence for x,y,z belief but the ordering of information in this article makes me uneasy with any of the information presented; which is disappointing because there is a good discussion to be had about the over prescribing of antibiotics historically and the dangers of antibiotic resistance diseases.
I have a sense that there are precious few of these left around. So much “science” is industry funded, which strongly incentivizes results that favor the sponsor.
Certainly, there's enough to critique about the modern science industry and the way 'bad' behaviours are incentivized, but I think there's value in being a bit more nuanced in discussing these issues, so folks are critical of individual datasets without dismissing valuable bodies of knowledge (not trying to pick on your comment in particular).
The adage 'publish or perish' (and more modern equivalents like 'promote or perish') highlights that scientists may feel pressured into cherry-picking, fabricating, or otherwise manipulating data to advance their careers. Regardless of funding source. This is where (hopefully, ideally) similar studies can support or refute results. Many journals also require data to be made available, either in supplemental materials or by request, to help prevent such manipulation (though, I'm not really sure of effectiveness?). For more 'mature' topics with a larger body of research, systemic reviews and meta-analyses are particularly useful for seeing overarching trends in findings.
As for funding source, this is a personal opinion (which I probably picked up somewhere), but I'm more concerned that it drives what is studied (or not), compared to 'fundamental science' studies.
I think they could have done a better job with the anecdote weaving, but towards the end I think it comes full circle. I think you're supposed to empathise with her confusion and then realize there are so many unknowns that blaming yourself is a pointless exercise or optimising for the wrong thing (e.g. an antibiotic might screw up your microbiome but at least you're alive).
I think I found the anecdote particularly helpful because the first people I thought I might send this to are two families. Yet, I hesitate at the thought of them even stumbling upon it because I really don't want them to think "is there a way I fell short?" One is a first-time parent and is extremely intentional-- for example, like in the article mentioned, she did not want people to touch her child without washing their hands. To be told that her c-section might have been disadvantageous might cause her undue stress. The other has a child with emerging-now-confirmed autism, and the parents worked tirelessly trying to do something, no doubt reading studies and also "studies," altering their child's diet, visiting doctors all over, etc. I think having it implied "this is all because of something you did" would hurt them. I feel for the mother interviewed.
Full article thoughts: it was a good read. I am hoping we can get more concrete news for adults on the microbiome soon. It is somewhat crazy how we can eat food from all over the world yet have less bacteria in our gut than like, cavemen (assuming less is bad). I have been working on eating more local but even then, it's not clear to me that it's much more diverse for the gut than buying frozen versions from a store.
I let my kids eat a little dirt when they were small. I’m either an excellent or terrible mom, but they don’t have allergies so…
Just keep doing your best. You got this
I did the same and my kid has asthma and is severely allergic to dogs.
Tbh I'm sure allergies have always existed but the body was usually too busy fighting the next deadly disease.
For example, (at least some) intestinal parasites actively suppress the immune system to avoid being detected by it, which can have the side effect of curing allergies.
That's not quite it. It's more that having a regular set of diseases to fight helps the immune system remain "calibrated" to not overreact to non-threatening stimulii.
That's a myth. You don't want to be ill. Illnesses are bad for your immune system. They damage it. Even "just" the common cold can cause you to permanently lose your sense of smell, "just" food poisoning can screw up your digestive system for life and "just" the flu can cause ME, CFS, and autoimmune disease. There are even 7 viruses that have been found to cause cancer.
"You do not want to catch any disease" - my friend the immunologist.
None of the things you listed after this are "damage" to the immune system. They're rare complications from illnesses. If you never get ill then your immune system will be weak and vulnerable to every little inflection until it can train up a baseline of anti-bodies to combat what's in your environment. Talk to any pediatrician and they'll tell you it's beneficial for kids to get the random, normal playground viruses. Toddlers basically have a permanent case of the sniffles because their immune systems are developing resistances to the environment.
I think it depends on if dirt was their only meal or if it was just good fun for a kid outside. I'll assume it was the latter and you're doing a great job. Really how else would they know what dirt tastes like to use as a comparison later in life?
I think it will take us awhile to unpack allergies and our new approach to it. So far it seems positive introducing them at the 6 month mark, and it seems to prevent allergies from occurring (peanut, tree nut, and shellfish).
I don't think it's appropriate to draw gut-biome conclusions from this or to really comment on obesity.
I still roll my eyes when I read anything about the gut biome and health.
The dominant paradigm in medicine is still that most diseases are mediated by a receptor binding to something and that a molecule that bunds to the receptor or the ligand to change the process. This is the basis of the whole pharmaceutical industry.
It is certainly a research paradigm to find some relationship between the gut biome and health but it is still not a clinical paradigm. Probiotics are the ultimate scam supplement sold by the likes of Amway and seem to be one of those “pills that mother gives you that don’t do anything at all” that Grace Slick warned you about.
Your digestive biome is definately an important thing because it helps you digest your food. You can get sick if your biome is out of whack. It's the things outside of the scope of digestion that are less clear and deserve more scrutiny.
Probiotics are pretty bunk generally speaking, but so is just about every supplement out there. It's like vitamins; in most cases it's better to change the food you are eating instead. The bacteria in your gut is just like the bacteria in compost; you have to feed it properly or you're not going to get the right kind of ecosystem.
Even with probiotics, the main problem with them is they're taken orally rather than as a suppository. Lower gut bacteria tend to die in the stomach when taken orally.
I agree that your stomach biome is important, but it requires more study and outside of what we already understand i.e. H.Pylori, it isn't as cut and dry as most authors make it sound.
That's the gist of what I was trying to say. It's important, but we don't really understand it well enough.
There's a lot of the human body we don't understand enough about. The Appendix, for instance, until recently was considered to be a "useless organ" that we cut out whenever it seemed to be causing problems. We've only just started to understand why we have it.
The beliefs about gut biome, etc. are basically modern old wives' tales. The medical-scientific jury is still out on what's causing the allergy epidemic, but everyday people are experiencing it in their daily lives and among their loved ones. And parents want to do something for their children. Driven by love parents cannot help being helpless. So in lieu of conclusive information, these kinds of folk theories proliferate.
Tying this in with a starved and decreasing bacteria in the gut microbiome seems to make sense. Results from studies examining the links to a robust microbiome diversity and other health conditions seem to back up this importance and highlight a growing trend in the general understanding of these connections.
I'd be interested to see the results of studies that compare the prevalence of conditions like allergies in the general population between regions of the world with a modern industrial diet and regions with a mostly raw "third-world" diet.
I'm not sure that the facts are all in on this case, but after reading this and other articles on this topic, i find myself personally developing a growing suspicion and cynicism around things like US-produced chicken and beef, along with most snack foods, as well as basically anything that is processed and sold in a box, jar, or bag with an increased shelf life.
It's not that I believe any one dietary item is the singular culprit (and studies that look at the safety of, for example, one additive ingredient are pointless in this respect) but it's more the cumulative long-term impact of all these food items, additives, antibiotics, and chemicals in our diet that has me concerned about my own diminished gut health and its ripple effects on my immune system and other conditions.
I for one have noticed an increase in allergies and sensitivities in my own life over the past ten years that I have sworn is not "all in my head." I get brain fog and a heavy whole-body lethargy about twenty minutes after eating eggs now. Every time. That never happened in my twenties.
I don't think it's appropriate to draw any conclusions as of yet. While there is at least one study done which does conclude there is a link between antibiotic use and allergies, we have to keep in mind the age old saying correlation does not imply causation. This is a large part of the reason why anecdotes are not useful for drawing conclusions in science. They should only be used to draw a hypothesis, and can inform the criteria of a study.
I do want to touch on one more topic: it is more and more commonly held that the appendix regulates the density and quality of the intestinal flora. If the question being raised is "does starved and decreasing bacteria in the gut microbiome cause allergies?" then the place to look would be for an increase in studies in people who have had their appendix removed. I haven't searched too hard, but I can't find many studies related to this. I did find this one which shows children with allergies have a lower risk of developing complicated appendicitis. Again, I'm not sure what to say other than: I don't think it's appropriate to draw any conclusions as of yet.
If it were as simple as gut bacteria, than the solution would simply be putting appropriate probiotic strains in baby formula so that children who are born of medically necessary C-sections, and are bottle fed through medical necessity could be as healthy as possible.
You jump through a lot of topics in your post, and I apologize that I'm not going to attempt to touch on each one. Hopefully someone with more time comes by soon who can engage you further on the rest.
[edit to add]
I've had a similar anecdotal experience over the last 4 years. I thought it was eggs, then lactose intolerance, tomato allergy, pork allergy, SIBO, alpha-gal syndrome, histamine intolerance, and several other things. I was diagnosed with "IBS-D" 3 years ago but low FODMAP didn't help. Turns out I have both severe sleep apnea, and Celiac disease, both of which took years to diagnose and was largely done by me ordering tests privately on hunches (both have been confirmed by doctors now though). If I had stuck with my anecdotal proccess of eliminating foods I never would have figured it out, because it takes 6+ months gluten free for the small intestine to heal. This is the danger of drawing conclusions from anecdotal evidence. At one point I eliminated almost everything except chicken and rice from my diet for two weeks and felt no better. I tried eating nothing but Soylent for a time and felt no better.
Hard to draw any conclusions. There's so much we still don't know about the human body, and each body is unique. I think there's a climate change angle to it as well. Our biodomes are changing a lot. Personally, I never had any allergies as a kid, but developed bad hay fever summer allergies to grasses, weeds, dust mites only starting in my mid 20s. Luckily allergy shots (immunotherapy) has reduced my symptoms a TON, though it is a long term treatment and not a total cure. it does seem like there are more and more kids with allergies, including food allergies.
I had an incident of anaphylaxis when I was a small child. I remember going to my family doctor and getting prick tests that were not conclusive.
I never had problems with foods but developed asthma around the time I turned thirty, it turned out I was allergic to just about all the common inhalants (hay fever, dust, cats, …) and I got a course of immunotherapy as well as a steroid inhaler. I had an asthma exacerbation that wasn’t controlled with oral steroids, investigation turned out it was complicated by heartburn and when I treated the heartburn the asthma cleared up and after a while I didn’t need meds for my asthma.
I still have some hay fever symptoms but they are pretty weak now, I think the immunotherapy helped a lot. That’s a good thing because as I’ve gotten older I’ve tolerated oral antihistamines less and less.