Could allergies be prevented from happening in the first place?

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Look, Tanya, you know that allergy affects my family. I know what it is like to live constantly with this kind of It's literally an existential threat.

[00:00:10]You know that to your cost. You lost your lovely daughter. But can you explain to people watching what it means to live with a food allergy? Because so many people might say just don't eat the thing you're allergic to.

[00:00:25]>> I think it's difficult. It is difficult for people to understand. It really is.

[00:00:30]But the problem is is food can come in from everywhere. We live around food now much more. Maybe we don't just have breakfast, lunch, and dinner anymore. We eat on the go, um snacks, um parties that children invited to, adults with food, allergies, going just to visit friends, can be fraught with worry and concern because the smallest amount of what you're allergic to that comes into your body can trigger an allergic response. You don't necessarily see it.

[00:00:57]So crosscontamination may contain labels in, you know, supermarkets. Um, all of these things add up to that worry. And when you've got an allergic child and you have to hand them over to people that you don't feel confident really understand exactly how vigilant you have to be, it is absolutely terrifying. And it's a life that um our trustee uh Sir Steven Holgate, he said it very well. He said it's like living on a knife edge >> all the time. Every moment of every day.

[00:01:25]>> Yeah.

[00:01:26]10 million pounds to stop food allergies would be a revolution. It would be extraordinary, wouldn't it? Tell us what you're hoping to do.

[00:01:36]>> Well, as you said, Susanna, no child is born with a food allergy. But there is something that happens in that child's life um either when they're young or as they get older where that reaction is triggered, the immune response triggers.

[00:01:51]And so what we understand from science and what scientists are saying, if we could look at the first 1,000 years of life from conception, sorry, 1,000 days of life from conception to the age of two, that's when the immunes are most plastic. And we can really intervene and look at preventing food allergies from developing in the first