Protecting families from contaminated food and water
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Protecting families from contaminated food and water
Posted in Our Blog on July 15, 2026
Are adult acquired allergies a thing?
As a child, I have distinct memories of eating Sno Balls. Sno Balls are a Hostess product made up of a cream filled chocolate cake covered in dyed, shaved coconut flakes. They were a little messy, a lot fun, and very tasty.
Fast forward to college, about the age of 21, at a friend’s party. I was served a delicious adult beverage with a certain coconut flavored rum. Despite the tasty, tropical flavor, my mouth was suddenly on fire! I had blisters forming in my mouth. Talk about a party foul.
Though, at the time I thought I was coming down with something and immediately left the party. I didn’t immediately make the connection. By the next day, the blisters were healing. Nothing spread. No big deal.
But then, it happened again.
Enough time had passed that I didn’t really make an initial connection. But this time I took a moment to reflect back on the last time it happened. I was at the same friend’s house. The friend who’s favorite drink happened to be Coconut Rum. Other than the drink that I generally didn’t order for myself, I had not consumed anything out of the ordinary.
Coincidence?
Unlikely.
I put two and two together and figured I might be allergic to something in the signature cocktail.
Awhile later, a similar reaction happened while eating at a Thai restaurant while eating a curry dish. A curry dish that used coconut milk. Now the common factor was abundantly clear.
I am allergic to coconut!
But how? I wasn’t allergic to it as a child. Turns out, it is possible to develop food (and other) allergies over time, even as an adult.
This is confusing, and in my personal opinion, quite annoying.
Countless stories can be found on the Internet about adult acquired allergies.
While most people won’t experience the gain, or even loss of allergies in their adult years, it is also not completely unusual, said Dr. Shradha Agarwal. There is no clear explanation for allergies waxing or waning, especially in adulthood.
“There is a lot of mystery in allergy,” Dr. Agarwal said.
An allergy can be described as an immune response to an allergen. An allergen can be something as inane as pollen, animal dander, and foods like peanuts, shellfish, or in my case – coconut. Allergens can also be in the form of medications or chemicals.
When your immune system perceives this “allergen,” your body treats it as a threat and attacks it. This creates a code in your immune system that cues your body to react in that way every time it encounters that “allergen.”
Symptoms vary from person to person in both reaction and severity depending on the particular person, type of exposure, and immune response.
Common allergic reactions include:
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 26 percent of adults and 19 percent of children in the United States suffer from seasonal allergies related to pollen and other common outdoor allergens. About 6% of adults and children have food allergies.
The nature of allergies is complex, says Dr. Corinne Keet, a professor of pediatric allergy immunology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. It all comes down to your unique genes as well as what kinds of allergens you are exposed to, and when.
The most common initiation happens during periods where your immune system is disrupted or affected. Puberty, pregnancy, transient or chronic illnesses, or organ transplants “can change your allergic responses to things that you previously tolerated,” says Keet.
It isn’t clear exactly how common it is for different kinds of allergies to develop during adulthood, said Dr. Ruchi Gupta, a professor of pediatrics who specializes in allergy at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Some research, however, has been done on food allergies.
One particular survey published in 2018 included data from more than 40,000 adults in the United States. Dr. Gupta and her colleagues found that around 45 percent of those who indicated having food allergies went on to develop at least one new food allergy during adulthood.
Even more surprising was the 25% of that group that indicated that they did not have ANY food allergies as children.
This has researchers puzzling the next question. What might cause adults to develop an allergy to a food that they have eaten before without reaction. According to Dr. Gupta, there is no answer right now.
If an allergy can suddenly appear in adulthood. Could the opposite be true?
Can allergies acquired in youth disappear in adults?
According to Dr. Jyothi Tirumalasetty, a practicing allergist and clinical assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University, the answer is yes.
“Losing” an allergy, or becoming “desensitized” to an allergen actually happens quite frequently, says Dr. Tirumalasetty. Especially beginning around (or after) middle age.
Our immune responses “quiet down,” becoming weaker and less vigorous as we age, she says.
Not all adult allergies have a high likelihood of resolving in middle age. Seasonal allergies or certain medical allergies such as penicillin allergies tend to less or disappear over time. Also, certain food allergies such as tree nuts, fish, and shellfish allergies are not commonly resolved. But milk and egg allergies often disappear with age.
An estimated 50 percent to 80 percent of children with milk or egg allergies outgrown them by the age of 10, says Dr. Gupta.
If allergies can be acquired or lost with age, the next logical question is whether or not allergies can be prevented in the first place.
At this time, there is no real answer to that question.
There is research focusing on food allergy prevention in children, says Dr. Gupta. But this research will lend very little to insight in preventing new allergies in adults, as the focus is on the growing and changing new immune system.
At the end of the day, says Dr. Keet, you can’t really control whether you develop a new allergy as an adult. So, she says, “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
If you have allergies that you know about, keep a look out on packaging to make informed food decisions and pay attention to recalls for undeclared allergens.
If you’d like to know more about food safety topics in the news, like “Adult Acquired Allergies: Can You Acquire or Even Lose Allergies as an Adult?,” check out the Make Food Safe Blog. We regularly update trending topics, foodborne infections in the news, recalls, and more! Stay tuned for quality information to help keep your family safe, while The Lange Law Firm, PLLC strives to Make Food Safe!
By: Heather Van Tassell (contributing writer, non-lawyer)