PHILADELPHIA, June 30, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Food allergies don’t just cause a rash or a stomach ache. For some, it’s a life-threatening reaction, and that number is on the rise.

Researchers found that 1 in 12 children are affected by some form of food allergy; 40% of those suffering have a history of severe reactions, according to the journal Pediatrics. The study found that the most common food allergies were peanuts, milk and shellfish.

For parents of children with food allergies, just sending their child to school catapults a fury of anxiety: Will the teacher remember? What if they serve snacks? Do the other children understand? What if they get too close to something in the cafeteria lunches? There’s also the added sense of embarrassment for children and especially teenagers suffering food allergies.

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The number of Australian children with type 1 diabetes is already high by international standards, but the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates the number will jump a further 10 per cent by 2013.

The findings come amid calls for annual kidney screening tests to pick up the early signs of kidney disease helping those with type 2 or adult-onset diabetes.

Australian children to the age of 14 already have an unenviable rate of type 1 diabetes. In 2008, 138 children per 100,000 were counted as having the disease.

AIHW spokeswoman Anne-Marie Waters says the situation is going to get worse.

“We’ve also projected the prevalence to 2013 and predicted that it will rise by about 10 per cent by that time, so the rates we are predicting will actually rise from about 140 cases per 100,000 children to about 153 cases per 100,000 children,” she said.

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Has your allergic reaction to a medication been properly recorded in your medical records so you are not at risk in future? Health reporter Elspeth McLean has some advice from her own experience of medication that didn’t agree with her.

When you are a health reporter, it is sometimes hard not to be a hypochondriac.

You get to learn a dangerous little about far too many illnesses and, in the middle of the night, it is easy to think any ache or pain is whatever it is you last wrote about.

Death, an urgent hospital trip, or, at the very least, months of debilitating treatment seem imminent. Disease of the week syndrome, I call it. Usually, it is complete nonsense, but in one instance my concern might have been worthwhile.

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Parents who feed their infants solid foods or cow’s milk before the age of four months could put them at lower risk for peanut allergy, according to a new study.

Researchers said introducing solids early on could ‘kick-start’ the immune system, making children with a family history of allergies about five times less likely to develop sensitivity.

In contrast, experts generally recommend mothers breastfeed infants for the first six months because it is the best form of nutrition.

The study, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology last month, was conducted on 594 children, whose mothers were interviewed about feeding practices when they were one, six, and 12 months old.

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YARMOUTH — On Monday, hospitals in southwestern Nova Scotia began placing yellow wristbands on patients considered to be at high risk of falling.

The wristbands carry the words “fall risk” in large black letters and will let all health-care providers know that fall prevention cautions should be taken, said Barbara Johnson of SouthWest Health.

For more than a year now, each patient admitted to Digby General Hospital and Yarmouth Regional Hospital, as well as Roseway Hospital in Shelburne, has been assessed to help identify any fall risk.

Records show that 401 hospital patient falls were reported in 2009-10 by the three hospitals.

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