What causes peanut allergies?

Do you have to watch the content of foods you buy and restaurants you eat at to ensure those peanuts are nowhere to be found? Many of us have to do this due to peanut allergies, which can be mild or severe.

But what causes some people to be allergic to peanuts while other eat them all day long? It's striking that in Canada, the number of citizens that have developed a severe peanut allergy has doubled in the last 10 years.

That, to me, points to some kind of environmental influence. Canada's "CanGoFAR" (Canadian Group on Food Allergy Research) is looking at this situation with a group of experts from fields like immunology, pharmacology and toxicology. It should be interesting to see what the group finds.