Investigating Food Allergy Frequency Among Native Population and University Students in Gonabad

Allergy is one of the unusual body reactions with the intermediate of immune system. Today, allergy to foods and fresh fruits is one of the world's health problems in developing countries and its incidence has raised like other allergic disorders. The aim of this study is to investigate the allergic reactions, that is, frequency to alimentary allergens, among native population and university students in Gonabad. This is a descriptive and cross-sectional study. We studied 339 patients of native population and of university students who were only residing in Gonabad city to continue their study. Simple random sampling was used for data collection. We used the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) questionnaire to collect data. T-test and Chi-square were applied for data analysis. The results showed that from 339 patients, 57.2% were native population of Gonabad, 35.4% native population of Khorasan Razavi province, and 7.4% non-native population. The frequency of males was 152 (44.8%) with 25.1 of age average and that of females was 187 (55.2%) with 21.1 age average. The frequency of each allergen was as follows: melon (34.2%), saffron (17.4%), eggplant (%16.8), milk (16.2%), garlic (10.9%), grape (8.8%), cantaloupe (8%), soya (8%), kiwi (7.4%), egg (7.1%), banana (5.3%), sesame (2.1%) and hazelnut (1.5%). In our study, the patient's most common allergens were melon, saffron, garlic, grape, cantaloupe, kiwi and eggplant. In most of the cases, food allergies were more frequent in females than in males.