Discussion on allergies, food & otherwise

I’m sure by now you’ve all read or heard about the latest food allergies study, highlighting how poorly understood the issues are:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/half-of-people-who-think-they-have-a-food-allergy-do-not-study 

As an adult who discovered I do have complex food chemical issues, these over-simplistic reports always make me angry. They seem to cater for maximum outrage from either the ‘utter rubbish’ faction or the ‘just eat any old-fashioned good food’ faction, ignoring the physical distress people like me suffer. 

Well, now it turns out that updated definitions of well-known diseases class them as dysfunctions of the immune system, so in many ways we’re right after all even if we don’t live with traditionally diagnosed ‘allergies’. (My allergy status changes all the time, which frustrates many traditionalists and non-specialists) And recent research in brain chemistry adds further insights: for example, it doesn’t matter how much tweaking of my gut the gastroenterologists want to do (to control minor Crohns damage), it won’t make up for missing neurotransmitters controlling it. 

We’ve got new MOLers since our last discussions on allergies, gluten etc. I’m interested in hearing other people’s thoughts on how you manage, how society manages, if this study changes anything, and anything you’d like to see change in 2019.