Allergic Reaction to Cashew Nuts, More Severe than Peanuts

Filed in archive Food Allergies on July 21, 2007

If you have allergic reactions to peanuts, you may want to think twice before eating cashew nuts.

A new study found that allergic reaction to cashew nuts is more severe that peanuts.

According to lead author Andrew Clark, as reported in the journal Allergy:

"This is the first study to employ case-matching to compare severity of peanut and cashew nut allergy and demonstrates increased severity of reactions to cashew nut."

Apparently, cashew nuts are being hidden in a wide variety of commonly ingested foods (i.e. Asian meals, sweets, ice cream, cakes, chocolates) and are increasingly being used in commercially prepared pesto sauce instead of pine nuts.

These findings call for clear labeling in food products that contain cashew nuts as ingredient.

Source: NutraIngredients