Towards prevention of allergy through an integrated multidisciplinary approach

Both food- and environmentally-related allergies are a continually growing health problem, particularly in the western world. The exact causes and the additional environmental and social factors that play a role in the onset of these illnesses are still poorly understood. While sufferers of allergy remain a minority in society, the reduction of their quality of life and the financial consequences for society as a whole are of major significance. Allergy is an illness that confronts the sufferer on a daily basis with his or her life style limitations. The direct and indirect annual costs to society (medical care, sick leave, loss of earnings, reduced productivity] are already running well into billions of euros. A complicating factor is that there are many kinds of allergy, with many different causes, requiring several approaches for treatment. There is no single solution. Much social and scientific research is still needed to generate additional knowledge required to determine a suitable multidisciplinary strategy for the long-term tackling of this problem. Input from a wide range of sources, including social scientists, medics, agronomists and immunologists, is essential to fully assess the situation and to assist in determining long-term policy decisions at a national level. This multidisciplinarity calls for broad support from different sections of government, industry and societal bodies to achieve the desired goal of reversing the rise in the number of allergy sufferers, preferably through prevention rather than cure. In this article we present the most salient items from the presentations and discussions of a workshop on the agronomic approaches to allergy prevention, recently held in the Netherlands.