I got a question can someone who has ate peanuts for years and years and never showed an allergy suddenly develop one ?
I ask because my 2 daughters have severe dog and cat allergies.... Yet are fine with peanuts.. Just wanted to know if something like that was a possibility .. developing one later
My dad developed a potentially life-threatening allergy to pennicillin in his 20's, as did his mom. The same has happened to me.
I used to eat peanuts by the fistfull, but tend to avoid them now, not because the peanuts seem to be the problem, but the oils used in processing them. I noticed that when one brand of mixed nuts caused intestinal distress, but another had not (different oils used in processing--Canola and I do not get along).
If reactions get worse with subsequent exposures, I can see where initial very mild reactions might go unnoticed or be blamed on something else (secondhand smoke in the restaurant), at least until the reaction became severe enough in a specific enough situation to pinpoint the allergen.
Its a really good question, and I won't pretend to be able to give you an authoritative answer. But my non-expert answer would go like this.
I think the answer is probably both yes and no. Yes for people who have an allergic predisposition. People who have true allergies have a condition called atopy, which causes their immune system to go into overdrive and produce too much of something called IgE when they are exposed to everyday substances that don't faze most people. I think about 20% of the population has this characteristic.
Life as an atopic is unpredictable. I have become allergic to things in adulthood that I was not allergic to as a child, and vice-versa.
OTOH, it's hard for me to imagine how a person who is not atopic would one day go into anaphylactic shock from peanuts, but like I said, I am not an expert.