Introduction

Within the European Union, about 1 in 100 adults and nearly 1 in 10 children have some form of food allergy.

Allergies in general have become much more common in the last 20 years, but we don't know whether this increase applies to food allergies. Studying allergic reactions to food is very complicated as, unlike other allergic diseases such as hay fever, most foods are cooked and consist of many different ingredients.

PROTALL established a European network of over 30 scientists with expertise relevant to studying the problems of food allergy, with funding from the European Union until December 2001. The network ‘PROTALL' brought together clinicians, food scientists and plant biologists. It examined the relationship between the allergenic potential of plant food proteins, their molecular structures and biological activities. It also investigating the effect of processing and interactions between proteins and other food components, such as fats, on allergenicity.

The PROTALL project, FAIR-CT98-4356, was co-ordinated by Dr Clare Mills at the Institute of Food Research, UK.

PROTALL ended in December 2001