News & Views
Does Covid increase allergies? If you feel like you have had more allergies and greater reactions to food and the environment since having Covid, then you are certainly not alone. We have seen countless people whose allergies have been exacerbated or reignited since contracting the virus. We now see many babies with complex multiple allergies and food/environmental reactions whose mummies had Covid when they were pregnant or during the first trimester. So, I suspect this pesky virus is upregulating allergies in both mother and baby. Not just the classic peanut, egg and milk allergies but an increase in reactions to “healthy” foods like tomatoes, avocadoes and bananas! Random reactions to household cleaning products and skincare products. Symptoms vary from classic allergy reactions like hives and swelling and sneezing through to more generalised rashes, feeling hot, fatigue, dizziness, nausea, muscle aches and pain, chest tightness and brain fog. It can affect sleep patterns and there can be lots of night waking.
This is because Coronavirus is known to cause a cytokine inflammatory storm which leads to mast cell activation and histamine release. There are several papers published on Pubmed about this phenomenon, and it seems to play a big role in those with Long Covid. If you feel you are reacting to more foods/ environmental chemicals since having Covid, then you might want to consider some help from Mother Nature with some changes from a nutritional perspective. • Vitamin C is a key nutrient for mast cell stabilisation • Magnesium helps make DAO (the digestive enzyme, diamine oxidase) which helps to break down histamine in the gut • Vitamin B6 again helps to make DAO • Try mushrooms such as Reishi, Cordyceps, Maitake and Agaricusblazei – these calm an overreactive immune system down • Quercetin stabilises the mast cell membranes & therefore reduces the release of histamine.
Lucinda Miller is the clinical lead of NatureDoc Clinic, a UK-wide nutrition clinic specialising in women’s and child nutrition. She also runs NatureDoc.Shop online as well as being an author of two family cookbooks, The Good Stuff and I Can’t Believe It’s Baby Food.
Lose yourself in a Whispering Wood
Help fund vital research by joining Wear A Hat Day!
Join thousands of children, parents and teachers on Friday 25th March for Wear A Hat Day– a great way to bring people together and raise vital funds for leading charity Brain Tumour Research. Register your school, community or family event today: www.wearahatday.org and we’ll send you a free fundraising pack! Coming at the end of March, Brain Tumour Awareness Month, several celebrities are supporting this hat tastic campaign. The latest set of collectable Wear A Hat Day pin badges have a regal theme in celebration of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee year. Order your box of badges to sell during registration! Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer. This is unacceptable and Brain Tumour Research is determined to change this. Funds raised from Wear A Hat Day will help towards establishing a new Research Centre of Excellence. www.wearahatday.org 4 Families Oxfordshire
Get your year off to a story-filled start at The Story Museum. From monthly clubs like Comic Club and LEGO Masterbuilders, to family shows like Tom Thumb and David Gibb’s family Jukebox there are plenty of regular Saturday events to brighten up the new year. Plus events with leading children’s authors including award-winning performance poet Joseph Coelho and children’s author Catherine Johnson. Or visit the Museum’s Galleries and lose yourself in a Whispering Wood, explore an Enchanted Library and refresh yourself in the Book of Hopes exhibition. Younger ones can get busy in the Small Worlds Gallery themed on picture books, whilst those with a love of travel can board the Story Craft for the City of Stories film experience which travels through a thousand years of Oxford’s story history. Whatever your age, you’ll find something to surprise and delight at this most unusual Museum in the heart of Oxford. www.storymuseum.org.uk
Abingdon Schools learning partnership
Six schools in Abingdon and the surrounding area are set to launch an independent and state school partnership that is mutually beneficial to students and staff at all the schools. John Mason, Radley College, Fitzharrys, Abingdon, St Helen and St Katharine, and Larkmead have worked together very successfully over the last 5 years, on an informal basis, and have now decided to go a step further and formalise their affiliation. Formation of a new, formal partnership named the OX14 Learning Partnership will provide a strategic plan for how the schools can ensure impactful partnership activity takes place. The aim of the partnership is to raise educational aspirations across the OX14 postcode by providing opportunities for students and staff to be challenged, inspired and learn from each other. A range of extracurricular activities and events will encourage collaboration between the schools as well as providing opportunities for widening horizons. For more information visit www.ox14lp.org.uk/ familiesonline.co.uk
