The number of people with severe allergic reactions to particular foods is climbing.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 15 million people, and 1 in 13 children in the U.S. has food allergies.

That's an average of about two per classroom across the country. The numbers increased 50 percent between 1997 and 2011.

People who suffer from food allergies can have very serious immune system reactions, anaphylaxis, which have caused about 200,000 emergency room visits per year in the U.S.

Help on the Way

But researchers are fine tuning a possible treatment that could curb the most severe reactions. Tina Dominguez, clinical manager and trainer at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research, said by feeding tiny amounts of the allergens to patients, and slowly increasing the dosage over weeks or months, the body can build up a resistance to the offending foods.

"And by introducing these foods at such a small amount, we're kind of flying under the radar of the immune system," she said. "We're giving them such a small amount that the immune system is not triggering a response, and it's, in a sense, working as a training system for the immune system to see that the food is a non-threat."

The Changing Food System

Dominguez said it's difficult to pin down any single cause of the increasing numbers of food allergy sufferers, because so many genetic and environmental factors could be in play.

But she said changes in agriculture and the food industry over the last few decades have exposed people to new pesticides, food combinations and chemicals that could help provoke these reactions.

"In rural areas, where people are still being raised on farms, and they're being raised on food that is produced within that area, and they're kind of, in a sense, living off the land, you're not seeing the diseases, especially food allergies, that we're seeing in the inner city and the highly populated areas."

The researchers at Stanford are experimenting with wearable "band aid" patches that could slowly release amounts of an allergen to a patient to help them become more tolerant.

Read More:

• The Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research (Stanford University)
• Millions In The U.S. Impacted By Food Allergies, But A Cure May Be On The Horizon (PBS News Hour)
• Why Sean Parker Gave $24 Million To Build A Stanford Allergy Research Center (Forbes)
• Food Allergies: A Hidden Danger for Many Asian-American Kids (KQED)