Can you develope a peanut allergy later on in life?

My mom says she suddenly had an allergy to peanuts after university. Is this possible?
I'm eating a lot of peanut butter and would like to know anything useful you can give me.

Steve: It is quite possible to develop allergy at any time in your life. Continued exposure can increase your chances of developing allergy. For example, nurses and other health care professionals are very susceptible to latex allergy. That is because of the latex gloves they are constantly putting on and taking off.
Allergy is a chronic condition caused by a defect in the immune system. What happens is that the body misidentifies a benign protein (in the case of your Mom, from peanuts) as an evil enemy invader (like a germ!) and your body will produce a human immunoglobulin that is specific to that protein. This stimulates the mast cells in the blood to produce histamine, and the histamine results in all those varied symptoms. The person is born with the defect, there is just no telling when or what will cause the misidentifications to start. Because one of your parents has allergies, you have a greater risk of having allergy. Doesn't necessarily mean that you will have the same allergies, but it does raise your chances for having some allergy.
Did that make sense?

You can develop an allergy to anything, without it making much sense.

Something that you have constantly been eating, using, maybe even animals that you have been around..

I learned this from my doctor. I have developed an allergy to something in my lifestyle all of a sudden. (Not to sure what it is yet, trial and error I suppose!)

Yes -- get tested because it could be fatal -- eventually!

Yes, you can indeed get an allergy from anything later in life. If you sort of see any kind of allergic reaction to something like peanut butter, you need to see a doctor immediatley because having an allergic reaction to peanut butter can be very fatal.

yes! I did. I went 20 years without an allergy, then BAM! I was in the E.R. with my throat closing over. I have never had issues with nuts before then. It's weird.