Bizarre Food Allergy Study

Did anyone else catch this?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/06/08...eut/index.html

This article bugs me on so many counts I can hardly articulate. First
there's this: "At three months of age, according to parental reports,
14.2 percent of infants had adverse reactions to food, while 7.2
percent did by one year of age." Could it be that's because a
three-month-old just might have adverse reactions to *any* food due to
immaturity of the digestive tract, rather than because of an
IgE-mediated food allergy?!

And could these rates of children not being actually sensitive to the
foods when tested later be simply because the child's digestive system
had finally become prepared to handle the food in question?!

I suppose it could just be a case of poor reporting rather than a poor
medical study... but yeesh, this seems so very pointless to me...

Andrea Phillips wrote:
Did anyone else catch this?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/06/08...eut/index.html

This article bugs me on so many counts I can hardly articulate. First
there's this: "At three months of age, according to parental reports,
14.2 percent of infants had adverse reactions to food, while 7.2
percent did by one year of age." Could it be that's because a
three-month-old just might have adverse reactions to *any* food due to
immaturity of the digestive tract, rather than because of an
IgE-mediated food allergy?!

And could these rates of children not being actually sensitive to the
foods when tested later be simply because the child's digestive system
had finally become prepared to handle the food in question?!

I suppose it could just be a case of poor reporting rather than a poor
medical study... but yeesh, this seems so very pointless to me...

I would vote for poor reporting. My daughter had food allergy issues
at 2 months, based on what she was getting from my breastmilk, not
because she was injesting food herself. So, it is possible for
"parental reports" to reflect symptoms of food allergy at 3 months.
Perhaps what they need to articulate better is *how* the infants are
being fed potential allergens.

Stacey

"Gorgon Park" wrote in message
ups.com...

Andrea Phillips wrote:
Did anyone else catch this?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/06/08...eut/index.html

This article bugs me on so many counts I can hardly articulate. First
there's this: "At three months of age, according to parental reports,
14.2 percent of infants had adverse reactions to food, while 7.2
percent did by one year of age." Could it be that's because a
three-month-old just might have adverse reactions to *any* food due to
immaturity of the digestive tract, rather than because of an
IgE-mediated food allergy?!

And could these rates of children not being actually sensitive to the
foods when tested later be simply because the child's digestive system
had finally become prepared to handle the food in question?!

I suppose it could just be a case of poor reporting rather than a poor
medical study... but yeesh, this seems so very pointless to me...

I would vote for poor reporting. My daughter had food allergy issues
at 2 months, based on what she was getting from my breastmilk, not
because she was injesting food herself. So, it is possible for
"parental reports" to reflect symptoms of food allergy at 3 months.
Perhaps what they need to articulate better is *how* the infants are
being fed potential allergens.

Stacey


I must admit, I assumed they meant reactions to food coming through breast
milk. In some of the online groups I frequent this seems to be the default
explanation for any issues a baby has. I tried to find a report that
clarified this question, but didn't find one. This one, however, is a little
more detailed:
http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/ng...rom-cow-s-milk

Liz

Liz wrote:

I must admit, I assumed they meant reactions to food coming through breast
milk. In some of the online groups I frequent this seems to be the default
explanation for any issues a baby has. I tried to find a report that
clarified this question, but didn't find one. This one, however, is a little
more detailed:
http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/ng...rom-cow-s-milk

Liz

I guess that's theoretically possible, but the thrust of the
researchers is that overestimating the rate of allergies is dangerous
because it might lead to children becoming malnourished:

""[There is a] need for accurate diagnosis to prevent infants being on
unnecessarily restricted diets, which may be associated with inadequate
nutrition in this important period of growth and development," wrote
the researchers from the University of Portsmouth."

I guess they COULD mean that the children will be missing out on
nutrition in the years to come, but it doesn't sound like that, anyway.


The OTHER part of this that burns me, though, is due to personal
experience; not every adverse reaction to a food is going to come out
in a skin test or one-time oral challenge, because not every adverse
reaction to a food works that way! My daughter has a mild problem with
cow's milk. Doesn't come out in skin or blood tests. She can eat
limited quantities without harm, but you can't tell me that the flaming
red cheeks and the hives all over after she's snuck some yogurt and
string cheese too close together is a *coincidence*, you know?

Since she has that and a peanut allergy to boot, I'm probably a little
sensitive to research about this stuff. Sigh. Still, I can't figure out
what useful point the researchers were trying to clarify, not at under
one year old...

"Andrea Phillips" wrote in message
oups.com...
I guess that's theoretically possible, but the thrust of the
researchers is that overestimating the rate of allergies is dangerous
because it might lead to children becoming malnourished:

""[There is a] need for accurate diagnosis to prevent infants being on
unnecessarily restricted diets, which may be associated with inadequate
nutrition in this important period of growth and development," wrote
the researchers from the University of Portsmouth."

I guess they COULD mean that the children will be missing out on
nutrition in the years to come, but it doesn't sound like that, anyway.

I think what they meant was that in the first year of life parents appear to
be overestimating the rate of allergies in their kids and may actually be
restricting their diets when it is not necessary to do so.

The OTHER part of this that burns me, though, is due to personal
experience; not every adverse reaction to a food is going to come out
in a skin test or one-time oral challenge, because not every adverse
reaction to a food works that way! My daughter has a mild problem with
cow's milk. Doesn't come out in skin or blood tests. She can eat
limited quantities without harm, but you can't tell me that the flaming
red cheeks and the hives all over after she's snuck some yogurt and
string cheese too close together is a *coincidence*, you know?

I'll (kind of) second this. Her milk allergy is (maybe) likely to come out
in a skin prick test but not in an eating challenge. I always suspected that
I was allergic to milk. It was quite obvious when I would feel nauseous
after having a cup of coffee with milk during times of hormonal turmoil (ie.
menstruation). I didn't have a skin prick test for allergies until I was 30
and milk was used as one of the ones I was not supposed to react to. Then
the allregy specialist looks at me and asks "did you know you are allergic
to milk?" The nausea and extremely loose bowel movements after going out for
Mexican suddenly made sense...

Funny thing is, I can drink milk, eat quite a bit of low fat cheese and have
yoghurt. Pizza is usually fine as mozarella is one of the better cheeses for
a milk allergic person to eat. In order for me to fail an eating challenge
designed to spy out this allergy, they'd have to stuff me full of full-fat
cheese (other than mozzarella) and make me drink obscene amounts of milk to
wash it all down. Obviously the amount would have to be scaled down for a
baby, but as you say - unless you follow up one milky treat with another,
there is no sign that anything is wrong at all.

Since she has that and a peanut allergy to boot, I'm probably a little
sensitive to research about this stuff. Sigh. Still, I can't figure out
what useful point the researchers were trying to clarify, not at under
one year old...

The restriciton of wheat, egg, milk, fish, peanut and sesame in the diet of
an under 1 year old, when said restriction may not be necessary.

One nit-pick I would have here is based on my sister's experience. She has
monozygotic twin daughters but one of them is physically underdeveloped
because of twin to twin transfusion and basically being nearly dead at 20
weeks gestation, then they were delivered at 31 weeks and she was only 888 g
(yeah, i know, lucky number in some countries!). Her sister weighed 1034 g
or something similar. My sister tried her with egg at 9 months old and she
had an allergic reaction, while the more robust identical twin did not. My
sister didn't even think of egg in birthday cake but 3 months later both the
twins ate some store-bought sponge cake and there was no sign of a reaction
in either of them. Both of them are now 3 and enjoy eggs in all forms with
no visible signs of any allergy whatsoever. Which, to me, means that an
"allergy" noticed by a parent before a child hits 1 year old may not
eventually be a problem and could be a sign of an immature system not coping
with something *at a specific point in time* rather than something parents
should be chastised for and told they are over-reporting a reaction. These
kids were not tested *when* the reaction was reported but at 1 year old.

Notice that 7.2% of parents were reporting allergies by 1 year of age and
the study showed around 6% actually had an allergy according to the double
blind eating challenge. Not such a great difference at all. While none of
the 14.2% of 3 month olds with reported reactions were tested at that time,
but 9 months later. I know I'm going by the experience of a sample of 1, but
is it not possible that reactions noticed in younger babies may disappear
with time?

Engram wrote:

snip

Notice that 7.2% of parents were reporting allergies by 1 year of age and
the study showed around 6% actually had an allergy according to the double
blind eating challenge. Not such a great difference at all. While none of
the 14.2% of 3 month olds with reported reactions were tested at that time,
but 9 months later. I know I'm going by the experience of a sample of 1, but
is it not possible that reactions noticed in younger babies may disappear
with time?

What we were told by our pediatric gastroenterologist when dealing with
my daughter's allergy, is that there are milestones when infants are
likely to grow out of their allergies by: 1 year, 2 years and 5 years
were the numbers he gave us. So, the majority of those showing food
allergy signs as small infants grow out of them by 1 year. Of those
still with symptoms at 1 year, the majority grow out of them by 2
years, etc. And I would assume that he is looking at a sample of
larger than 1! I didn't ask for studies or anything, I just took him
at his word.

Stacey

"Gorgon Park" wrote in message
oups.com...
What we were told by our pediatric gastroenterologist when dealing with
my daughter's allergy, is that there are milestones when infants are
likely to grow out of their allergies by: 1 year, 2 years and 5 years
were the numbers he gave us. So, the majority of those showing food
allergy signs as small infants grow out of them by 1 year. Of those
still with symptoms at 1 year, the majority grow out of them by 2
years, etc. And I would assume that he is looking at a sample of
larger than 1! I didn't ask for studies or anything, I just took him
at his word.

Thanks Stacey! Glad to hear my sample of 1 stood up to rigorous scientific
testing LOL

This gives me hope that my own sample #2 (ie. DS) will grow out of his
allergy by one of those milestone ages. Even though egg allergy isn't life
threatening, it's hard to stop kids swapping snacks on the playground once
they go to school.

Engram wrote:

This gives me hope that my own sample #2 (ie. DS) will grow out of his
allergy by one of those milestone ages. Even though egg allergy isn't life
threatening, it's hard to stop kids swapping snacks on the playground once
they go to school.



but egg allergy *can* be life-threatening to some people. my DS1 has
life-threatening (anaphylaxis) allergies to egg as well as nuts. and a
little lesser allergies to many, many, many other foods.

--
elizabeth (in australia)
mum to DS1 (3.75 yrs) & DS2 "gorgey" (8.5 mths)


"In raising my children, I have lost my mind but found my soul."
--Lisa T. Shepherd

"arachne" wrote in message
...
Engram wrote:

This gives me hope that my own sample #2 (ie. DS) will grow out of his
allergy by one of those milestone ages. Even though egg allergy isn't
life
threatening, it's hard to stop kids swapping snacks on the playground
once
they go to school.



but egg allergy *can* be life-threatening to some people. my DS1 has
life-threatening (anaphylaxis) allergies to egg as well as nuts. and a
little lesser allergies to many, many, many other foods.

Very scary indeed.

....and on another note ... we're still waiting for that promised update
Elizabeth ... even if it means I have to go to mkb and not af to read it
How are the boys? How are *you*?
Amanda

"arachne" wrote in message
...
but egg allergy *can* be life-threatening to some people. my DS1 has
life-threatening (anaphylaxis) allergies to egg as well as nuts. and a
little lesser allergies to many, many, many other foods.

I'm sorry to hear that, Elizabeth... From what I had read anaphylaxis in egg
allergy is rare, so I wasn't thinking of that particular allergy as being in
quite the same league as peanut, which is almost always associated with
anaphylaxis.