When Your Child’s Food Allergy Just Isn’t
Posted On November 26, 2010
Our children have allergies to everything!!
But, this study argues that … just maybe … what everyone’s got is not “food allergies,” but an overabundance of “food allergy mis-diagnosis!!”
Please forward this article to your friends. 
Many children’s diets are being unnecessarily restricted due to overreliance on blood tests for food allergies, claims a new study in the Journal of Pediatrics.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said late last year that there has been an 18 percent rise in the prevalence of food allergies among US children from 1997 to 2007. Parents of almost four percent of American children report a food or digestive allergy in their child.
This latest study challenged the suspected food allergies of 125 children. Together, the children in the study were avoiding 177 different foods, primarily due to blood test results. The authors explained that immunoassays can be difficult to interpret, none is 100 percent accurate, and the tests’ ability to predict true food allergy has only been validated for five foods: Hen eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, cow’s milk and fish.
Depending on the reason for food avoidance, 84 to 93 percent of foods were restored to children’s diets following oral food challenges.
Senior author and Edelstein chair of pediatric allergy and clinical immunology at National Jewish Health Donald Leung said: “When you are able to restore foods such as dairy products, egg, peanut, wheat, and vegetables to a child’s diet, it improves their nutrition, reduces the need for expensive substitute foods and makes meal time easier for families.”
The authors performed oral food challenges for 71 foods where the existence of a true food allergy was ambiguous. In 86 percent of those cases, the child passed the food challenge and the food was restored to the child’s diet. Sixty-six of the 177 foods avoided because of blood tests were restored to children’s diets.
Overall, the study led to 325 foods being restored to the diets of 125 children.
Lead author of the study and assistant professor of pediatrics at National Jewish Health David Fleischer said: “People with known food allergies, especially those with a history of anaphylactic reactions, should by all means avoid those foods. However, a growing number of patients referred to our practice are being placed on strict, unproven food-elimination diets that have led to poor weight gain and malnutrition. These overly restrictive diets have been chosen for a variety of reasons, but overreliance on immunoassay tests appears to be the most common cause.”
Study suggests over-diagnosis of food allergy in children
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About The Author
Will Clower
One Comment
It's important to be careful though: just because something doesn't send you into anaphylactic shock (an allergic reaction) doesn't mean that you do not have a sensitivity to a certain food. Food sensitivities can be the underlying cause of minor chronic symptoms (at least in my case). They don't kill you, and eating them once won't cause a reaction, but when consumed regularly there are symptoms in the long-run. I speak from experience. 🙂
But I think before eliminating anything from one's diet for any reason whatsoever, one should visit a nutritionist and understand what they SHOULD be eating to make sure they're getting everything they need.