Study: Milk and Egg Allergies Harder to Outgrow

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Study: Milk and Egg Allergies Harder to Outgrow

Prognosis for kids is worse than it was 20 years ago; scientists don't

know why

By Katerina Pesheva

s Hopkins Medicine

http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2007/17dec07/17milkandegg.html

Considered " transitional " a generation ago, milk and egg allergies now

appear to be more persistent and harder to outgrow, according to new

research from the s Hopkins Children's Center.

In what are believed to be the largest studies to date of children with

milk and egg allergies, researchers followed more than 800 patients with

milk allergy and nearly 900 with egg allergy over 13 years, finding

that, contrary to popular belief, most of these allergies persist well

into the school years and beyond. Reports on the two studies appear in

the November and December issues of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical

Immunology.

" The bad news is that the prognosis for a child with a milk or egg

allergy appears to be worse than it was 20 years ago, " said lead

investigator Wood, professor and head of allergy and immunology

at s Hopkins Children's Center. " Not only do more kids have

allergies, but fewer of them outgrow their allergies, and those who do,

do so later than before. "

Researchers caution that their findings may reflect the fact that

relatively more severe cases end up at s Hopkins Children's Center,

but they believe there is a trend toward more severe, more persistent

allergies.

The findings also give credence to what pediatricians have suspected for

some time: More recently diagnosed food allergies, for still-unknown

reasons, behave more unpredictably and more aggressively than cases

diagnosed in the past.

" We may be dealing with a different kind of disease process than we did

20 years ago, " Wood said. " Why this is happening, we just don't know. "

Earlier research suggested that three-quarters of children with milk

allergy outgrew their condition by age 3, but the s Hopkins team

found that just one-fifth of children in their studies outgrew their

allergy by age 4, and only 42 percent outgrew it by age 8. By age 16, 79

percent were allergy-free.

Similar trends were seen in the egg-allergy group. Only 4 percent

outgrew this allergy by age 4, 37 percent by age 10 and 68 percent by

age 16.

The s Hopkins team found that a child's blood levels of milk and egg

antibodies --- the immune chemicals produced in response to allergens

--- were a reliable predictor of disease behavior: The higher the level

of antibodies, the less likely it was that a child would outgrow the

allergy anytime soon. When counseling parents about their child's

prognosis, pediatricians should use antibody test results, the

researchers say.

One encouraging finding: Some children lost their allergies during

adolescence, which is later than believed possible, suggesting that

doctors should continue to test patients well into early adulthood to

determine if they may have lost their allergies.

Milk and egg allergies are the two most common food allergies in the

United States, affecting 3 percent and 2 percent of children, respectively.

Co-investigators in the two studies are Skripak, Savage,

Matsui and Kim Mudd, all of s Hopkins Children's Center.

The studies were funded in part by the National Institutes of Health and

supported by the Eudowood Foundation, the Food Allergy Initiative and

and Neil Reinhard. Wood is a consultant for Dey Pharmaceuticals

and has received support from Merck and Genentech.

GO TO DECEMBER 17, 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS.

http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2007/17dec07/

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