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Doctors say that misdiagnosed food allergies in children are on the rise, apparently because of false positives on common allergy blood tests, reports the New York Times. These blood tests may only accurately identify allergies in 50 percent of the cases, leading to children being put on unnecessarily restrictive diets. Kids who are allergic to peanuts, for example, could test positive for soy, green bean, pea and kidney beans because they have similar proteins. One doctor even had a case where a child was being fed through a feeding tube because he'd been diagnosed as allergic to ALL foods. Once more accurate tests were performed, 20 foods were immediately declared safe.
"The only true test of whether you're allergic to a food or not is whether you can eat it and not react to it," says pediatrician Dr. David Fleischer.
Moreover, some doctors now think that introducing potentially allergenic foods like peanuts and shellfish is better done earlier than delaying until the currently recommended 2 or 3 years, as early exposure may reduce allergy risk.
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2-04-2009 @12:36PM Dr. Electro said... My wife is allergic to peanuts. We have to be careful with even some basic foods. It amazes us how peanut residue can sneak into such a wide variety of foods that do not contain peanuts. We keep her allergy pills handy just in case.
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2-04-2009 @1:24PM Astin said... The whole concept of not feeding possible allergy-related foods to babies always struck me as backwards and dumb. If the body hasn't been exposed to something, especially in those formative years, then it will treat it as a foreign particle and react accordingly. Only through exposure can an immunity be built up.
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2-04-2009 @2:16PM Stephanie said... "Only through exposure can immunity be built up." -- This is not a case of insufficient immunity, this is a case of over-immunity.
Anyway, I think the real crux is that no one understands why allergies have increased so much over recent years, so how to prevent them is equally a challenge. Our son has out grown 2 known (i.e., he reacted to) allergies and will be challenged soon for peanut (which he has never had and therefore never reacted to, but has tested positive for). We are crossing our fingers that those tests were all false positives.
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2-07-2009 @4:22PM Rt said... Perhaps mothers should eat peanuts when they gestate/breast-feed?
I was diagnosed as having allergies to lettuce and potato (I ate both regularly). As I was not about to abandon either (there were no serious complications) I was was advised "give them up for six weeks, sometimes the body resets".
What do I know?
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