Food that one finds allergic can cause problems in the respiratory tract according to a group of scientists inspecting children with breathing disorders
IT IS common, knowledge that particles like pollen, moulds, dust mites and animal dander set off asthma attacks in susceptible people, but now a new study establishes the link between food
allergies and respiratory problems.
The study was conducted at the
Johns Hopkin Children's Centre in
Baltimore, Maryland, us, where
responses of 26 children with asthma
and known food allergies were examined. The research team led by Hugh A Sampson, expert in paediatric allergies,
found that these children may fail to
respond well to asthma treatment till
they stop consuming the allergic foods.
When children were fed with food
known to cause allergic reactions, 12 of
the 26 developed respiratory symptoms
like coughing, wheezing and a tightening of the chest, and seven of them
developed a hyper responsive or irritable
airway, a common start to an asthma
attack. The children studied were allergic to common food allergens like cow's milk, eggs, wheat, soya and fish.
There have been previous studies
which have made this asthma-food con-
nection, but this is the first which used
lung-function to test the actual changes
in the children's airways when they had
consumed allergy-causing foods.
Sampson suggests that children who
do not seem to respond to medication
for asthma should be tested for food
allergies. Such tests involve placing the
child on a highly restrictive diet and
then reintroducing the allergic foods
one by one. When deciding which children were to be tested, the researchers chose those who had a history of skin
rashes and those whose parents thought
that eating a particular food made the
asthma worse.
In 1988, Elio Novembre and his colleagues from the University of Florence in Italy, conducted a study on 140 children with asthma. They reported that after consuming allergy-provoking
foods, 13 of the children had respiratory
symptoms and eight had an asthmatic
reaction.
Another study conducted the same
year reported that allergies linked to
inhaled substances led to a decline in
lung function later in life. Under Daniel
J Gottlieb, Boston University Medical
Centre researchers studied 1,035 men
who did not have asthma and who were
around 61 years in age. They were given
lung function and skin allergy tests and
then three years later they were tested
once again. It was found that people
with allergic reactions to one or more
airborne allergens were more likely to
experience a decline in lung function
than men who were riot allergic.
Suggests Gottlieb, "allergy may be one
factor that predisposes people to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease",
emphysema and chronic bronchitis as
they get older.
The main cause of asthma is cigarette smoking, though attacks may
occur due to airborne allergens independent of smoking. Findings suggest
that people with inhalant allergies may
avoid chronic respiratory disease in the
later part of life if they receive proper
medical treatment to control their allergies and avoid smoking.
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