Milk, Egg Allergies Harder to Outgrow

In the past, people believed that you could 'outgrow' an allergy to milk or eggs. Not so, said researchers in a recent press release. Once someone has developed allergies to milk or eggs, these are much harder to outgrow than previously thought.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Children's Center detailed their findings in one of the largest studies watched whether or not children who had milk and egg allergies would outgrow them. Their discovery was startling.

The children who participated in the study were followed for 13 years. It included more than 800 children who were allergic to milk, and nearly 900 children who were allergic to eggs.

Rather than outgrowing their allergies, researchers determined that the allergies stayed with the children throughout their lives. Indeed, once a child has an allergy to eggs or milk, it is more likely to get worse than go away, said the researchers.

"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. Not only do more kids have allergies, but fewer of them outgrow their allergies, and those who do, do so later than before," said Robert Wood, M.D., head of Allergy & Immunology at Hopkins Children's and the lead author of this report.

Perhaps even more concerning is the fact that researchers have discovered a looming problem with allergies. They're not getting better. Overall, they're getting worse. The number of children who have allergies has increased.

The allergies are now more unpredictable, and they're also more aggressive allergies that physicians had seen in the past.

Many physicians are even questioning why they are seeing such dramatic changes in allergens and allergic reactions.

Before this research study, earlier studies had shown that most children grew out of their allergy to milk by the time they were only 3 years old. The current study shows that at age 3, only 1/5th of the children had outgrown their milk allergy.

By the time these children were 8, less than half, or 42 percent, had outgrown their allergy to milk. It took until age 16 for 79 percent of the children involved in this study to outgrow their allergy to milk.

Researchers found similar trends for those children who were allergic to eggs. When they were 4 years old, only 4 percent of the children in this study had outgrown their allergy to eggs.

At age 10, just over a third, or 37 percent, had outgrown their egg allergy. By the time they were 16 years old, over half, 68 percent, had outgrown their allergy to eggs.

This study has been published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Source:
http://www.newswise.com/p/articles/view/536213/