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Food allergies have become more common in our community, with up to one in ten young children now affected. Reactions can range from mild hives to life threatening anaphylaxis and breathing difficulties. The most common food allergies are to egg, peanut, tree nuts, cow’s milk, fish, shellfish, sesame, wheat and soy.
Food allergy affects families' quality of life, can be lifelong and life-threatening, urging the identification of early modifiable risk factors. Formula feeding in the first days of life may increase the risk of cow's milk allergy, a risk often attributed to cow's milk allergens exposure. Early formula feeding also reduces the colostrum intake, the first 3 days' milk, which is rich in bioactive compounds critical for immune and gut health. This study investigates whether partial colostrum feeding increases the risk of food allergy beyond cow's milk.
Peanut allergy is the most common childhood-onset, persistent food allergy. Peanut oral immunotherapy (OIT) is a potential treatment, but few studies prospectively examine the outcome of peanut OIT in young children using parent-measured doses compared to standard care (peanut avoidance).
The high burden of peanut allergy underscores the need for treatment options that improve patient health-related quality of life (HRQL). However, the modifying effect of sex assigned at birth on treatment-related outcomes remains poorly understood. We sought to investigate whether sex modifies treatment effect on the change in overall and subdomain HRQL during the PPOIT-003 trial.
Meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials have found that introducing eggs and peanuts earlier during infancy reduced egg and peanut allergy risk. Hence, infant feeding advice has dramatically changed from previous recommendations of avoidance to current recommendations of inclusion of common food allergens in infant diets.
In this review, we provide an overview of food allergy genetics and epigenetics aimed at clinicians and researchers. This includes a brief review of the current understanding of genetic and epigenetic mechanisms, inheritance of food allergy, as well as a discussion of advantages and limitations of the different types of studies in genetic research.
Showed for the first time that the presence of an egg-derived allergen in breast milk is associated with a reduced risk of egg allergy in children at 2.5 years of age
Australian infants who received whole-cell pertussis vaccines were less likely to be diagnosed with food allergy in childhood
This study highlights an unpredicted potential risk factor for the development of food allergy, that is, D pteronyssinus allergens in breast milk
Infant feeding practices in Australia have changed over the past decade; a large majority of infants are now fed peanut before 12 months of age