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Natural Health News Articles
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| Posted: 7th August 2004 |
| Food Allergies |
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In medicine, food allergy is hypersensitivity to dietary substances, leading to various types of gastrointestinal complaints. It occurs mainly, but not exclusively, in children. It is a common type of allergy, and is usually treated with an exclusion diet.
Signs and symptoms
Most patients present with diarrhoea after ingesting certain foodstuffs, skin symptoms (rashes), bloating, vomiting and regurgitation. The digestive complaints usually develop within half an hour of ingesting the allergen.
Rarely, food allergy can lead to anaphylactic shock: hypotension (low blood pressure) and loss of consciousness. This is a medical emergency. An allergen associated with this type of reaction is peanut, although latex products can induce similar reactions. Initial treatment is with epinephrine (adrenalin), often carried by known patients in the form of an Epi-pen.
Food allergy is thought to develop easier in patients with the atopic syndrome, a very common combination of diseases: allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis, eczema and asthma. The syndrome has a strong inherited component; a family history of these diseases can be indicative of the atopic syndrome.
Diagnosis
As meals tend to consist of different ingredients, it is not always easy to identify the allergen. Moreover, laboratory diagnosis is imprecise and expensive without a clinical indication which foods may cause the symptoms. Excluding very common allergens is therefore often attempted; in young children, this can be cow's milk (necessitating the use of soya products).
If an allergen cannot be identified, blood tests may help identify a cause. A full blood count is usually normal, but severe causes may reveal eosinophilia. Routine organ markers and electrolytes are usually normal (unless there has been longstanding, severe diarrhea). Total IgE can be elevated. RAST (radio-allergosorbent test) for specific antigens is generally tested in a panel (e.g. |
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