Experts Warn Parents That Food Allergy Tests Do Not Work

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Medindia

Experts have warned parents not to get their children routinely tested for food allergies as these tests do not work well.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)'s guidance due to be released tomorrow will tell parents that there are no alternative tests for food allergies. The watchdog’s report is due to say that there has been a 500% increase in hospital admissions for food allergies since 1990, the Daily Telegraph reported.

"The NICE guideline will say that there is no evidence base for such approaches – and we think that is very helpful because at the moment parents are not only wasting time and money on them, but they also often end up putting their children on very extensive restriction diets following the diagnosis, which can leave them malnourished,” said Dr Adam Fox, consultant paediatric allergist from Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital.

He added that some tests wrongly suggested that kids were allergic to wheat and dairy items leaving them under-nourished. Cow’s milk, fish and shellfish, hens eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, sesame seeds, soy, wheat and kiwi fruit are some of the common food allergies in children.




Read more: http://www.medindia.net/news/Experts-Warn-Parents-That-Food-Allergy-Tests-Do-Not-Work-72470-1.htm

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Actually in tomorrow's Daily Telegraph but I couldn't find the direct link.

[Brickbat]

1. I developed an egg allergy as an adult, about seven years ago. As near as I understand it, it's

impossible to tell exactly what's giving you problems, because it can be a combination or a certain form of the allergen (egg whites plus sulfites, egg whites plus spruce pollen, egg whites scrambled but not baked, scrambled with pollen but OK baked with pollen, etc.) and a sensitivity is not an allergy and an allergy different from a sensitivity.

On the other hand, all I know is I stopped waking up in the middle of the night with hives and feeling my tongue swell and my throat close and my blood pressure drop as soon as I stopped eating eggs. But then again, I've unknowingly had products with eggs in them since then and been fine afterwards.

Allergies and sensitivities are so poorly understood. I also think they're over-diagnosed (such as mine may have been), and that our fear of germs lead to an overly antiseptic way of living.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. The other thing they do not tell you is that taking allergy meds produces "rebound"

so that stopping the meds produce the symptoms you took it for. Hives is a case in point, a problem I have had all my life, and just recently I found there are actually withdrawal symptoms from not taking the meds: hives!

[aquart]

5. I can't eat eggs and citrus in the same day.

If your tongue swelled and you got hives, that sounds like a true IgE reaction and allergy it is. But you're right about there being all kinds of differences in the reaction depending on whether the egg is an ingredient in something else, other allergens being heavy in the air, and let's not forget STRESS. Oh, and where your hormones are that day, too.

It doesn't sound like you were over-diagnosed. The usual is you can eat eggs once every two weeks or so. Unless they are trying to kill you.

I don't know which tests they're condemning. I was tested at the Princeton Brain Bio Center, and gave myself injections for several years, after which I was pretty allergy/sensitivity free for DECADES. Now they seem to be coming back. Especially the problem with eggs.

[LiberalEsto]

6. Do you have to avoid flu shots?

I think some, if not all, flu vaccines are made with eggs.

[chuckrocks]

3. bull

"there are no alternative tests for food allergies." in other words, stop looking for altenatives to our chemicals. they've gone after organics, now they are going to de-bunk alternative medicine. same with heavy metals testing. fortunately most parents of children in the spectrum know enough already to not believe this kind of spin. these are the true beginnings of "death panels"- telling us to just let it go. keep medicating.

-and what has happened to our food supply since 1990? maybe a little less regulation perhaps? keep 'em fat stupid and slow.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

4. More bull.

I know that if I eat pizza it a)comes back up a couple hours later;
b)I feel so crummy from my body fighting the tomato allergy that I have to stay in bed all day.

Fortunately, I figured this out about 35 years ago, when I was a teenager.

Also I grew up in a filthy house with dust, dirt, air pollution from stinking refineries, parents who smoked like a chimneys, a large hairy dog, no air filters or air conditioning, and guess what?


So it's not like my house was TOO CLEAN.

I have a ton of allergies and had a runny nose all thru my childhood.

[aquart]

7. The large hairy dog was a good thing.

If they got it when you were born. Children with pets in the first two years of life are way more resistant to animal allergies and reactions.

[XemaSab]

8. I thought I was the only one with a tomato allergy

The last two times I had spaghetti I ended up at the hospital. :(

[woo me with science]

9. I have long suspected this. nt

[wildeyed]

10. I don't see how eliminating wheat and dairy will leave children undernourished.

We are currently gluten free and it is no big deal as long as we only eat at home. Corn tortillas and brown rice seem to fill the wheat gap nicely. No one going hungry around here.