Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York have found that adding increasing amounts of foods with baked milk into the diets of children who have milk allergies helped most of them outgrow their allergies. The findings appear in the 23 May issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
The team from Mount Sinai’s Jaffe Food Allergy Institute studied 88 children, ages 2 to 17, diagnosed with milk allergy. The study evaluated their tolerance to foods containing baked milk, such as muffins, waffles and cookies. The high temperatures used in baking can cause the proteins in milk to break down, reducing the allergic potential.
Over a five year period, the researchers used a series of food challenges to introduce the children to foods with progressively less-heated forms of milk. At the end of the study period, nearly half (47%) of the children in the experimental group could tolerate unheated milk products, such as skim milk, yogurt and ice cream, compared to only about a quarter (22%) in a control group.
In the first food challenge, children were given a plain muffin or waffle containing baked milk. After six to 12 months, the 65 of the original 88 children who passed the initial muffin food challenge returned to the clinic for the second food challenge, cheese pizza. Baked cheese is cooked at a lower temperature than baked goods and contains higher amount of milk protein.
After an average of three years, the study participants who showed no reaction to baked cheese returned for the final food challenge, and were given foods with unheated milk such as skim milk, yogurt and ice cream. Of the 65 children who passed the initial muffin challenge, 60 percent could tolerate unheated milk.
Between the challenges, the children’s parents were given guidelines on how to incorporate baked milk or baked cheese products into their kids’ diets.
The overall results indicate that controlled and increased exposure to baked milk products can accelerate the rate at which children outgrow their milk allergies.
Read more: Brain Shown to Have Opposite Reactions to Fructose, Glucose
Photo: Guiri Reyes/Flickr
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