Milk, egg allergies harder to outgrow: study

Milk, egg allergies harder to outgrow: study
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Childhood allergies to milk and eggsappear to be harder to outgrow than in the past, U.S.researchers said on Wednesday.
While they were often outgrown by age 3 two decades ago,such allergies often persist into late childhood, researchersat Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, Maryland,report in two studies in the Journal of Clinical Immunology.
"The bad news is that the prognosis for a child with a milkor egg allergy appears to be worse than it was 20 years ago,"Dr. Robert Wood, health of allergy and immunology, said in astatement.
"Not only do more kids have allergies, but fewer of themoutgrow their allergies, and those who do, do so later thanbefore."
Wood and colleagues examined medical records of more than800 children with milk allergies and nearly 900 with eggallergies over a 13-year period.
Among children in the study with milk allergies, they foundthat by age 4, less than 20 percent of them had become able totolerate milk, and by age 8, only 42 percent had outgrown theallergy.
That compared with prior studies, which suggested 75percent of children would overcome their milk allergies by age3.
The researchers found a similar trend with egg allergies.Just 4 percent outgrew this allergy by age 4, and just 37percent outgrew it by age 10.
Many of these children eventually did outgrow theirallergies, however, with 79 percent of the milk allergy groupand 68 percent of the egg allergy group outgrowing theirallergies by age 16.
And the studies found that some children were able to losetheir allergies during adolescence, suggesting thatpediatricians should keep testing older children.
The researchers said their findings may reflect the factthat they tend to see kids with more severe allergies. Theyalso believe food allergies today are more aggressive but theydo not know why.
"Our impression is that the disease is behaving differentlythan it did before," Wood said in a telephone interview.
Milk allergy is the most common childhood allergy,affecting 2 percent to 3 percent of young children. Egg allergyis the second most common, affecting 1 percent to 2 percent ofyoung children, the researchers said.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Maggie Fox andCynthia Osterman)