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 After their parents were given six months of dietary counseling,
children with food allergies began getting more key nutrients and
eating as many calories as their peers without any food
restrictions.
Food allergies cause the body’s immune system to have an abnormal
reaction like vomiting, diarrhea, eczema or asthma to certain foods.
But avoiding these foods means sacrificing the energy and nutrients
they provide.
Researchers estimate that certain nutrient-rich foods such as cow’s
milk, hen’s eggs, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, fish and shellfish
are responsible for 90 percent of childhood food allergies.
“A wide variety of foods are needed for normal growth,” said Lynn
Christie, a dietician at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little
Rock, who was not involved in the study.
Christie explained that children grow very fast during the first
three or four years of life and being unable to eat these foods
could keep them from getting enough calories and nutrients. That
might have permanent consequences such as stunted growth, a reduced
IQ and poor math skills.
For the new study, researchers recruited 157 children between six
months and three years of age from two health centers in Italy. All
of the children were generally healthy.
Ninety-one of the kids had food allergies and were being kept away
from the foods that caused their allergic reactions. Parents of
these children had never received counseling for their child’s
dietary needs.
The other 66 children did not have a food allergy and were used as a
comparison group.
At the beginning of the experiment, researchers used blood and other
laboratory tests to evaluate what nutrients the children were
getting from their current diets. They also had all parents keep a
food diary and record everything their child consumed for three
days.
Initially, the children without a food allergy had higher levels of
nutrients like zinc and calcium and ate more calories per day than
the children who had allergies. Protein consumption was about twice
as high among children without a food allergy, on average.
The food diaries were evaluated by a dietician and parents of
children in the food allergy group received personalized counseling.
Counselors used the child’s weight, dietary history and energy
requirements to determine what kinds of changes to the diet could be
feasibly made.
For instance, the parents of a child allergic to cow’s milk might be
advised on the appropriate amount of a substitute formula to
provide.
Parents of the children in the food allergy group met with the
dietician to receive further counseling two and four months into the
experiment.
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Finally, at six months, the researchers ran all of the initial tests
on the children with food allergies again and found there was a
significant increase in their total calorie intake as well as
carbohydrate, protein, iron, fiber, calcium and zinc levels.
There were no children with food allergies who did not get help from
a dietician and this makes it difficult for the researchers, led by
Dr. Roberto Canani of the University of Naples “Federico II” in
Italy, to prove that the counseling itself led to the changes. But
the report is supported by previous research that monitored
differences in the growth of children with food allergies.
Having very few parents drop out of the study signified that the
counseling was well received, the team reports in the Journal of the
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
The first step toward making dietary counseling useful in the U.S.
is making sure children with allergies are properly diagnosed,
Christie said.
According to the nonprofit organization Food Allergy Research and
Education, food allergies affect one in every 13 children and the
number of children with food allergies is growing, though
researchers aren’t sure why.
Christie said registered dietitians that specialize in pediatrics
are the best choice for diet counseling because they can identify
where the problems are and provide safe, inexpensive alternatives
that work for an individual household.
“Health insurance in the U.S. needs to cover counseling by a
registered dietician any time changing the diet is part of a medical
treatment,” she said.
She said nutrition interventions may require several appointments to
ensure dietary recommendations are acceptable and address any new
problems.
“Changing how one eats requires stepwise intervention,” she said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1kEsMx7
Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, online June 5,
2014.
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