Milk allergy is the most common food allergy in children. And according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention food allergies in children have risen 18 percent in the last decade, with 3 million children in the United States having at least one food allergy. Having an allergy to milk can be difficult for children since milk products are extremely prevalent in the U.S. But scientists at Johns Hopkins and Duke universities are working on a solution. Their recent research suggest that daily exposure to milk powder can enhance the body’s tolerance to milk proteins. This technique, called oral immunotherapy, “gradually retrains the immune system to completely disregard or to better tolerate the allergens in milk that previously caused allergic reactions,” study senior investigator Dr. Robert Wood, director of Allergy and Immunology at Hopkins Children’s, said in a hospital news release. “Albeit preliminary and requiring further study, these results suggest that oral immunotherapy may be the closest thing yet to a true treatment for food allergy.”
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Tags: allergy, duke, food, immune, immunotherapy, johns hopkins, milk, protein, tolerance
Dr. Steven Chang, the author of DailyDose, is a staff physician with Kosmix RightHealth. Dr. Chang practices Family Medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center, where his medical interests include both pediatric and geriatric care, public health, gay and lesbian health, and sleep medicine. Dr. Chang trained at the Stanford University affiliated O'Connor Hospital, and was a research fellow at the National Institute of Health. He holds an M.D. from McGill University and a BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.
November 6th, 2008 at 11:06 am
When I had milk allergies, my doctor told me to mix non-dairy coffee creamer just like you do powdered milk. I did, and it worked. I used it in my cooking and baking, and even on cereal.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Carol, so are you now free of your milk allergy? How long did you use the powdered creamer before you were able to tolerate whole milk?
September 1st, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Wow I’m so glad that I read this post.