US children itching and scratching more
May 7, 2013, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
PARENTS are reporting more skin and food allergies in their children, a big US government survey has found.
Experts aren't sure what's behind the increase. Could it be that children are growing up in households so clean that it leaves them more sensitive to things that can trigger allergies? Or are mom and dad paying closer attention to rashes and reactions, and more likely to call it an allergy?
"We don't really have the answer," says Dr Lara Akinbami of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the senior author of the new report released last Thursday.
The CDC survey suggests that about 1 in 20 US children have food allergies. That's a 50-percent increase from the late 1990s. For eczema and other skin allergies, it's 1 in 8 children, an increase of 69 percent. It found no increase, however, in hay fever or other respiratory allergies.
Food allergies tend to be most feared; severe cases may cause anaphylactic shock or even death from eating, say, a peanut. But many food allergies are milder and something children grow out of. Skin conditions like eczema, too, can be mild and temporary.
It's been difficult getting exact numbers for children's allergies, and the new report isn't precise. It uses annual surveys of thousands of adults interviewed in person. The report compares answers from 1997-1999 to those from 2009-2011.
Parents were asked if - in the previous year - their child had any kind of food or digestive allergy, any eczema or skin allergy, or any kind of respiratory allergy like hay fever.
The researchers did not ask if a doctor had made the diagnosis or check medical records. So some parents may have been stating a personal opinion, and not necessarily a correct one.
"We see a lot of kids in clinic that really aren't" allergic to the foods their parents worry about, says Dr Morton Galina, a pediatric allergist at Atlanta's Emory School of Medicine.
For example, hives are sometimes blamed on a certain food when a virus was the actual cause, he adds.
But experts also said they believe there is a real - and unexplained - increase going on, too.
One of the more popular theories is "the hygiene hypothesis," which says that exposure to germs and parasites in early childhood somehow prevents the body from developing certain allergies.
Air pollutant one of the causes
The hypothesis argues that there is a downside to America's culture of disinfection and overuse of antibiotics. The argument has been bolstered by a range of laboratory and observational studies, including some that have found lower rates of eczema and food allergies in foreign-born children in the US.
There could be other explanations, though. Big cities have higher childhood allergy rates, so maybe some air pollutant is the unrecognized trigger, says Dr Peter Lio, a Northwestern University pediatric dermatologist who specializes in eczema.
Some suspect the change has something to do with the evolution in how foods are grown and produced, like the crossbreeding of wheat or the use of antibiotics in cattle. But Lio says tests haven't supported that.
Emory's Galina said the new CDC statistics may reflect a recent "sea change" in the recommendations for when young children should first eat certain foods.
In families with a history of eczema or food allergies, parents were advised to wait for years before introducing their young children to foods tied to severe allergies, like peanuts, milks and eggs.
The CDC report also found:
? Food and respiratory allergies are more common in higher-income families than the poor.
? Eczema and skin allergies are most common among the poor.
? More black children have the skin problems, 17 percent, compared to 12 percent of white children and about 10 percent of Hispanic children.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
