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Food allergies of children :

Adults and children appear unequal in food allergy. If only 3.5% of adults are subjects, nearly 10% of children are affected. How to recognize the symptoms? What are the foods most often implicated? What treatments focus? The point with Doctissimo.

The digestive tract has a very rich local immune system at the mucosal completed by draining lymph node is very important. This system protects the body from viral antigens, bacterial and parasitic an effective immune response that seeks to eliminate. The immune system must recognize the food protein to accept their passage through the mucosa. A food actually contains many proteins. Many of them turn out to be allergens. A food can contain forty different allergens.

A predisposition to allergy :

Natural tolerance to foreign food proteins is a characteristic biological entirely original. In some children, there is a family plot called "atopic". Atopy is a genetic predisposition to develop antibodies against IgE class natural allergens (proteins of the environment) contacting the body by natural means: skin and mucous membranes (respiratory, digestive).

Milk and inflammation :

Food allergens are the first natural allergens in contact with the body. Indeed, we know that food allergens pass, the trace in breast milk. These very low levels of dietary protein are probably the baby's immune system to implement its immunological tolerance. In the case of atopy, there is probably a runaway process and the creation of a food allergy. It is possible that food allergy is also favored by the existence of an inflammation of the intestinal mucosa under the influence of various factors (viral infections, stress response, destruction of the intestinal flora, irritation of the gastrointestinal mucosa, presence of a parasitic or intestinal candidiasis and causes of the increase in intestinal permeability to protein food).

Symptoms :

The infant may become aware of the food very early, even in utero during pregnancy. Food allergy in infants often reaches the digestive tract (vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain). It can cause total villous atrophy with persistent diarrhea, as is the case with gluten intolerance. In the older child, the symptoms are very diverse: anaphylaxis, hives, swelling of lips and tongue, atopic dermatitis, diarrhea, vomiting, colic, eczema, asthma, recurrent ENT infections, etc.. The share of food allergy in anaphylactic shock example is 3 to 15%. In asthma, it accounts for 8% of crises. In atopic dermatitis (eczema), some argue the numbers from 30 to 50%. Atopic dermatitis is the most severe, the more likely a food allergy is involved.