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Thursday, November 5, 2015
Breast-Feeding May Not Help Prevent Allergies in Kids, Study Claims
But at least one pediatrician is skeptical of the finding, and urges mothers to breast-feed.
THURSDAY, Nov. 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Breast-fed children are just as likely to develop allergies as children who were formula-fed, preliminary new research suggests.
But the study, which analyzed medical records from nearly 200 children aged 4 through 18, compared those who were “ever” breast-fed — regardless of duration — with those who had consumed only formula. The results conflict with conventional wisdom indicating that breast-feeding might protect children from a host of infections and other ailments, including allergies.
“We think breast-feeding prevents a lot of allergies, but surprisingly, we found that kids [in both groups] had similar numbers of allergies,” said study author Dr. Quindelyn Cook, a resident physician in pediatrics at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
“Mothers should definitely continue to breast-feed,” Cook added. “Definitely this would need to be studied on a larger scale.”
Cook’s study is to be presented Thursday at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology annual meeting, in San Antonio, Texas. Research presented at scientific conferences typically hasn’t been peer-reviewed or published, and results are considered preliminary.
Food, skin and respiratory allergies are among the most common medical conditions affecting children in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Occurring when the immune system reacts to environmental substances normally considered harmless, skin and food allergies among children increased substantially between 1997 and 2011, according to the CDC.
Cook and her colleagues reviewed medical charts for 194 patients at a pediatric allergy and immunology clinic over four years who were diagnosed with hay fever allergies confirmed by a skin prick test. The children were split into two groups, including 134 who had ever been breast-fed and 60 who had exclusively consumed formula.
Both groups had similar numbers of kids with hay fever, asthma, the skin condition eczema and food allergies.
But one pediatrician said comparing children who had “ever” been breast-fed with formula-fed children was not valuable when analyzing the link between allergies and infant feeding.
“Many moms breast-feed in the [hospital] nursery and at home for awhile and then switch out to formula, so there’s no way you can make any conclusions from this study at all,” said Dr. Charles Shubin, director of pediatrics at Mercy Family Care in Baltimore. “This study doesn’t help clarify matters because it was so poorly done. There’s a big difference between ever breast-fed versus exclusively breast-fed.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends babies be breast-fed for at least the first 12 months, and fed only breast milk for the first six months of life.
At his inner-city pediatrics practice, Shubin said, “there’s very little exclusive breast-feeding” among new mothers. And, he doesn’t have enough information to know whether exclusive breast-feeding would significantly alter a child’s risk of developing allergies.
“Our dilemma is that we still haven’t convinced people that exclusive breast-feeding is the way to go. The percentages are not where they need to be,” he said. “I encourage mothers to breast-feed as much as they’re comfortable doing.”
More information
The U.S. Office on Women’s Health talks about breast-feeding benefits.
SOURCES: Quindelyn Cook, M.D., medical resident, pediatrics, University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago; Charles Shubin, M.D., director, pediatrics, Mercy Family Care, Baltimore; Nov. 5, 2015, presentation, American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology annual meeting, San Antonio, Texas
Copyright © 2015 HealthDay 
If you are looking family physician in The Woodlands, TX, contact Fadi Ghanem MD
Don’t Assume Siblings Will Have Food Allergies, Too
Study found only 1 in 10 was allergic to same things; experts advise against routine testing for them.
THURSDAY, Nov. 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Only about one in 10 siblings of children with food allergies also has such allergies, a new study finds.
“Too often, it’s assumed that if one child in a family has a food allergy, the other kids need to be tested for food allergies,” said lead author and allergist Dr. Ruchi Gupta, an associate professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
The study included 1,120 siblings of children with a diagnosed food allergy. Patient histories and testing revealed that while 53 percent of the siblings had a food sensitivity, only 13 percent had an actual food allergy, the researchers found.
The study was scheduled for presentation Thursday at the annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, in San Antonio. The findings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
The study authors said their findings suggest that food allergy testing in siblings of children with food allergies should be limited to reduce the harmful impact of possible misdiagnosis.
“Testing for food allergies if a reaction hasn’t taken place can provide false-positives, as we saw in our research,” Gupta said in a university news release. “More than half the kids in the study had a sensitivity to a food, but they weren’t truly allergic. Kids who have a food sensitivity shouldn’t be labeled as having a food allergy.”
The risk of food allergy in one sibling, based on the presence of food allergy in another, has never been completely clear, study co-author and allergist Dr. Matthew Greenhawt said in the news release. He is an assistant professor in the department of internal medicine and the department of pediatrics and communicable diseases at the University of Michigan.
“This perceived risk is a common reason to seek ‘screening’ before introducing a high-risk allergen to siblings. But screening a child before introducing a high-risk allergen isn’t recommended,” he said. “Food allergy tests perform poorly in terms of being able to predict future risk in someone who has never eaten the food before.”
This new study showed that testing should be used to help confirm a diagnosis, rather than as a sole predictor to make a diagnosis, Greenhawt said.
More information
The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about food allergies
SOURCE: American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, news release, Nov. 5, 2015
Copyright © 2015 HealthDay
If you are looking family physician in The Woodlands, TX, contact Fadi Ghanem MD
U.S. Gets a ‘C’ Grade on Preterm Births
March of Dimes report card shows room for improvement in many cities, states.
THURSDAY, Nov. 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The U.S. preterm birth rate of nearly 10 percent — one of the highest among wealthy nations — has earned the country a “C” on the new March of Dimes Premature Birth Report Card.
Among 100 American cities with the most births, Shreveport, La., scored an “F” on the report card for its preterm birth rate of almost 20 percent in 2013, the most recent year for which city-by-city data is available.
Portland, Ore., had the lowest preterm birth rate at about 7 percent, which earned it an “A.” Only three other cities — Oxnard, Calif., St. Paul, Minn., and Seattle — received an “A.”
Among states, only Idaho, Oregon, Vermont and Washington earned an “A.” Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi got an “F.” Ten states received a “B,” and 18 states and the District of Columbia received a “C.” Puerto Rico also received a failing grade.
The report card, released Nov. 5, is based on data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.
Worldwide, 15 million babies are born preterm each year, and nearly 1 million of those infants die. Many preterm babies who survive have serious and lifelong health issues. Those issues include breathing problems, jaundice, vision loss, cerebral palsy and intellectual delays, according to the March of Dimes.
With its 2014 preterm birth rate, the United States met the March of Dimes 2020 goal early and avoided thousands of preterm births and saved millions in health care costs, the agency added.
“Reaching our goal ahead of schedule is progress, but it is not victory — our work is far from done,” Dr. Jennifer Howse, president of the March of Dimes, said in a news release from the group.
“As our new list of city preterm birth rates highlights, many areas of the country, and tens of thousands of families, are not sharing in this success. No baby should have to battle the health consequences of an early birth. All babies, everywhere, deserve a healthy start in life,” Howse said.
Despite continuing reductions in preterm birth rates, early birth remains the leading cause of infant death in the United States. And there are significant racial, ethnic and regional differences within states, according to the news release.
The March of Dimes announced a new goal: a reduction in the nation’s preterm birth rate to about 8 percent of live births by 2020 and to 5.5 percent by 2030.
If the 2020 goal is achieved, it would mean 210,000 fewer preterm births. Achieving the 2030 goal would mean 1.3 million fewer preterm births and about $70 billion in health care savings, according to the March of Dimes.
“This aggressive goal can be achieved by increasing best practices in preconception and pregnancy care, wider use of proven interventions such as progesterone and birth spacing, and funding discovery research through our research centers,” Howse said.
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development outlines the risk factors for preterm birth.
SOURCE: March of Dimes, news release, Nov. 5, 2015
Copyright © 2015 HealthDay
If you are looking family physician in The Woodlands, TX, contact Fadi Ghanem MD.
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