It turns out you may not need to buy that expensive hypoallergenic
formula after all. After years of steadily rising allergies in kids, pediatricians
are beginning to acknowledge that it might be the allergy tests, not the food,
that’s the problem.
The rise in false allergy diagnoses is due to a little
something called modern convenience. (Speed coming at the price of accuracy?
No!) Instead of administering lengthy food challenges—in which
doctors watch children consume a whole variety of foods—most doctors now test
for allergies by giving kids a blood test for certain antibodies. The problem
is that this test falsely identifies allergies more than half of the time.
Given this finding and other studies that have linked early
peanut exposure to a lower allergy risk, doctors’ groups are considering
revising allergy guidelines to encourage parents to introduce high-risk foods
like peanuts and shellfish earlier rather than later.
In the meantime, parents may need to start relying more heavily on the
only tried-and-true allergy test there is: if your kid can eat it, he’s not
allergic.
Photo: MSNBC
