It started January 19th, but it’s never too late to join in.

Here are several summaries posted over the past 2 years related to food preferences and the risk of allergy in infants.

Soy and the risk of peanut allergy

  • The association between soy consumption and peanut sensitization is not causal but a result of preferential use of soy milk in infants with a personal or family history of cow’s milk allergy.

Nut products, pregnancy, and allergy risk

  • Daily consumption of nut products — but not nuts — was associated with a higher prevalence of the following.
    • Wheeze
    • Difficulty breathing
    • Steroid use
    • Asthma symptoms
  • On the other hand, daily fruit consumption during pregnancy was associated with an 18% reduction in the prevalence of wheezing in 8-year-olds.

Diet during pregnancy and allergenicity of offspring

  • In allergic mothers there was no correlation between eating fish, butter, and margarine and the offspring’s sensitization to food or inhaled allergens.
  • In the non-allergic mothers, eating fish at least 2-3 times per week reduced the risk of food sensitizations by more than a third.

Soy vs cow’s milk formulas and the risk of allergies in infants and children

  • There’s no significant benefit from using a soy formula compared to cow’s milk formula.
  • However, mothers who choose to only breastfeed their infants for at least 6 months do reduce the incidence of allergy.

1/21/09 10:00 JR

Hi, I’m JR

John Russo, Jr., PharmD, is president of The MedCom Resource, Inc. Previously, he was senior vice president of medical communications at www.Vicus.com, a complementary and alternative medicine website.