Tag: allergies

Patient engagement is being touted as the blockbuster drug of the century.   The facts are clear—the more you get a patient involved in monitoring their own health the better the outcome will likely be.

One of the most effective ways to increase patient engagement is with a personal health record (PHR).  PHRs provide many benefits to those who use them, but like one’s credit rating, just having a record is not enough. It is important that people keep up on monitoring them, too.

Exposing babies to puppies and other furry pets might help them accumulate two types of bacteria in their gut that are associated with a lower risk of allergies and obesity, a Canadian study suggests.

When researchers analyzed fecal samples from 746 babies, they found having dogs and cats in the home during pregnancy and early infancy was associated with higher levels of two gut microbes: Ruminococcus and Oscillospira, which have been linked with lower odds of allergies and obesity, respectively.

"The concept of a 'dog intervention' during pregnancy as a preventive measure for allergies and obesity is not too far-fetched, but definitive studies are required to provide evidence for this health benefit," said senior study author Anita Kozyrskyj, a pediatrics researcher at the University of Alberta.

Infants who get a taste of eggs and peanuts starting when they’re as young as 4 months old may have a lower risk of developing allergies to those foods than babies who try them later, a research review suggests.

With eggs, giving babies that first spoonful between 4 and 6 months was associated with 46 percent lower odds of egg allergies than waiting to introduce this food later.

For peanuts, offering infants a sample between 4 and 11 months was associated with 71 percent lower odds of peanut allergies than waiting longer.

These findings suggest that for most babies, eggs and peanuts should be among their first foods, said senior study author Dr. Robert Boyle, a pediatric allergy researcher at Imperial College London. But that’s not what many doctors recommend, he said.

Nuts are a common allergen among children and they can cause one of the more severe, even life-threatening allergic reactions known as anaphylaxis. Only about 6 percent of all children have clinically diagnosed food allergies. This number is rather small, but food intolerance, which presents itself much like a food allergy, adds to the public perception that this is a major issue. While the medical difference is quite different, the solution to a food allergy and intolerance is to remove the culprit food from you or your child’s diet.