Breastfeeding mothers warned about food allergies

From staff and wire reports

ATLANTA, Georgia -- People with food allergies and nursing mothers with a history of asthma or eczema may need to be more cautious about the foods they consume.

A Canadian study of 23 healthy women found that nursing mothers may pass peanut proteins in breast milk to their infants. Such early exposure to the allergen could put babies at risk for developing a potentially fatal peanut allergy.

A recent Food and Drug Administration study also found that many food manufacturers fail to list highly allergenic ingredients such as peanuts, eggs and milk that are in their products. The study involved 85 manufacturers of baked goods, candy and ice cream, in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The FDA asked state inspectors to sample egg and peanut ingredients nationwide, following an increase in food recalls for failure to list food allergens.

About 7 million Americans who suffer from food allergies rely on ingredient labels to tell them which processed foods are safe. Some food allergies, particularly peanut allergies, can be fatal -- they cause about 150 deaths each year.

The FDA report found that some products contained undeclared ingredients because of cross-contamination. Bakers sometimes used the same utensils to stir separate mixes -- one with eggs or peanuts and one without -- or they reused baking sheets. One candy company washed certain machinery only once a year, even though it processed both peanut-containing and peanut-free chocolates. Half of the companies did not check their products to make sure all ingredients were listed, the report found.

Mothers who breast-feed their children may be able to prevent them from developing such allergies by monitoring their diets, according to a Canadian study. Researchers said babies with one or both parents with a history of asthma, eczema or other allergy-based diseases are at risk of peanut allergy.

Because those children can be identified at birth, nursing mothers could avoiding exposing them to the allergen by not consuming peanut products while nursing, said David Patterson, an Indiana physician who is a fellow of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto, Ontario, said breast milk had been suspected as a hidden route by which children became sensitized to peanuts. Their tests on 23 lactating women between the ages of 21 and 35 support that theory.

They fed the women peanut products and detected peanut protein in the milk of 11 of the 23 participants. "It was detected in 10 subjects within two hours of ingestion and in one subject within six hours," said the study, published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Avoiding exposure through breast milk does not guarantee that children can avoid peanut allergy when they are exposed to the food at a later age. But Peter Vadas, lead author of the Canadian study, said the allergy is often triggered by exposure early in a child's development. Doctors generally recommend that parents not feed children peanut products until age 3.

The report said peanut allergy affects about 1 percent of British and U.S. preschool children. It starts early in life, seldom goes away and is associated with severe or life-threatening reactions. Peanut allergy accounts for the majority of food-induced anaphylactic fatalities, the study said.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

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