Wheat Allergies

For our family, an allergy to wheat was one of the toughest to manage. Unable to buy bread, pretzels, many cereals, cookies, crackers make meal planning a challenge with eating out and travel even more difficult. As awareness of celiac disease (an intolerance to gluten) has increased, so too has the availability of wheat free options in grocery stores and wheat free mixes for breads, pretzels and other wheat-based foods. Check out The Gluten Free Mall at http://www.glutenfreemall.com for many options for those with wheat allergies.

It is still possible to bake your favorite recipes by substituting wheat flour for a mixture of non-wheat flours. You may have to experiment and tweak it a bit, but I often used a recipe of: 2 cups white rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch flour, 1/3 cup tapioca flour in my cookie and cake recipes. Mix up a batch and then measure out the amount required by the recipe. You'll need to add at least a teaspoon of guar gum or xantham gum (available in most grocery stores) to keep your baked goods from falling apart. Happy baking!

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Desensitization to food allergies

Would you put your child in a clinical study? Researchers are currently conducting a study on food allergies and are testing peanut allergic individuals, ages 12-20, and egg allergic individuals, ages 6-18, to see if they can tolerate small amounts of the food to which they are allergic. I know that we need research in order to find a cure, or at least better treatments, to food allergies. That said, I would be hard pressed to volunteer my child for such a study. This particular study gives peanut and egg allergic individuals increasing amounts of peanut and egg protein to see if the individual's immune system will tolerate it. The problem for me is that if an allergic reaction does occur, symptoms can be rapid and range from hives to vomiting to breathing issues and even death. How do parents make a decision for a young child to participate in such a trial? I feel so grateful that studies continue to try to find good treatments and eventually a cure for food allergy, but the risk of a trial such as this, personally feels too great. For more information about this particular trial, go to http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/104568.php.

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Are You Wishing for More Heifer Calves from this Spring's Breeding Season? I know I am! Maybe we're feeding them too well during hard times. . .?

Mom's diet may play role in whether baby is boy or girl
By LINDSEY TANNER (AP Medical Writer)
From Associated Press
April 24, 2008 5:30 PM EDT

CHICAGO - Snips and snails and puppydog tails ... and cereal and bananas? That could be what little boys are made of, according to surprising new research suggesting that what a woman eats before pregnancy influences the gender of her baby. Having a hearty appetite, eating potassium-rich foods including bananas, and not skipping breakfast all seemed to raise the odds of having a boy.

The British research is billed as the first in humans to show a link between a woman's diet and whether she has a boy or girl. It is not proof, but it fits with evidence from test tube fertilization that male embryos thrive best with longer exposure to nutrient-rich lab cultures, said Dr. Tarun Jain. He is a fertility specialist at University of Illinois at Chicago who wasn't involved in the study. It just might be that it takes more nutrients to build boys than girls, he said.

University of Exeter researcher Fiona Mathews, the study's lead author, said the findings also fit with fertility research showing that male embryos aren't likely to survive in lab cultures with low sugar levels. Skipping meals can result in low blood sugar levels.

Jain said he was skeptical when he first heard about the research. But he said the study was well-done and merits follow-up study to see if the theory proves true. It's not necessarily as far-fetched as it sounds. While men's sperm determine a baby's gender, it could be that certain nutrients or eating patterns make women's bodies more hospitable to sperm carrying the male chromosome, Jain said.

"It's an interesting question. I'm not aware of anyone else looking at it in this manner," he said. The study was published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British medical journal. The research involved about 700 first-time pregnant women in the United Kingdom who didn't know the sex of their fetuses. They were asked about their eating habits in the year before getting pregnant. Among women with the highest calorie intake before pregnancy (but still within a normal, healthy range), 56 percent had boys, versus 45 percent of the women with the lowest calorie intake.

Women who ate at least one bowl of breakfast cereal daily were 87 percent more likely to have boys than those who ate no more than one bowlful per week. Cereal is a typical breakfast in Britain and in the study, eating very little cereal was considered a possible sign of skipping breakfast, Mathews said.

Compared with the women who had girls, those who had boys ate an additional 300 milligrams of potassium daily on average, "which links quite nicely with the old wives' tale that if you eat bananas you'll have a boy," Mathews said. Women who had boys also ate about 400 calories more daily than those who had girls, on average, she said. Still, no one's recommending pigging out if you really want a boy or starving yourself if you'd prefer a girl.

Neither style of eating is healthy, and besides all the health risks linked with excess weight, other research suggests obese women have a harder time getting pregnant. The study results reflect women at opposite ends of a normal eating pattern, not those with extreme habits, Mathews said. Professor Stuart West of the University of Edinburgh said the results echo research in some animals.

And Dr. Michael Lu, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and public health at the University of California at Los Angeles, said the results "are certainly plausible from an evolutionary biology perspective." In other words, since boys tend to be bigger, it would make sense that it would take more calories to create them, Lu said.

Still, Lu said a woman's diet before pregnancy may be a marker for other factors in their lives that could influence their baby's gender, including timing of intercourse.

"The bottom line is, we still don't know how to advise patients in how to make boys," he said.
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On the Net:
Journal: http://publishing.royalsociety.org/index.cfm?page1087

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15th Annual Food Allergy Conference

I've had a chance to reflect upon my recent experiences at FAAN's (www.foodallergy.org) annual conference in Baltimore. This was my 4th trip to the conference and I found that much of the content is a repeat for those of us who are repeat attenders. It was stated at the beginning of the day that the majority of the people in the room were first time attendees. For that reason, the same overview of food allergies, its causes and symptoms, definition of anaphylaxis, etc. was presented for those new to this diagnosis. I can appreciate that. Personally, I found the afternoon sessions more helpful. There were discussions about how parents need to change their roles as they prepare their food allergic children for the challenges of life with food allergy. There was a presentation on advocating for change with updated information that I found to be useful. Some of the take-aways from this conference for me:

• Sesame seed allergies are rising and may soon be included in the top allergen list.
• After an anaphylaxis reaction, emergency rooms often prescribe 5 days of steroids- question the necessity of this.
• Help is still needed on The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Management Act (FAAMA) which calls for national guidelines for managing food allergies in school. Specifically, the bills are HR 2063 in the House and S 1232 in the Senate. I am pleased to report that the house passed this bill on April 8, 2008. The Senate has yet to take action. The full Senate bill can be read here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.1232. Contact your state Senators (check here if you don't know who they are: http://www.firstgov.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml) and write, e-mail, call and ask them to support this bill.
• Progress is being made in the area of possible treatments for food allergies. Chinese herbal formulas, immunotherapy, a peanut vaccine are all being studied and show some promising results.
• Regent Seven Seas cruise lines are food allergy friendly.
• The Yellow Fever vaccine must be avoided by those with an egg allergy. Also, those with egg allergy need to avoid the flu shot and flu mist.

Every time I attend this conference, I meet some really nice people and I leave with good information and a renewed spirit about living with food allergies in our family. While I can't control my child's food allergies, I know that I can do many things to educate, advocate and manage food allergies.

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