Prevention of Hen’s Egg Allergy: Evidence for a New Direction

Abstract

The conventional approach to preventing the onset of food allergy has been to prohibit pregnant/ lactating women and infants from consuming highly allergenic foods such as hen’s egg, cow’s milk and wheat. However, it has been shown that the avoidance of such foods by pregnant/ lactating mothers has no effect on preventing food allergy in infants. Furthermore, recent research suggests that early introduction of allergenic foods in the weaning diet prevents the onset of food allergy. We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in which the subjects were infants with atopic dermatitis, and demonstrated that early introduction of hen’s egg at six months of age prevents the onset of egg allergy.