Food allergy in small children carries a risk of essential fatty acid deficiency, as detected by elevated serum mead acid proportion of total fatty acids

Lipids in Health and Disease

Research

Marita Paassilta¹  Elina Kuusela²  Matti Korppi²  Minna Kaila³  Riina Lemponen⁴  Seppo T Nikkari⁵ 

[1] Allergy Centre, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland;Paediatric Research Centre, Tampere University and University Hospital, Tampere, Finland;Paediatric Research Centre, Tampere University and University Hospital, Tampere, Finland;Paediatric Research Centre, Tampere University and University Hospital, Tampere, Finland;Hjelt Institute, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland;School of Health Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland;University of Tampere School of Medicine and Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland;

关键词: Essential fatty acid deficiency;    Food allergy;    Child;    Elimination diet;    Mead acid;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-511X-13-180

 received in 2014-11-11, accepted in 2014-11-27,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundElevated serum Mead acid as a proportion of total fatty acids is an indirect marker of a deficiency of essential fatty acids (EFA). The aim of the study was to evaluate the symptoms and nutrition of food-allergic children with elevated or normal serum Mead acid.MethodsSerum fatty acid compositions from 400 children were studied by clinical indications, mostly by suspicion of deficiency of EFA due to inadequate nutrition. A Mead acid level exceeding 0.21% (percentage of total fatty acids) was considered to be a specific sign of an insufficient EFA supply. From a total of 31 children with elevated Mead acid (MEADplus group), 23 (74%) had food allergy. The symptoms and dietary restrictions of this MEADplus group of food allergic children were compared to 54 age-and sex-matched controls with food allergy but normal Mead acid proportions (MEADminus group) before and 6 months after the serum fatty acid determination.ResultsAt the beginning of the 6-month follow-up, 44% of the food allergic children in both MEADplus and MEADminus groups were on an elimination diet. These diets did not differ between the two groups and we were not able to document an association between the severity of elimination diet and elevated Mead acid proportion. However, the MEADplus children were on average more symptomatic than MEADminus children. In the MEADplus group, food allergy presented with skin symptoms in 100% (vs. 70% in the MEADminus group, p < 0.001) and with vomiting or diarrhea in 70% (vs. 44% in the MEADminus group, p < 0.05). Clinical suspicion of malnutrition resulted in increase in the use of vegetable oil and milk-free margarine in both groups from <50% to 65-74% during the follow-up. After 6 months, 64% of the MEADplus children with food allergy had been sent to a control serum fatty acid analysis. Of these children, Mead acid had declined to normal level in 69%, and remained elevated in 31%.ConclusionsSevere symptoms of food allergy combined with elimination diets in children may lead to insufficient nutrition presenting with elevated serum Mead acid. Adding of supplementary polyunsaturated fat to the diet should be considered in these children.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Paassilta et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.