Allergy more likely in obese children
20 March 2009
Efforts to reduce levels of childhood obesity may have the additional benefit of reducing allergic disease.
US researchers compared the association of body mass index (BMI) with IgE levels (levels of particular antibodies involved in allergic reactions), atopy (a tendency to develop allergy) and allergy symptoms in 4125 children aged from 2 to 19 years (J Allergy and Clin Immunol online).
They found that obese children had 31 per cent higher total IgE levels than did normal weight children, when adjusted for age, sex and other factors. Overweight children had an average 25 per cent higher IgE.
Obese children were also 26 per cent more likely to be atopic (have a tendency to be allergic), mainly driven by a much higher prevalence of allergic sensitisation to foods than among normal weight children.
Sensitivity to milk was at least 50 per cent higher in both overweight and obese children. The authors suggested the relationship between obesity and allergy could be related to inflammation. Alternatively, the association could be due to an unmeasured factor such as gut microbiota (microscopic organisms that live in the intestine), ‘which is known to be associated with both increased allergy and obesity’, they said.
Associate Professor Mimi Tang, consultant paediatric allergist and immunologist at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, said further studies were needed to reach a definitive conclusion on whether food allergy was due to obesity, or if the presence of food allergies was the cause of the obesity.
Last Reviewed: 20 March 2009
