Med Headlines - There was a time when children diagnosed as allergic to either milk or eggs could be expected to outgrow those allergies by the time they reached age 3. Medical records today indicate the allergies aren’t going away so quickly and they produce much stronger allergic reactions, too.  New research available from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center finds these allergies often stick around well past the age of starting school and even into a child’s teenage years.

Comparing these two common childhood allergies with records from 20 years ago and those today, the allergies today seem to be more aggressive and unpredictable. And they take a lot longer to outgrow.

About 3% of all children have a milk allergy. Where 75% of these children once outgrew their milk allergy by age 3, only about 20% today are symptom free at age 3. By age 8, 42% of these children were allergy free but 21% still showed symptoms at age 16.

Egg allergies, accountable for 2% of childhood allergies, seem to be even more persistent. Today, by age 4, only about 4% of children outgrow their egg allergies. By age 10, 37% are symptom free and, by 16, only 68 are allergy free.

Robert Wood, MD, of Allergy and Immunology at the children’s medical center, cannot explain why these allergies are lingering but expresses encouragement that many of these more persistent allergies do seem to go away during adolescence. This research suggests continued tracking of these allergies using antibody tests until early adulthood before introducing the offending food into the diet.

The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology carries reports on these two allergies in its November and December issues.