Making sense of food allergy research in the news
We often see news coverage on studies addressing food allergies. Here's what you should know when reading about them.
Recently, there was a news release from HealthDay that described the administration of hydrolyzed egg to egg allergic children. In the study, a certain portion of egg allergic children were able to tolerate a hydrolyzed egg product. Whether or not this led to development of tolerance was not clear from the study.
Food allergies, like other forms of allergies, have been on the rise over the past few decades. The reasons for this is unclear, but a side effect of this is that public awareness of food allergies has improved as well. Even as recent as eight years ago, when my child started kindergarten, the elementary school had no food allergy protocol in place for food allergic kids.
Now, almost every school has a program to address this growing problem. The recognition of food allergies by patients, schools, restaurant, and the general public has, as a whole, been a good thing. Now, I no longer get a blank stare when I ask a waiter if there are peanuts in the food we are ordering. Many states even have established mandatory provision of Epinephrine auto injectors in schools, in case of anaphylaxis.
Because of the increased incidence and heightened awareness, food allergy clinical research has also become mainstream. Very often, results of studies done nationally or internationally are not only published in scientific journals, but attract widespread coverage from the news media.
Some of these studies are highly technical. Others may require a deeper understanding of the scientific method or study design and execution to identify the real conclusion of the study. There may be information that is not presented in news articles that may be important to know about the way the study was designed or executed. In other cases, the conclusions may be misinterpreted.
Take this study for example, the news article actually did a pretty good job of presenting all the important facts. But 29 patients do not constitute a large study, and many of the results, which measured differences in certain endpoints when comparing hydrolyzed egg and a placebo (medically ineffectual treatment), were not statistically significant. Statistical significance addresses the likelihood that a result or relationship is caused by something other than mere random chance.
In their conclusions, the authors stated that "HydE can be regarded as a safe, low allergenic product to use in children allergic to egg." But they also described in their paper that this is only a pilot study. Clearly, more studies need to be done in order to validate these results. Another point that should be recognized is that four of the authors were employees of the company that makes the hydrolyzed egg product, a conflict of interest that was fully disclosed in the paper and in the news article.
The take home message is this – the internet has given the world the ability to disseminate information at the speed of light. This has proven to be a double edged sword. In this case, it is important to know that there are very talented people working to solve the mystery of food allergies, and to provide us with novel ways to prevent and treat this important group of diseases.
On the other hand, it is important to approach information disseminated from this research directly to the public with a critical eye. Recall those exciting car commercials which show professional drivers on controlled circuits doing outrageous maneuvers, where the caption on the bottom says, "Don't try this at home," When it comes to reports of treatment of food allergies that appear in newspapers, the same advice is appropriate. Please consult your allergist or a knowledgeable health professional before attempting any self-treatment at home. If not, you may be exposing yourself, or your child, to undue risk and danger.
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