Milk Allergy or Lactose Intolerance?
Cow 's milk allergy is the most common food sensitization in the first years of life. From the second childhood onwards, however, the most common allergens are fish, crustaceans, peanuts and walnuts.
This allergic form has nothing to do with milk intolerance, common especially in adulthood and old age.
Symptoms and Complications
The clinical manifestations of milk allergy appear from a few minutes to a few hours after eating the food or its derivatives and include digestive problems, vomiting, hives and difficulty breathing (dyspnea); rarely milk allergy causes a particularly severe and violent reaction called anaphylaxis. Early symptoms are precisely dyspnoea, vomiting and urticaria, while symptoms such as diarrhea, abdominal colic, blood in the stool, itchy skin eruptions (often located around the mouth), cough and excessive tearing have a later onset.
Anaphylaxis, or anaphylactic reaction, is a very dangerous condition that requires rapid medical intervention. It is characterized by severe symptoms - such as difficulty breathing, intense itching, flushing of the face and a fall in pressure to collapse - that occur early after contact with the allergen (in this case following the consumption of milk or dairy products).
The symptoms of lactose intolerance appear a few hours after having consumed milk or other foods rich in lactose, are localized on the digestive level and typically include intestinal swellings, flatulence and diarrhea.
Children allergic to cow's milk are more likely to develop other allergic forms, such as eggs, soy and peanut or hay fever (a form of allergic rhinitis triggered by contact with grass pollen, pet hair or other substances).
Risk Factors and Treatment
The risk factors for milk allergy include familiarity with this or other allergic forms, atopic dermatitis, artificial breastfeeding (with rare exceptions, there are no cases of allergy to breast milk) and age (the incidence it tends to regress already in the second childhood, as the digestive system matures).
Given the widespread presence of milk and its proteins in commonly used food products, allergic manifestations are quite frequent; the milder ones can be attenuated by an antihistamine based oral therapy, while in the presence of anaphylaxis an adrenaline injection may be necessary. As with all other forms of sensitization, the allergic reaction can only be prevented by avoiding contact with the allergen; consequently it is necessary to exclude from the diet any source of milk and its derivatives.
To learn more: drugs for the treatment of milk allergy
Special milk for milk allergy sufferers
Specific hypoallergenic formulations have been studied for feeding newborns. These formulas are produced by exploiting fairly complex technologies (enzymatic reactions, filtration techniques, high pressures and heat) in order to hydrolyse ("break") the milk proteins (see special milk). The protein fragments thus obtained can have a more or less large molecular weight and as such are indicated in the diet of newborns with allergic forms of different severity. The milk of other animals, such as that of goat, sheep or buffalo, cannot be taken by those suffering from cow's milk allergy, due to a phenomenon called cross-reactivity (these milks contain proteins with amino acid sequences similar to those of milk vaccine). This characteristic, on the other hand, seems to be absent in donkey's and mare's milk, which still require further studies - both clinical and technological - before being used in feeding the allergic subjects to cow's milk. An alternative to animal milks is represented by those based on more or less hydrolysed vegetable proteins, such as soy milk. The latter, however, can in turn become an allergen and, which is not insignificant, may contain more or less important traces of transgenic soy. For this reason some milk allergic babies are fed with products based on hydrolysed rice proteins. If the child suffers from cow's milk allergy, it is sometimes necessary to remove the food and its derivatives also from the nurse's diet.
