Self-reported adverse reactions and IgE sensitization to common foods in adults with asthma.

G Rentzos,E Telemo,L Ekerljung,L Johanson,S Sjölander

doi:10.1186/s13601-015-0067-6

Abstract

BackgroundThere is very few data available on the prevalence of food hypersensitivity among adults with asthma. The aim of this study was to explore the prevalence of self-reported adverse reactions and IgE sensitization to the different foods and to determine the spectrum and the prevalence of food-related gastrointestinal symptoms in adults with and with no asthma.MethodsA cross sectional study based on interviews and questionnaire responses from 1527 subjects, aged 18–75 years of age, from Västra Götaland in Sweden, as part of the larger West Sweden Asthma Study. IgE analyses were performed in sera from all subjects.ResultsFifty three percent of adults with asthma reported adverse reactions to foods compared to 30 % of non-asthmatics. Most asthmatics reported symptoms from eating hazelnut, followed by other nuts, birch-related foods, milk, peanut and shellfish. Furthermore, adults with asthma experienced significantly more often gastrointestinal symptoms from hazelnut, apple and milk and were found to significantly more often be sensitized to the most common foods compared to the non-asthmatic subjects. The asthmatics showed a significant correlation between IgE to both hazelnut and birch and self-reported symptoms after ingestion of hazelnut and to a lesser extent to almonds.ConclusionsThe prevalence of self-reported adverse reactions and sensitization to the most common foods was much higher among the asthmatic subjects. Hazelnut was the food that asthmatics most frequently experienced adverse reactions from, and the strong correlation between IgE to hazelnut and birch indicate that the observed adverse reactions are partly due to sensitization to allergens from the PR-10 family.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13601-015-0067-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

There is very few data available on the prevalence of food hypersensitivity among adults with asthma
Prevalence of food hypersensitivity in adults with asthma compared to adults with no asthma Of the remaining 1484, when excluding the 43 subjects reporting no symptoms from any food item, subjects with asthma reported a considerably higher prevalence of adverse reactions to food compared to those without asthma 53.1 % (49.0 % - 57.3 %, 95 % CI) vs. 29.8 % (26.8 % - 32.7 %, 95 % CI) with p < 0.001
When symptoms from suspicious lactose and gluten intolerance were excluded, asthmatics still reported more adverse reactions to food compared to non-asthmatics, 51.3 % (47.1 % 55.4 %, 95 % CI) vs. 28.2 % (25.2 % - 31.1 %, 95 % CI) with p < 0.001 (Fig. 2)

Summary

Introduction

There is very few data available on the prevalence of food hypersensitivity among adults with asthma. In a previous study from Kivity et al, a relation between food allergy and concomitant asymptomatic bronchial hyper-reactivity could be shown [14] It is still not fully explored though, if adults with asthma experience more often gastrointestinal adverse reactions to different food items in a greater frequency than nonasthmatics. It has been shown that patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) showed increased frequency of bronchial hyper-reactivity compared to control subjects [17, 18] These results were further supported in a study on patients who suffered from asthma compared to asymptomatic atopic subjects [19]

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