Atopic eczema is a skin condition characterized by long-term inflammation. Common in infants, the disease usually disappears by early adulthood. In some cases, the condition can become severe and debilitating to children. Because it is considered a "hypersensitivity reaction" to environmental conditions, many have proposed that dietary adjustments can improve its symptoms. In some cases, this appears to be correct.
Elimination Diets
Practitioners of evidence-based and homeopathic medicine alike subscribe to the notion that foods can worsen the symptoms of certain diseases--especially those that in some way involve the immune system, such as lupus, multiple sclerosis and, possibly, eczema. The idea is that certain foods somehow provoke your immune system into initiating one of its pathogen-killing mechanisms and directing it against your body, resulting in inflammation and other types of tissue damage. An elimination diet is intended to identify the foods that cause this response and remove them from your diet in the hope of lessening the symptoms of the condition in question.
Diets for Nursing Mothers
According to the National Institutes of Health, children who are breast-fed are less likely to develop eczema, so it appears that filtering nutrients through the mother's body can remove aggravating antigens. Furthermore, eczema may be even less likely to develop if nursing mothers avoid cow's milk, eggs, fish, peanuts and soy products.
Avoiding Egg, Milk and Other Common Foods
The foods that tend to aggravate eczema include eggs, milk, citrus fruits, food colorings and preservatives, fish, nuts, tomatoes, wheat, lamb, soy and chicken. These have been determined by food challenge tests in hospitalized children who had been put on very basic "elemental diets" due to extreme eczema flare-ups. One study, discussed in the "British Medical Journal" article "Role of diet in treating atopic eczema: elimination diets can be beneficial," found that over half of children responded positively to the elimination of eggs and milk alone.
Antigen Testing and Predicting Foods to Avoid
Researchers cannot determine the mechanism by which certain foods aggravate the symptoms of eczema. Initially, they suspected a type of response similar to allergies in which a type of antibody, called IgE antibodies, provokes a cascade of physiological processes that results in inflammation. However, when researchers identified the foods that provoked IgE responses in children and compared them to the foods that aggravated their eczema, there was no correlation. So it is not a food allergy, as some had previously suspected, that causes eczema.
Extreme Cases
Children whose disease does not respond to basic elimination diets still have hope. Many such children will improve when given an "elemental feed," which contains calories and the most essential nutrients and from which all potential antigens have been removed. Elemental feeding often occurs in a hospital setting along with protection from airborne irritants. Once the symptoms of eczema have improved, clinicians can then introduce individual "food challenges" to the child, in which they feed the child a small amount of a specific food, then monitor the child's skin for signs of worsening. Any food that does not worsen the eczema can be reintroduced into the child's diet, and any food that does worsen symptoms can be permanently avoided.
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