Editorial comments on: "Consumption of differently processed milk products and the risk of asthma in children".

Abstract

It is well known that patients may differently react to certain foods according to the degree of heating. In addition to this clinical observation, a large set of laboratory studies have confirmed that cooking reduces the allergenicity while largely keeping the immunogenicity of the food. This observation has a clinical significance as a large number of patients with egg allergy can consume most processed foods containing eggs as they are at least partially or fully cooked. Similarly, milk products are also often processed by cooking, and hence, the proteins are partially denaturized. Strategies using cooked foods in order to induce a favorable immunomodulation without marked allergic reaction have been largely used for oral immunotherapy to foods. With regard to immunotherapy for milk allergy, a French group has recently published a series with 64 children in this journal.1 They could show successful oral desensitization to milk in over 40% of these children, a percentage that was even higher in other studies. Immunotherapy with mixed egg has also been reported by the same group with an even higher rate of success.2 The effect of food allergy prevention through the diet has recently been revised by an EAACI committee, which extensively reviewed the most recent data.3,4 Remarkably, the most efficient preventive measures identified were