Soy Milk Does Not Cause Peanut Allergies!

Debunking the soy milk allergy myth, a Melbourne scientist has revealed that soy milk does not cause peanut allergies.

Jennifer Koplin, a PhD student at the University of Melbourne in collaboration with the Murdoch Children's Institute has found no link between soy milk and allergy.

Koplin gathered the data on 690 children, from the Melbourne Atopy Cohort Study, to see which allergies they developed, if any.

Each child was fed with either dairy milk, soy milk or a hydrolysed milk formula.

"There's a bit of a myth out there that drinking soy milk can bring on peanut allergies," The Age quoted Koplin, as saying.

"Our study proved drinking cows milk, or soy milk, makes no difference to whether an allergy develops in a child.

"The good news for parents is that they can now feed their children on soy milk and not have to worry about getting peanut allergies," she added.

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A 2003 study had claimed that soy milk was a trigger for the development of peanut allergies.

However, the latest research challenges those claims.

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Koplin is now involved in a further study, performed by the Murdoch Children's Institute and led by Dr Katie Allen, looking at other factors to do with peanut allergies.

The researchers will be looking at five thousand children, aged 12 months old, to determine how many of them develop allergies, why some do and some don't, and why allergies are more common now than in the past.

"The study is looking at things such as the timing of food into diet - does it cause an allergy if eggs or peanuts are introduced earlier, or later?" she said.

Source-ANI
SPH