Medical expert of the article
New publications
Allergy to milk
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
Milk belongs to the number of protein products, and any protein that enters the body from outside, can provoke an allergic reaction. Consequently, allergy to milk can occur along with other types of food allergy, if the predisposition to such reactions in the body is pronounced. In many sources, the allergy to milk sugar is indicated - lactose, in others - only to protein. For the sake of justice, the right can be called and those, and those, because, an inadequate response to dairy products can be triggered by both lactose and milk protein.
[Why there is an allergy to milk?
It is a mistake that the allergy to milk is peculiar only to children. Adults also suffer from this ailment. Consider the main causes of milk allergy in each of the age periods.
For a newborn baby, everything, except for mother's milk, is a rough food. The walls of the gastrointestinal tract are covered with loose mucous membrane, which has not completed its final formation and is not protected by a natural microflora. Only when a child reaches the age of two years, the walls of the stomach and intestine become fully capable of resisting the penetration of pathogenic agents through them. Up to two years, the mucosa is well passable for any allergen. That is why it is important to start introducing lure correctly and in a timely manner.
The baby's organism can perceive milk as an allergen and mother's milk, if during the pregnancy, the diet contained dairy products, and the child has a genetically predisposed predisposition to allergies. This complex cause-and-effect process leads to the fact that almost from birth the child is forced to switch to artificial feeding with mixtures based on vegetable milk.
The use of sour-milk products, people prone to milk allergy, is not prohibited, although it does not exclude their complete safety. In the process of fermentation, most of the milk protein, like lactic acid, "leaves", remaining in a low concentration. Sometimes this concentration is enough to resume allergies. A careful study of the composition will help avoid a "meeting" with the product based on animal milk powder. Allergy sufferers of such products should be avoided, but everything that has a basis of milk of plant origin is very safe.
Children's allergies to milk can eventually "go away." Strengthened organism, over the years, gaining more and more immune strength, is able to independently overcome this illness. If the child grows weakened, milk will remain an allergen for him for many years. The first meeting with an allergy to milk can happen in adulthood. This is possible due to the weakening of the body, due to the development of a drug allergy, against which other types of allergic reactions join, as well as problems with the gastrointestinal tract, leading to a decrease and a complete imbalance in metabolism.
How does the milk allergy manifest itself?
In childhood, it is possible to suspect an allergy by the presence of one permanent symptom or several symptoms that occur simultaneously or join in stages. Children with allergies are prone to frequent diaper rash, especially in all large folds of the body, and atypical dermatitis. Thrush in the mouth, not for a long time, the dryness of the mucous lips and the appearance of cracks in the corners of the mouth - there is a clear evidence of allergy.
Symptoms of allergy, including dairy products, include diarrheal disorders - frequent and plentiful regurgitation, diarrhea, often highly watery. Constant anxiety of the child, intestinal colic and skin rashes covering the entire body, indicate the presence of negative processes occurring in the child's body.
It is very difficult to determine the cause of all the above reasons independently. An urgent appeal to the pediatrician will be the best decision on the part of the parents. Timely initiation of diagnosis leads to the correct diagnosis and the beginning of effective treatment, which will save the child from the disease in the shortest possible time.
An allergy to milk or immunity?
Confusion in concepts arises from the incorrect approach to the mechanisms of development of two, relatively identical, behavior of the organism, in response to the adoption of the same product - milk. But after all, dairy products, getting into the stomach, are split into different components, which can be perceived by the body in different ways. Any protein that comes from the outside, including the milk protein, is perceived by a weakened organism prone to allergies, as an alien "agent", which must be immediately "eliminated." All protective forces begin to be activated, as a result of which an allergic reaction develops with the manifestation of all the characteristic symptoms. In other words, the immune mechanisms are included, which gives grounds for attributing the milk protein to the allergen, and in this case it is appropriate and right to consider that it is an allergy to milk.
Lactose "launches" a few different mechanisms. Some people may have problems with the presence of an enzyme, the main activity of which is aimed at splitting the incoming sugars into the body. It's about lactase. When hypolactasia (low lactase) or alaktazii (complete absence of enzyme), the body does not cope with the splitting of lactose, and therefore does not perceive it, can not digest, split to the level of simpler sugars - glucose and galactose, in order to assimilate, on the urgent evacuation of the "difficult" component.
"Perturbation" of the body, when it receives milk sugar, is expressed in the manifestation of flatulence, colic throughout the intestine, a frequent liquid stool. In some cases, the symptomatology may be similar to an allergy, but in general, everything is limited to intestinal imbalance. And the more and more often lactose gets into such an organism, the longer and longer the symptoms will last, leading, ultimately, to severe exhaustion. Summarizing the described process, we note that the entire mechanism of lactose immunity is based on the violation of metabolic processes, without immune participation. It follows that milk sugar, lactose, can not be considered an allergen. Thus, an allergy to milk develops only in response to the action of the protein that is part of its composition.
How is the milk allergy treated?
Allergy to milk, at any age, rarely when subjected to special therapy. The main treatment consists in selecting a suitable diet for each specific case. The exclusion from the diet of products included in the list of highly allergenic is a forced step. The inclusion of protein products begins gradually, in small doses, following the reaction of the body. An indispensable condition is the maintenance of a diary, in which each stage of medical measures will be reflected, the response of the body to the dietary meals that are taken.
In the case of a baby breastfed, the diet is followed by the mother. When a child takes food alone, then it is advisable to choose a hypoallergenic diet for him. In addition to the diet, enzymatic agents are prescribed, preparations that improve digestion, strengthen the intestinal microflora, immunostimulants. In situations of progressive allergy, antihistamines and ointments based on corticosteroids are shown to remove skin manifestations.
How is milk allergy prevented?
The best prevention of the renewal of an allergic reaction, in the case when the allergen is known, is the exclusion of the possibility of getting this allergen into the body. On this basis, the only advice that can be given to people who are allergic to milk is to make up their own food ration in such a way that they do not include products with a dairy base.