美国国家公共电台 NPR This Test Can Determine Whether You've Outgrown A Food Allergy

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Now an estimated 4 percent of Americans have food allergies¹, and that can show up very early in life. But many kids actually outgrow² some of their allergies. NPR's Allison Aubrey reports on a surprisingly simple test that can tell if they have.

ALLISON AUBREY, BYLINE³: Signs that a kid may be vulnerable to food allergies can show up in infancy⁴. Kendall Cieciuch, who lives in Telluride, Colo., says she remembers exactly when she saw it in her daughter, Jula.

KENDALL CIECIUCH: When she was a baby, really 5 months old only, she had really bad eczema.

AUBREY: And by the time Jula was a toddler, allergists had diagnosed her with a bunch of food allergies.

CIECIUCH: The main groups were dairy, eggs and nuts, and tree nuts being the worst of those.

AUBREY: Jula, who is now in fifth grade, had to avoid all of these foods for years. A few accidental exposures did cause reactions so her mom says she had to be super vigilant⁵.

CIECIUCH: It definitely restricted her, and I would prepare food everywhere we went. Then last summer, the Cieciuch's got some good news. Jula's allergy⁶ doctors at National Jewish Health in Denver had redone her blood tests, and the new results suggested that she may have outgrown⁷ some of her allergies. The blood test measures the levels of a certain type of antibody. The higher the level, the more likely a person is to have an allergic⁸ reaction. Jula's blood revealed a drop in the antibody, but the only way to confirm that it was safe for Jula to eat a food she'd been allergic to was to take another test. Doctors call it an oral food challenge. Basically it means you try to eat small quantities of the foods you've had to avoid. Here's Jula explaining the test, which is done under a doctor's care.

JULA: What they do is, they give you a really, really small dose, like, a crumb⁹, basically.

AUBREY: For Jula, it was a crumb of egg. Then after 20 minutes, if you don't have any reaction...

JULA: Then you can take a dose that's a little bit bigger.

AUBREY: If you worked your way all the way up to a whole egg, you've passed, which means you're no longer allergic. The day Jula passed her egg challenge...

JULA: I was so glad and happy because for so long it'd be, you can't eat this, you can't eat this. And then I could eat it. I was very emotional.

AUBREY: In addition to egg, Jula can now also eat walnuts¹⁰ and almonds. She's still allergic to some foods including cashews and dairy, but her mom says adding so much back to her diet makes life easier.

CIECIUCH: It's a huge relief. It's - it really opened up her diet a lot.

AUBREY: Jula's story is not unusual. An estimated 70 percent to 80 percent of kids outgrow egg allergies. Now a new study sheds more light on just how many people have come to find out they can eat foods they've long avoided. Researchers studied the results of about 6,000 oral food challenges all done in adults and children who doctors suspected had become tolerant to foods they'd once reacted to. What they found is that only 14 percent of those patients had an allergic reaction during the test. Two percent had serious reactions. But the vast majority, 86 percent, did not have an allergic reaction at all.

B J LANSER: From a big-picture standpoint, I think it is very encouraging.

AUBREY: That's B.J. Lanser. He's a pediatric allergist at National Jewish Health in Denver. He was not involved in the study, but he says the findings mirror what he sees in practice.

LANSER: It's possible that these children in the study have outgrown their allergy.

AUBREY: Just like Jula did. Or, Lanser says...

LANSER: It's also possible they've never truly had a food allergy.

AUBREY: He says it's tricky¹¹ to diagnose food allergies. That's because the two main tests doctors use, the blood test and the skin-prick test, only reveal part of the story.

LANSER: Both tests only measure sensitization. They can't tell you or diagnose you with a food allergy. They can't tell you about severity. All they can tell us is how likely you are to react when you eat the food.

AUBREY: And that's where the oral food challenge comes in. It's become the gold-standard test to rule out an allergy. So if you or your child tested positive for a food allergy years ago, you may want to consider seeing an allergist again. Allison Aubrey, NPR News.

1 allergies   

n.[医]过敏症；[口]厌恶，反感；（对食物、花粉、虫咬等的）过敏症( allergy的名词复数 )；变态反应，变应性

参考例句：

• Food allergies can result in an enormous variety of different symptoms. 食物过敏会引发很多不同的症状。 来自辞典例句
• Let us, however, examine one of the most common allergies; hayfever. 现在让我们来看看最常见的变态反应的一种--枯草热。 来自辞典例句

2 outgrow   

vt.长大得使…不再适用；成长得不再要

参考例句：

• The little girl will outgrow her fear of pet animals.小女孩慢慢长大后就不会在怕宠物了。
• Children who walk in their sleep usually outgrow the habit.梦游的孩子通常在长大后这个习惯自然消失。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 infancy   

n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期

参考例句：

• He came to England in his infancy.他幼年时期来到英国。
• Their research is only in its infancy.他们的研究处于初级阶段。

5 vigilant   

adj.警觉的，警戒的，警惕的

参考例句：

• He has to learn how to remain vigilant through these long nights.他得学会如何在这漫长的黑夜里保持警觉。
• The dog kept a vigilant guard over the house.这只狗警醒地守护着这所房屋。

6 allergy   

n.(因食物、药物等而引起的)过敏症

参考例句：

• He developed an allergy to pollen.他对花粉过敏。
• The patient had an allergy to penicillin.该患者对青霉素过敏。

7 outgrown   

长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过

参考例句：

• She's already outgrown her school uniform. 她已经长得连校服都不能穿了。
• The boy has outgrown his clothes. 这男孩已长得穿不下他的衣服了。

8 allergic   

adj.过敏的，变态的

参考例句：

• Alice is allergic to the fur of cats.艾丽斯对猫的皮毛过敏。
• Many people are allergic to airborne pollutants such as pollen.许多人对空气传播的污染物过敏，比如花粉。

9 crumb   

n.饼屑，面包屑，小量

参考例句：

• It was the only crumb of comfort he could salvage from the ordeal.这是他从这场磨难里能找到的唯一的少许安慰。
• Ruth nearly choked on the last crumb of her pastry.鲁斯几乎被糕点的最后一块碎屑所噎住。

10 walnuts   

胡桃（树）( walnut的名词复数 )； 胡桃木

参考例句：

• Are there walnuts in this sauce? 这沙司里面有核桃吗？
• We ate eggs and bacon, pickled walnuts and cheese. 我们吃鸡蛋，火腿，腌胡桃仁和干酪。

11 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。