Dietary Antigens in Breast Milk.

Peanut allergy

“…The presence of food allergens in breast milk was described early this century [85][86][87] and includes the classic studies of Donnally [88] who used breast milk from mothers who had eaten egg to show skin-test positivity in patients who were allergic to: egg. Subsequent studies confirmed these findings [76,81,82,[89][90][91][92][93][94]. Peanut protein has also been detected in breast milk [4,31,38,95].…”

The Effect of Diet on Systemic Immune Responses to Wheat Gliadin

“…It could be postulated, therefore, that small immunogenic fragments of gluten, possibly analogous to Frazer's fraction III (Frazer et al, 1959) or Cornell's fraction 9 (Townley et al, 1973), were transmitted to the foetus or suckling infant and influenced the manner in which they, as adults, would subsequently respond to cereal antigens. Similar events may also occur in humans as gluten fragments have been detected in both serum (Lane, Huff and Weston, 1982) and breast milk (Hemmings and Kulangara, 1978). Peri and Rothberg (1981) found that rabbits born of dams fed bovine serum albumin (BSA) during pregnancy and while nurturing responded poorly to both oral and parenteral immunisation with BSA.…”

4. Potential Human Health Impacts

“…Several maternal dietary food proteins have been detected in breast milk, including bovine milk (beta-lactoglobulin) egg (ovomucoid and ovalbumin), wheat (gliadin) (Hemmings & Kulangara, 1978;Jakobsso n & Lindberg et al, 1983;Cant et al, 1985;Harmatz & Bloch, 1988;Host et al, 1988), and peanut (P. Vadas, personal communication, 1999). Although controversial, there are sufficient studies to suggest that maternal avoidance of allergenic foods during breast-feeding can reduce the risk of atopic disease, in particular atopic eczema, in the breast-fed infant, and that exposure to these proteins while breast-feeding can promote allergic sensitization and allergic symptoms in the breast-fed infant (Jakobsson & Lindberg, 1983;Cant et al, 1985;Zeiger et al, 1986;Halkens et al, 1992;Zeiger & Heller, 1995;Chandra, 1997;Baumgartner et al, 1998;Ewan, 1998;Host et al, 1988Host et al, , 1999Vandenplas, 1998;American Academy of Pediatrics, 2000).…”