Background:

The backbone of food allergy treatment is the restriction of causative foods. These interventions have shown that children who restrict the consumption of basic foods have a higher risk of malnutrition.

The aim of the study was to identify the nutritional status of patients with elimination diet, characterizing their anthropometric indexes and identifying the percentage of patients in the group with true food allergies.

Methods:

A cross-sectional study was carried out from January to October 2014 at the Hospital Infantil de Mexico Federico Gomez. Patients 1 to 11 years of age with a history of elimination of at least one of five foods (eggs, milk, wheat, corn, soybeans) for a minimum of 6 months were included. Full nutritional assessment was performed by comparing the anthropometric indexes to z score for age. Data analysis used descriptive statistics. Kruskal-Wallis and Spearman correlation were performed.

Results:

The most frequent eliminated foods were milk, soy, eggs, corn, and wheat. Comparing the number of foods eliminated with different anthropometric indexes, with a greater amount of eliminated food, the z-score of weight/age (W/A), height/age (H/A) and weight/height (W/H) were lower and the most affected index was fat reserve. Only in 5% of children was food allergy confirmed.

Conclusions

The study confirms the need for nutrition counseling for patients who have elimination diets and overdiagnosis of food allergy.