food allergy

Having a kid with a food allergy is hard. But for low-income families of color, such allergies can be especially deadly.

Food allergies are tricky to diagnose, and many kids can outgrow them, too. A test called an oral food challenge is the gold standard to rule out an allergy. It's performed under medical supervision.

Babies who ate the equivalent of about 4 heaping teaspoons of peanut butter weekly were about 80 percent less likely to develop a peanut allergy by their fifth birthday. So finds a landmark new study.

Scientists have completed the first long-term study of children allergic to milk who were treated with an experimental therapy based on giving them small doses of the very food that made them sick. Three to five years after the treatment, some kids remained free of allergic symptoms. But for others, severe reactions to milk had resumed.