The Connection Between Gut Health and Food Allergies in Kids

If you have a kiddo with food allergies, you know how stressful it can be to keep them safe and well-fed. The constant label reading and fear of an allergic reaction while ensuring kids get the nutrition they need can be challenging.

Plus, food allergiesare becoming increasingly more common.The CDC estimates that 8% of school-aged children have a food allergy. That’s 1 in every 13 kids or 2 students per classroom!

However, your kid’s gut health might be an unexpected way to understand and potentially reduce the consequences of food allergies. 

Food Allergies are Immune Responses

Although food allergies can manifest differently - hives, rashes, itchy mouth, vomiting, diarrhea, difficulty breathing, etc - the origin of all food allergies is an abnormal immune response to certain foods (1). 

The USDA reports 90% of all kid’s food allergies come from the Top 9 Allergens:milk,eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame. 

The immune system often mistakes these foods as threats, producing IgE antibodies that trigger the symptoms of an allergic reaction.

The Gut-Immune Connection in Food Allergies

Your kid’s gut health can be simply defined as the quality and diversity of bacteria in their digestive system. This bacteria helps promote proper digestion, reduce inflammation, and even communicate to the brain.

Additionally, gut bacteria also impact the immune system, which is responsible for triggering allergic reactions. Nearly 70% of the immune system lives in the gut (2).

Because the microbiome plays such a big role in regulating the immune system, here’s what we know about how this impacts food allergies:

• While babies are developing an immune system, the health of their gut microbiome impacts their risk of developing a food allergy(3). Studies show that exposure to different microbes early in life plays a role in whether food allergies are developed (3). 

• Dysbiosis, or an imbalance of gut bacteria, increases the risk for food allergies (3). This is the result of lower quality and poor diversity of gut bacteria. Even later in life, kids with food allergies have a different microbiome composition than kids with no allergies (3), which displays a direct link between allergies and gut health.

• Gut bacteria prevent allergies by suppressing the body’s inflammatory response(3). When we eat foods that have fiber, bacteria in the gut ferment it into short-chain fatty acids (SCFA). These SCFAs strengthen the gut lining and suppress immune system receptors - preventing an inflammatory response, like allergies. 

How to Support Gut Health for Allergy Prevention

Several factors impact your kid’s gut health. Antibiotic use, diet, stress, sleep, and genetics all play a role in which type of bacteria live in their gut. 

Lifestyle factors that are most easily modifiable that can improve gut health include:

Increasing Prebiotic and Probiotic Consumption

As we discussed above, prebiotic fibers turn into SCFAs, which help suppress inflammation responses, like allergies. Probiotics directly add to the diversity of the gut microbiome, making it more likely to fight off an allergic reaction. 

Prebiotics inBeginbaby Prebiotics + Probiotics help promote a balanced gut microbiome and healthy digestion during infancy.

It includes Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMOs), which mimic the natural prebiotics found in breast milk to nourish good gut bacteria as well as two clinically proven probiotic strains (Bifidobacterium infantis and Bifidobacterium lactis) to support digestive health.

Learn more about how Beginbaby Prebiotic + Probiotic can help keep your baby's digestion healthy as they grow.

Introduce Allergen Foods Early and Often

When babies are introduced to the top 9 allergen foods as soon as they start solids, it can significantly reduce their risk of developing an allergy. 

One study of over 13,000 babies found that introducing allergen foods early led to a 69% reduction in peanut allergy, a 40% reduction in egg allergy, and a 16% reduction in milk allergy (4). 

The frequency of allergen foods also plays a role. TheAmerican Associates of Pediatrics recommendsfeeding babies allergens multiple times per week to prevent allergy development. 

Begin Health Expert Tip

Does your kid have milk allergies? Check out what our nutrition scientist has to say about HMOs and kids with milk allergies.

Eat a Varied Diet

If you have an older kiddo who currently has a food allergy, one way to help them fight immune responses is by increasing the variety of foods they eat. 

Although this is not proven to reverse food allergies, it improves their gut bacteria’s diversity which could lessen symptoms of inflammation (5). 

Summary

While food allergies are incredibly common in kids, their gut health can play a role in regulating the immune response within allergic reactions.

Support your kiddos’ gut health with prebiotics, probiotics, introducing allergens early, and encouraging a varied diet.