Children who were allergic to cow’s milk had lower bone density and got less calcium in their diets than those with other food allergies, according to a small new study that also found too few kids used vitamin D and calcium supplements.
Parents often report that children with milk allergy, who must avoid all dairy, have difficulty getting enough calcium or vitamin D from milk substitutes, said senior author Dr. Anne Des Roches of the allergy division at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine Research Center of the University of Montreal in Canada.
“Milk allergy is one of the most frequent food allergies in infants,” Des Roches told Reuters Health by email.
Infants can have formula instead, and older children may have soy milk, rice milk or almond milk, but these may be less nutritive, she said.

“For all children with milk allergy, a consultation with a nutritionist is always a good thing,” she said.
Between 2011 and 2014, the researchers compared 52 kids with cow’s milk allergies around age seven years with 29 similar kids who had other food allergies. They measured the kids’ total body composition, blood levels of vitamin D and lumbar spine bone mineral density and used dietary questionnaires to assess dietary calcium and vitamin D intake.
More than 60 per cent of kids with cow’s milk allergy did not meet recommended daily allowances of dietary calcium, compared to 25 per cent of kids with other food allergies. Less than 15 per cent of both groups met recommended daily allowances for vitamin D intake.
Kids with cow’s milk allergy had lower bone mineral density than others, and 6 per cent had low bone mass, while none of the kids in the comparison group had low bone mass, according to the results in Pediatrics.
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http://www.worldeyes.ml/2016/04/kids-allergic-to-cows-milk-may-have-low.html