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Query: UMLS:C0024523 (malabsorption)
 7,319 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Food intolerance is a reproducible adverse reaction to a specific food ingredient that is not psychologically based. Food allergy is a form of food intolerance in which there is evidence that the response is caused by an immunological reaction to food. Other mechanisms of food intolerance include enzyme defects (e.g. lactase deficiency), pharmacological effects (e.g. histamine), toxic properties (e.g. haemagglutinating lectins) and irritants (e.g. spices). Food allergy in children is a highly contentious subject and there is often a striking lack of published evidence from which to base clinical decisions. The true prevalence of food allergy in children is unknown, although there is evidence of an increasing incidence of allergic reactions to some foods, especially peanuts. Our understanding of why some children are unable to tolerate certain foods (e.g. cow's milk, egg), or how they grow out of this intolerance, is very poor. Symptoms of food allergy in children are diverse and include vomiting, poor weight gain, abdominal pain, malabsorption, cough, wheeze, rhinitis, atopic eczema, urticaria and angioedema. Despite the lack of objective data to support the notion that food intolerance contributes to behaviour in children, this is a belief firmly held by many parents and some professionals. The gold standard for diagnosing food intolerance is the double-blind placebo-controlled food challenge (DBPCFC). There is often a poor correlation between the results of food provocation tests and those of skin prick tests of radioallergosorbent tests for specific food antibodies. For proven food allergy, elimination diets are the mainstay of management. In children these must be closely supervised to avoid nutritional deficiency and compromise of growth. Some children who have had severe (anaphylactic) reactions after food need to have a supply of self-injectable adrenaline made available to their parents and teachers and must also practice strict avoidance of the offending food.
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PMID:Food allergy and food intolerance in childhood. 1113 67

There is an undeniable link between gastrointestinal disorders and malnutrition. Chronic diarrhoea is one of the most common gastrointestinal conditions that can impact a patient's nutritional status. The nutritional consequences will depend on the cause of the diarrhoea as well as the location and extent of gastrointestinal involvement. In general, malabsorption plays a central role in the interaction between malnutrition and chronic diarrhoea. Malabsorption can result in both nutritional deficits and diarrhoea. With severe malnutrition, chronic diarrhoea can persist due to impaired immune function and poor mucosal recovery. Food intolerance and an inappropriate diet in the setting of malabsorption may also contribute to chronic diarrhoea. Patients may attribute their gastrointestinal symptoms to specific dietary intake, which can lead to self-imposed indiscriminate dietary restrictions. Therefore, disease-specific treatment in conjunction with appropriate nutritional counselling and intervention is recommended in the prevention and treatment of malnutrition in patients with chronic diarrhoea. Specialized nutritional support through enteral or parenteral administration may be required to treat severe caloric and micronutrient deficiencies. In this review, we aim to summarize the mechanism, diagnosis, and treatment of the nutritional consequences of chronic diarrhoea.
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PMID:Nutritional consequences of chronic diarrhoea. 2338 10

In westernized countries, adverse reactions to ingested foods are reported to affect up to 20% of the population. Functional, nonspecific, non-allergic gastrointestinal complaints are mainly due to the intolerance/malabsorption of carbohydrates (lactose and fructose), proteins (gluten), and biogenic amines (histamine). Food intolerance/malabsorption is defined by one or several of the above mentioned food components not being degraded and/or absorbed properly within the gastrointestinal tract. Food intolerance/malabsorption causes variable, functional, nonspecific, non-allergic gastrointestinal and extra-intestinal complaints, and a detailed diagnostic workup for all possible etiologic factors in individual patients is essential. Usually, evaluation for histamine intolerance is not included in differential diagnoses of patients with functional, nonspecific, non-allergic gastrointestinal complaints. A targeted dietary intervention for single or possibly combined intolerance/malabsorption is required. In this article, we review currently discussed differential diagnoses and available tests for intolerance/malabsorption. Accordingly, we aim to outline why including histamine and, histamine intolerance, should be considered in differential diagnoses of patients with functional, nonspecific, non-allergic gastrointestinal complaints.
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PMID:Considering histamine in functional gastrointestinal disorders. 3264 52