An uncontrolled open pilot study to assess the role of dietary eliminations in reducing the severity of atopic dermatitis in infants and children.
BACKGROUND
The severity of atopic dermatitis (AD) has been reported to be reduced by dietary eliminations in a subset of patients with AD.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the reduction of the severity of atopic dermatitis in infants and children after eliminations of certain dietary items.


METHODS
The study group comprised of 100 children with atopic dermatitis. Their severity of itching, surface area of involvement, and SCORAD index were measured. Patients who did not have any systemic disease or were not on systemic corticosteroids were included in the study. Selected patients were advised to strictly adhere to a diet excluding milk and milk products, all kinds of nuts and nut-containing foods, egg and egg-containing foods, seafish and prawns, brinjal and soyabean for a period of 3 weeks. Instead of these avoided items, the food items to be included freely to maintain proper nutrition were dal and dal products, rohu fish, chicken, and fruits. All the preintervention parameters were measured again after 3 weeks.


RESULTS
There was a statistically significant reduction in severity scores after dietary elimination alone.


CONCLUSIONS
Dietary elimination helped to alleviate symptoms and signs in a subset of infants and children with AD.
Dhar
Sandipan
S
Department of Pediatric Dermatology Kolkata, India. drsandipan@gmail.com
Malakar
Rajib
R
Banerjee
Raghubir
R
Chakraborty
Saswati
S
Chakraborty
Jayanti
J
Mukherjee
Susmita
S