title: Lifetime Increased Risk of Adult Onset Atopic Dermatitis in Adolescent and Adult Patients with Food Allergy.
abstract: Food allergy can result in life-threatening anaphylaxis. Atopic dermatitis (AD) causes intense itching and impaired quality of life. Previous studies have shown that patients with classical early-onset AD tend to develop food allergy and that 10% of adults with food allergies have concomitant AD. However, it is not known whether late-onset food allergy leads to adult-onset AD, a recently recognized disease entity. Using an initial cohort of one-million subjects, this study retrospectively followed-up 2851 patients with food allergy (age > 12 years) for 14 years and compared them with 11,404 matched controls. While 2.8% (81) of the 2851 food allergy patients developed AD, only 2.0% (227) of the 11,404 controls developed AD. Multivariate regression analysis showed that food allergy patients were more likely to develop AD (adjusted hazard ratio = 2.49,p< 0.0001). Controls had a 1.99% risk of developing AD, while food allergy patients had a significantly higher risk (7.18% and 3.46% for patients with ≥3 and <3 food allergy claims, respectively) of developing adult-onset AD. This is the first study to describe the chronological and dose-dependent associations between food allergy in adolescence and the development of adult-onset AD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Science, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung 912, Taiwan. bacillus25@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Hsu-Sheng
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Environmental Medicine, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung 807, Taiwan. p915013@cc.kmu.edu.tw.|Department of Medical Research, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung 807, Taiwan. p915013@cc.kmu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Hung-Pin
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Tu
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, National Yang Ming University College of Medicine, Taipei 112, Taiwan. chhong@vghks.gov.tw.|Department of Dermatology, Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Kaohsiung 813, Taiwan. chhong@vghks.gov.tw.
authors.forename: Chien-Hui
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Kaohsiung 833, Taiwan. zieben@cgmh.org.tw.
authors.forename: Chih-Hung
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003876:Dermatitis, Atopic / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D005512:Food Hypersensitivity / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged
keywords: atopic dermatitis; cohort study; food allergy