A question came up recently in another forum, about a woman eating 
peanuts and her 4 month-old having a rare, strong reaction.  She was 
asking how long it would take to clear her system, since she was 
understandably very cautious about resuming breastfeeding..

Someone came up with this 2001 study, discussed earlier here on Lactnet
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/285/13/1746
with 23 women, 11 of whom showed traces of peanut proteins in their 
milk.  By 8 hours, the protein wasn't detectable in the milk of 10 of 
those women, at which point the measuring stopped, so there's no 
definite end-point for that last mother.

In the course of the discussion, several people mentioned that it can 
take two, or even three weeks to clear cow's milk proteins from the 
mother's system. I've heard this many places, but is this based on any 
similar kind of study?  Cow's milk is so prevalent in many diets -- do 
the proteins become so entrenched?  That's my question -- could the 
mother really still passing cow's milk proteins in her milk when it's 
been out of her diet for a week, or does the damage and the baby's 
symptoms just take some time to resolve because the exposure was so 
pervasive? It's hard to picture large quantities of any foreign protein 
circulating around  without the body reacting strongly.  (I guess many 
people do deal with unrecognized chronic allergies).  Is there something 
different about cow's milk proteins that makes them more likely to pass 
through the intestinal tract into circulation, and be slower to clear?  
Would a person with a leaky gut always have a variety of other proteins 
circulating, reflecting recent meals? Or are just certain proteins 
likely to pass?

 Is there something inherent in certain proteins that make them more 
"allergenic." or is it just the frequency of exposure increasing the 
chances of an immune response, since, in the US at least, the list of 
common allergens reflects the base of most diets -- that's why mothers 
blanch when they look at the elimination diet info. Why are peanut 
reactions specifically more likely to be dramatic?  If they can test 
breastmilk for the presence of foreign proteins, can bloodwork do the 
same (at least in a research setting, not as a practical diagnostic 
tool) ? This is turning into a lot of questions, but once one starts 
pondering...


Margaret Sabo Wills, LLLL, IBCLC, Maryland, USA

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