On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 17:36 Australia/Perth, EDG wrote:

> <For allergic families, it is generally recommended that parents wait
> at
> east three to five years before considering the introduction of sesame
> and
> nut products, as allergy to these is common and often anaphylactic.
> Infants have no way to tell you that their throat is closing over and
> they
> feel dizzy.>
>
> That is really interesting since tehina is a staple food here and
> sesame
> has not been found to have any adverse affect on babies.  I suppose
> allergies are a cultural issue.......

The types of food that babies are fed does influence the types of food
allergies that are commonly reported, but the disease itself isn't a
"cultural" one. Sesame allergy is not particularly common in Australia,
but it is well recognised, and increasingly reported here over the past
ten or twenty years.

Interestingly, Googling on <sesame allergy prevalence> gets me as
number one hit an article about sesame allergy in Israel [1].
www.tau.ac.il/medicine/conf2002/A/A-07.doc
The three commonest food allergens were egg, cows milk and sesame in
this study - with sesame being only second to dairy as a major cause of
anaphylaxis.

See also
http://www.anaphylaxis.org.uk/common.html#sesame
which lists Australia and Israel as countries where sesame allergy is
"fairly common".

> Recently there have been several cases of anaphylaxis in infants who
> received artificial milk at age 3-6 months ( mother back at work, ran
> out of
> pumped milk, and gave artificial ......one baby even lost
> consciousness.)
> Now why can't that be on the list of foods not to give to children of
> allergic families......ever!!

Agreed. The paramount importance of exclusive breastfeeding was in all
of the allergy prevention materials we've ever been offered. Most said
"if _absolutely_ necessary, use hydrolysed formula" or something
similar. Unfortunately, there are no human milk banks in Australia as
far as I know.

Lara

[1] Full reference:
  Food allergy is a matter of geography after all: sesame as a major
cause of severe IgE-mediated food allergic reactions among infants and
young children in Israel.
   Dalal I, Binson I, Reifen R, Amitai Z, Shohat T, Rahmani S, Levine A,
Ballin A, Somekh E.
  Sesame  Allergy 2002 Apr;57(4):362-5

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