Study: 39% of chronic constipation in children caused by dairy!

Posted by Dr. Martha Howard  |  Tagged: chronic constipation in children, constipation, constipation in children, removal  |  425 Comments

After my first two blogs about dairy, I was going to give it a rest and talk about reactions to gluten.  But then, an email from Journal Watch, a doctor’s service from the publishers of New England Journal of Medicine showed up in my inbox.  It was about chronic constipation in children, and its relationship to dairy.  It reported a study from Spain with astonishing results.  All of the children in the study had chronic constipation.  When dairy was removed from their diets, the constipation stopped for 39% (yes, thirty-nine percent) of them.  The study was designed so that dairy was reintroduced–and when the children consumed it again, their constipation came back.  And when it was removed again, the constipation went away again.  So for today’s blog, I am going to let Journal Watch have the floor, and present their summary of the study.  

Dairy and Childhood Ear Infections

Posted by Dr. Martha Howard  |  Tagged: american academy of otolaryngology head and neck surgery, otitis media with effusion  |  154 Comments

More about dairy and its connection to childhood ear infections.

Dairy and other allergenic foods are associated with recurrent ear infections in children.

Every parent should know this.  Every primary care doctor should know this.

Nearly 50% of recurrent ear infections in children are caused by food allergies!  Does this sound like I’m on a bit of a soapbox? I admit it.  Because several studies that show the food allergy-ear infection connection is still virtually ignored in mainstream medicine.   The first thing any primary care practitioner should be doing with an infant or child who has ear infections is recommending a trial off dairy, and if that doesn’t work, looking for other food allergens.

Dairy allergy–myths and facts

Posted by Dr Martha Howard  |  Tagged: Dairy, lactaid milk, response, types of enzymes  |  7 Comments

Today I’m inspired by a patient who was reacting to dairy, and went to her doctor.  He did not do a single test, to see what element of dairy she was reacting to.  Instead, he yelled at her “you’re lactose intolerant, here–take these!!” and slapped down some samples of lactaid enzymes in front of her.  She decided never to see him again, but did try the lactaid–but the milk still made her feel sick.