Children and Ear Infections - The Allergy Connection

by Jeffrey S. Bland, Ph.D.

Many parents in America wonder why their children keep getting one ear infection after another despite following their doctor's advice to take repeated courses of antibiotics.  In Japan, parents are finding it strange that so many children are showing symptoms of rice allergy, a food that has been a staple in the Japanese diet for centuries.  Throughout the world, medical investigators are puzzled by the dramatic increase in the prevalence of childhood asthma within the past decade.  Could these concerns be interrelated?   The answer, according to an increasing number of researchers and clinicians, is "yes".

According to a well-respected clinical immunologist, J.O. Hunter, many health problems such as food allergies, asthma, and eczema may be related to the diet.  He named these conditions "enterometabolic disorders" (The Lancet, Vol. 338, pp 495-96, 1991.)   Enterometabolic disorders occur because there are substances in food, which can result in a "toxic" insult to the immune system.  This toxic insult, which produces an allergic-type alarm reaction in the body, is caused by the presence of certain natural and synthetic substances in foods to which  the individual responds in an allergic manner.  Hunter points out that some people have these symptoms because their body cannot adequately "detoxify" the substance they are reacting to.

Some people are very sensitive to the toxic effects of sulfite or MSG (monosodium glutamate) as food additives.  There are also people who have been found to be very sensitive to the toxic effects of chemical or pesticide residues in their food.  To borrow an old mining term, these very sensitive individuals might be regarded as the "yellow canaries" of the population.  It was a long-time custom for coal miners to carry with them into the mine a canary in a cage.  The canary's tiny body was a very sensitive reactor to poisonous gases escaping into the mineshaft.  If the toxic fumes overcame the canary, the miners would know it was time to evacuate the shaft before they too suffered the adverse effects of the toxins. 

Of all people in our population, the most sensitive to these low-level toxins in food, air and water are our children, older individuals, those with immune-suppressive problems, and individuals taking certain medications.  There has been more evidence presented that the so-called atopic disorders in children might be related to these "toxic" exposures. (Clinical and Experimental Allergy, vol. 23, pp28-31, 1993)  In a recent study of 81 children who had recurrent ear infections, Talal M. Nsouli, M.D., found that when he placed them on a diet that eliminated foods to which they were found to be sensitive, ear infections disappeared in 70 of the children.  Reintroduction of the specific foods to which they were sensitive resulted in recurrence of the ear problems. (Science News, vol. 146, no. 15, pp 231, 1994)

Parents may not even realize that the foods to which their children react are causing their health problems, because the children don't display the classic "allergy" symptoms.   Furthermore, in many cases the foods, which are causing the problems, are generally considered "good" foods to include in a child's diet, such foods as dairy products, wheat, citrus, or beef.  For susceptible children, however, these foods produce an "enterometabolic disorder".  the way to evaluate the relationship of foods to a child's symptoms is to eliminate one food family in question at a time and look for the improvement in symptoms in the child over the period of a week.

Once the foods of concern have been identified and eliminated for the child's diet, it is important to make sure the child continues to get adequate calories, protein, and other nutrients from the remaining foods in his or her diet.  If wheat must be eliminated, for example, rice-based products may be a much better substitute.  If parents are not sure how to implement these suggestions, many health professionals skilled in nutrition are available to help out.

The observations and published studies in the field indicate that many childhood disorders we treat with antibiotics, such as ear infections may actually be caused by a toxic reaction in the child which stresses the immune system and allow the bacteria which are always present to multiply.  We may be overusing antibiotics in these children, and the result may be antibiotic resistance, which causes the drugs to be less effective if and when the child really needs them. (Stuart Levy, M.D., The Antibiotic Paradox, Plenum Press, New York, 1992).

By eliminating possible "toxic insults" to the child's detoxification system, and strengthening the immune system, parents working with concerned health practitioners may be able to eliminate many of the symptoms of allergy, eczema, and ear infections in their children, without having to worry about the adverse affects of more aggressive therapies.