Eczema & Soy-Based Formula

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Dr. David Hill and today we're going to be talking about eczema and soy based formula. Eczema is an allergic condition of the skin related to allergies that you might get in your nose, your eyes or even related to asthma in your lungs. But eczema is an allergy that produces a rash, dryness and scaling in the skin itself. Now, just because the effect is in the skin doesn't mean the allergen is necessarily in the skin. On minority of patients, up to 30% may have eczema as a result of food allergy. Often allergy testing is necessary to determine whether a food allergy is present that's contributing to eczema but sometimes you can tell by history. If you tend to get a flare when you eat that food and the flare goes away, when you don't eat it, chances are, that food is responsible. Eczema as a result of food allergies is probably most common in infants and many infants are still fed formula. Some infants will have a reaction to milk protein and eczema may be part of that reaction. In that case, many parents try soy formulas as an alternative. This works in up to half the cases but soy protein and milk protein are actually quite similar to each other, and for that reason in about half of cases that switch to soy formula doesn't work. Also, if your child's already on soy formula and develops eczema, there's no reason to think that he does not have an allergy to the soy formula itself. Soy protein is quite an allergenic protein in and of itself. If your doctor suspects that soy formula protein is one of the causes for the eczema, he can prescribe or suggest a different hydrolyzed formula something for example like Alimentum or Nutramigen where the milk protein has been chopped up into smaller pieces that don't tend to cause so much of immune reaction. Ideally of course, if you have an infant on the way, try to consider breastfeeding especially if you have a strong family history of allergic disease like eczema. We know exclusively nursing for the first 4 months of life is protective. Talking about soy protein and eczema, I'm Dr. David Hill."