Allergenic milk proteins. Friend or foe nutritional proteins?

GUILLERMO HORACIO DOCENA; PAOLA LORENA SMALDINI ; RENATA CURCIARELLO; ÁNGELA MARÍA CANDREVA

Milk Protein

InTech

Lugar: Rijeka; Año: 2016;

Allergies are complex inflammatory diseases with a not fully understood etiology. Several factors, including genetic, environmental, age of exposition, diet, age, etc, are associated with the induction of these diseases. The incidence of allergies has increased during the last decades and constitutes the most common immune-based disease worldwide. According to the Hygiene Hypothesis, firstly formulated by Stracham in 1989, and then modified by Bach in 2000, a lower exposure to pathogens and commensal microbes that reside in the intestinal lumen is responsible for the rapid rise of the prevalence of atopic and allergic disorders. Food allergies have shown a similar trend, so studies are focused on understanding the immunological mechanisms underlying this pathology and on developing novel disease-modifying therapies. Nowadays, the most efficient treatment is the strict avoidance of the allergen; however, many studies evidence that immunotherapies constitute corrective treatments of the impaired regulation of the immune system in allergic patients.The aim of this chapter is to write an overview about allergic diseases and food allergies, the mechanisms involved, differences with toxic reactions and food intolerances, and to describe the main features of the allergenic proteins of milk. In the first part, we summarize the immunologic and cellular aspects of the allergic inflammation, with an emphasis on food allergy (milk allergy). In the second part, we discuss the nature and chemistry of allergens (dairy and cross reactive allergens) and different methods used to predict and analyze allergenicity. The third part covers the natural history of food allergies including some clinical aspects. In this section we include the description of the new therapeutic strategies derived from the old immunotherapies, which are based on the controlled administration of milk allergens. Finally, we describe different pathologies associated with milk allergy, such as secondary immunodeficiencies, autism and autoimmune diabetes.