Study Says Special Formula Milk for Infants Did Not Show Any Evidence to Support Allergy Reduction Claim

There have been a number of parents who rely on special infant formulated milk to protect their babies from asthma, type-1 diabetes and other known allergies. Well, it looks like they should look for other ways to do that since a study had just revealed that hydrolyzed formula milk don't actually affect autoimmune diseases in children.

In the past, there were suggestions to give children with allergies and eczema should be given hydrolyzed milk and not the normal formula milk to rid themselves of developing these conditions. According to dailyreporter.com, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved a claim stating that hydrolyzed milk may reduce eczema risk in infants, and a Cochrane review in 2006 stated that giving hydrolyzed milk to infants also reduces risk of milk allergy to infants and children.

But when a new study analyzed the research, they found no evidence that using hydrolyzed milk can lower the risk of the conditions mentioned in babies. A team of researchers led by Robert Boyle of Imperial College London in England said that they didn't find enough evidence to support the claim of the protective property of partially or extensively hydrolyzed milk.

For the study, Boyle and his team reviewed data from 37 studies conducted between the years 1946 and 2015 that when summed up can have more than 19,000 participants. They also found that infants' risk of having asthma, allergies (eczema, hay fever, food allergies) or type-1 diabetes did not decrease even if they were having hydrolyzed cow's milk formula. There also weren't any evidence to support the FDA-approved claim that this kind of milk can reduce the risk of developing the abovementioned conditions.

US News reported researchers saying, "Our findings conflict with current international guidelines, in which hydrolyzed formula is widely recommended for young formula-fed infants with a family history of allergic disease." One expert in the United States even said that the findings gave health experts to question the usefulness of these special formula milk products.

"Allergies and autoimmune diseases [such as asthma and type-1 diabetes] are on the rise and it would be nice if we did have a clear route to prevent them," said Dr. Ron Marino, associate chair of pediatrics at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. "Unfortunately, despite U.S. Food and Drug Administration support [for hydrolyzed formula], the data are not compelling," he said.