Breastfeeding has become the centrepiece of public health programmes, endorsed by the health industry and the infant formula industry and philanthropic groups and national governments alike. How did the world arrive at that global consensus about the importance of breastfeeding? It developed from three related, but independent, streams of evidence. 1. The first stream flows from the results of some … Read More
what happens in pregnancy pre-disposes to food allergy…
By birth, babies that will be diagnosed as food allergic are already different in immune function. Click on the link to read abstract, and then read my commentary below… https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/8/321/321ra8 “Now, Zhang et al. report that infants who later developed food allergy had altered immunity at birth. Cord blood from these infants had more monocytes compared with CD4+ T cells … Read More
What 3-4 months means…
There should be no recommendation for change to the age of introduction of other foods to breastfed infants. For formula fed infants, there may be a case for widening the diet from 3-4 months onwards, as total dependence on a single dehydrated industrial powder is inherently risky; moderation and variety are the keys to dietary safety. Infant body stores are … Read More
Intolerant Bodies: a history of immune research
Intolerant bodies: a history of auto immunity. Anderson W, Mackay IR. (Johns Hopkins Press 2014) A focussed partial review and commentary.. This readable and illuminating text by an historian and an immunologist outlines the historical process of uncovering the workings of the immune system. Finding this book was for me finding a missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is … Read More
FOUR MONTHS OR SIX OR NEITHER? when to widen the milk diet.
What follows is an excerpt from my latest book, Milk matters: infant feeding and immune disorder. It is much easier to read in the book itself, which also deals with practical matters related to this issue. Copying the text from an In Design file to this version has been a time-wasting nightmare, and there will be typos: please read the book…. … Read More