Oct 25 (HealthCentersOnline) - Children of allergy sufferers may benefit from allergy testing at a younger age, according to a recent study.

Childhood allergies are a common and growing problem in the United States. Genetics play a powerful role in determining a child's predisposition to allergies. A child is more likely to develop an allergy if one parent has allergies. The risk of allergies is greatly increased if both parents are allergic.

Allergy skin testing for airborne allergens is not typically recommended before the age of 4 or 5. However, a study conducted by researchers at the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center suggests that this practice should be reconsidered for children at high risk for developing allergies. Early detection of allergies is beneficial because it enables the child to be monitored for possible allergic respiratory disease later in life.

The Cincinnati researchers evaluated data on 680 children. Each participant had one parent with allergies and had a positive skin prick test to a common airborne allergen. At age 1, each child was assessed for sensitization to these same allergens, as well as food allergens, with a skin prick test. These results were then compared to the findings in a 2004 Swedish study.

In the earlier study, Swedish researchers used skin prick tests to test for five allergens in a group of children. Participants included children whose parents had allergies, as well as children with non-allergic parents. They found that 7 percent of the children had allergic sensitivity at age 1.

The Cincinnati group found that 28.4 percent of infants born to parents with allergies were sensitized to one or more airborne or food allergens, 18 percent were sensitive to one or more airborne allergens and 13.7 percent were sensitive to an airborne allergen only.

According to Dr. Grace LeMasters, University of Cincinnati epidemiologist and lead author of the report, these findings suggest that the risk for allergic disorders developing in infancy is downplayed, "even though sensitization to allergens at younger ages has been shown to be more important than sensitization in late childhood for the development of wheezing symptoms and asthma."

Dr. LeMasters' comment and details of the study were provided by the University of Cincinnati in a press release. The full study appears in the October 2006 issue of The Journal of Pediatrics.

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