From time to time certain foods or nutrients appear that become fashionable for their theoretical beneficial properties, until they disappear (surely you remember goji berries) or the opposite happens, that they are supposed to have a pernicious effect on health that causes the People stop using them.
It's what is happening lately with milk lactose Y the gluten of some farinaceous foods, which are being considered by many parents as causes of various problems and they are withdrawing them from the children's diet with the intention of avoiding such symptoms.
The problem is that removing them from the diet without a diagnosis can cause problems and therefore some pediatricians of the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu from Barcelona have warned that These practices should not be carried out without medical indication..
Presentation of a report with food advice
Just yesterday the presentation of the report "Guide for a healthy and balanced infant feeding was carried out. Solving doubts, breaking myths and clarifying concepts" (in Catalan), a document of more than 300 pages with information on child nutrition that touches, between many topics, the one that we present to you today and that commented on that presentation.
In the report they warn that many families, without medical indication, are eliminating milk lactose from the diet by buying alternative products without lactose, or even stop giving milk to children for the false belief that its consumption produces asthma or an increase in mucus or colds. In addition, they are removing gluten when they think it could be hurting children without knowing if they suffer or not celiac disease.
What is the problem of removing lactose from the diet?
Lactose is the sugar in milk. Although we humans were not originally able to drink cow's milk beyond childhood, most people produce enough lactase to tolerate their lifelong consumption (lactase is the enzyme that is responsible for breaking down lactose so that we can to digest). However, some children stop producing lactase over the years and begin to show symptoms, to the point that they have to avoid milk and sometimes even some yogurts (yogurts do not have lactose, unless the ingredients specify that yes it does). If there are symptoms, it is necessary to reduce or avoid lactose, but not before there is a diagnosis, because lactose is key in calcium absorption.
Also, if we remove lactose from a child who is not intolerant, what we can achieve is precisely that it is, because lactase production depends largely on the amount of lactose consumed. If a child stops taking lactose because his mother thinks it will be better, what can happen is that he begins to produce less and less lactase and ends up being intolerant.
It is not that you stop producing completely and that you drink some milk it becomes very bad, but you can reduce your levels to the point of drinking a glass of normal milk (with lactose) one day at grandma's house and start to experience the symptoms Then, as you take lactose again it is possible that everything will return to its course, that is, that it will gradually increase the production of lactase, but of course, the symptoms will be there until you again tolerate the amount that took time ago.
But well ... milk does produce mucus, doesn't it?
By definition, no. Milk does not increase colds or mucus or anything like that, unless a person has a certain allergy or sensitization. Then it could be.
But if this is not the case, it is shown that milk does not produce more mucus than the child has, nor does it cause asthma, and therefore it makes no sense to remove the milk from the diet for this reason (another thing is that it withdraw by ideology or other issues).
What is the problem of removing gluten from food?
Celiac disease is gluten intolerance. This is the inability of a person's intestine to absorb gluten that comes from certain farinaceous foods (oats, wheat, barley, etc.), which just damaging the walls of the intestine causing difficulty to absorb vitamins, iron and nutrients properly.
Since this condition can cause very annoying symptoms and relatively important deficiencies, it is crucial to make a correct diagnosis to act accordingly: in case celiac disease is confirmed, gluten-containing foods must be completely removed from the diet.
What is happening is that many parents are removing gluten from the children's diet at their own discretion, without knowing whether or not they have celiac disease.
This is a problem because once gluten is removed, the symptoms disappear, the intestine improves and, consequently, diagnostic tests will probably be negative, even if the child actually suffers from celiac disease. That is, if a child does not take gluten by choice of parents but is celiac, it will grow without a diagnosis or control, and there may always be some risk of consuming some gluten somewhere, or if the parents relax a little with the restrictions over time.
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