Dietary Changes Effective Method to Treat Adults with Eosinophilic Esophagitis

Adults suffering from allergic oesophagitis, an allergic inflammatory condition, should consider dietary changes.

Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE is an inflammatory condition of the esophagus that affects children as well as adults and is more common in men than in women. It is also called allergic oesophagitis. It is characterized by the presence of a large number of special types of white blood cells - the eosinophils. This condition leads to stiffening or narrowing of the esophagus and causes difficulty in swallowing. It also causes heartburn and chest pain.

The new study found that dietary elimination is the successful method to treat adults with EoE. They analyzed two diet elimination plans. In the first therapy - targeted elimination - the patients underwent evaluation with skin prick testing and foods that had a positive reaction and the foods that identified by patient self-report. For the other diet - six food elimination diet - dairy, eggs, wheat, soy, nuts and seafood were removed from the diet irrespective of the skin-prick test results.

The researchers noticed that 68 percent of the patients who were given the targeted diet eliminated had an improvement in their symptoms. They were compared with 78 percent of those who followed a six-food elimination diet plan. In those who experienced improvement in the six-food elimination diet, one food was added every six weeks and endoscopy was repeated. Eggs and dairy impacted 44 percent of the patients and were the most common triggers.

"By eliminating specific foods from patients' diets, symptoms improved in 71 percent of patients, and endoscopic appearance improved in 54 percent," said lead study author W. Asher Wolf, MD, MPH, and co-author Evan S. Dellon, MD, MPH, from the division of gastroenterology and hepatology, University of North Carolina School of Medicine. "These strong results support dietary elimination therapy as an effective treatment for adults suffering from EoE."

Further research will show which factors can predict effective dietary therapy to target patients that are more likely to respond.

The study was published in the journal 'Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology' the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association.