Preventing food allergies in young dogs
Allergies are a very common problem in dogs. Symptoms of allergies may vary from simple itching to rashes and pimples. Ear infections are also common signs of allergy.
An allergic response can be triggered by any substance, natural or synthetic. Among natural substances that can trigger allergies are all foods.
Foods are substances foreign to the body, and as such it is to be expected that the body would reject them. However, foods contain the building blocks for the body
and the body finds its way to utilize foreign protein, incorporating it into animal protein.
When a foreign substance enters the body, the cells from the immune system recognize the invader and take a picture of it, then show it to others, and send messages
to still other members of the immune system, who all then attack en masse to reject the invader. But this cannot happen with foods! Somehow the body must be able
to differentiate friend from foe.
Bacteria seem to be the accidental matchmakers in this process. Immune responses in the gut are dependent on a type of cell called T-helper cells. There is a T-helper
Type 1 response, which promotes against the development of allergy, while the allergic reaction itself is a T-helper Type 2 response.
Bacteria that live in the gut and do not cause disease promote the T-helper Type 1 response. Thus, when a food protein enters the bacteria-rich gut, the allergic
response is downgraded, and the food is recognized as a friend.
In the growing animal, frequent exposure to small amounts of food leads to the development of tolerance to those foods – a process known as desensitization. It must
follow that if there is insufficient gut bacteria, and therefore insufficient T-helper Type 1 response, food allergies may arise.
Antibiotics used to treat infections do not discriminate between disease-causing bacteria and beneficial bacteria: they kill them all. A very recent study in
Clinical Experimental Pediatrics (June 9, 2010) suggests that children treated with antibiotics are more likely to develop food allergies. Therefore, those
children receiving antibiotic treatment end up with a gut devoid of bacteria, and so with reduced opportunity to develop tolerance to foods, hence increased likelihood
of developing food allergies.
These findings corroborate general holistic recommendations. Young animals should be exposed to a variety of foods. A rotational diet based on three or four different
formulas gives the animal a better chance to develop tolerance to multiple foods, and reduces the risk of developing allergies.
Health management of young animals, as they develop an immune system, is critical. Overly aggressive intervention with drugs can have long lasting negative effects.
Of course when the life of the animal is at risk, we use whatever is at our disposal and deal with the side effects later. For milder infections, it is preferable to
act conservatively and used means that are less destructive of the gut bacteria, for this reason.
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