Food Allergy Resource on "PEN"

 (This supplements yesterday's post on food allergy resources.)

Dietitians of Canada's PEN also has 3 full knowledge pathways on food allergies with up-to-date resources such as the May 2007 Current Issues article on Food Allergy in Adults.  Note: you need to be a subscriber to access PEN.

Food Allergy Resources

Today I'm posting some of the web resources on food allergy I consulted -- some familiar, others new to me -- while updating our hospital's menu-specific list of food allowed/not allowed on allergy diets.

Dial-A-Dietitian's food allergy links

Dietitians of Canada's Fact Sheet on Food Sensititivies

What is a food allergy? (concise factsheet from the Food Safety Network)

Health Canada Food Labeling

Canadian Food Inspection Agency's page on Food Allergens

Allergy/Asthma Information Association

Cochrane Review (1999): Interventions for dysphagia in acute stroke

Although this review was originally published in 1999, it was reprinted this year. Because it includes a thorough, critical appraisal of many of the stroke references in my library, I've uploaded the document to my blog.

Interventions for dysphagia in acute stroke (Cochrane Review 1999)

FOOD Trials: Implications for Dietetic Practice

Earlier I posted a brief description of and links to the FOOD Trials, a series of three large, multi-centre, randomized controlled studies that attempted to answer questions about feeding stroke patients.

Here, in the researchers own words, are how the trial results can be applied to practice:

Study 1: Can oral supplementation improve stroke outcome?

On the basis of our results and our surveys of UK practice, it seems likely that patients who are judged to be undernourished on admission or who have deteriorating nutritional status in hospital will be offered oral nutritional supplements.....However, our data do not support use of routine supplementation of hospital diet for unselected stroke patients who are mainly well nourished on admission (The Lancet, Vol 365 February 26, 2005 p. 762).

Studies 2 & 3: Do timing and/or route of enteral feeding affect stroke outcome at 6 months?

Our data would suggest that to reduce case fatality, unless there is a strong indication to delay enteral tube feeding (such indications would have excluded such patients from the FOOD trial), dysphagic stroke patients should be offered enteral tube feeding via a nasogastric tube within the first few days of admission. Also, for enteral feeding within the first 2 or 3 weeks, nasogastric feeding should be the chosen route unless there is a strong practical reason to choose PEG feeding (eg, the patient cannot tolerate a nasogastric tube) (The Lancet, Vol 365 February 26, 2005 p. 771).

The authors also state:

Early tube feeding might reduce case fatality, but at the expense of increasing the proportion surviving with poor outcome. Our data do not support a policy of early initiation of PEG feeding in dysphagic stroke patients (The Lancet, Vol 365 February 26, 2005 p. 764).

Evidence for best nutrition practice in stroke care

Because June is Stroke Month, I'm going to end this last week of June with several posts on stroke research that provides evidence for best nutrition practice.

Today I'm highlighting the FOOD trials that tried to answer the why, when and how of feeding stroke pts. The questions were:

1. In patients who can take adequate oral fluids, does routine oral nutrition supplementation increase the proportion of stroke patients surviving without disability?
2. In patients who are unable to take an adequate diet orally, does early initiation of tube feeding (NG or PEG) increase the proportion of stroke patients surviving without severe disability?
3. In patients who need tube feeding, is a PEG tube, instead of the traditional NG tube, associated with improved outcomes after stroke?

The study results, along with a helpful commentary, were published in the 26 February 2005 issue of the Lancet. Here are the web links to the articles (note: subscription needed to read them):

Donnan GA, Dewey HM. Stroke and nutrition: FOOD for thought. The Lancet, Volume 365, Number 9461, pages 729-730.

Routine oral nutritional supplementation for stroke patients in hospital (FOOD): a multicentre randomised controlled trial. The FOOD Trial Collaboration. The Lancet, Volume 365, Number 9461, pages 755-763.

Effect of timing and method of enteral tube feeding for dysphagic stroke patients (FOOD): a multicentre randomised controlled trial. The FOOD Trial Collaboration. The Lancet, Volume 365, Number 9461, pages 764-772.

If you or your workplace do not have a Lancet subscription, you can still read summaries of the articles for free, although you do have to register. I did this, but to be honest, I didn't find the summaries had enough information to be useful.

I had wanted to upload the full articles to my blog but I can't because of copyright restrictions. If you can't access the articles easily, please email me and I will email you copies for your personal use. (The copyright policy permits this.)

My email address is on the About page.