A study of serum antibodies to isolated milk proteins and ovalbumin in infants and children.

Serum antibodies to cow milk proteins and ovalbumin were measured quantitatively. Food hypersensitivity of the immediate type was determined to be present or absent by skin tests and double-blind food challenges. Elevated levels of antibodies to milk proteins in sera characteristic of infants fed cow milk were found to decline with age, so that sera from children who were 6 to 15 years of age (inclusive), not hypersensitive to food, had significantly lower levels than the infants. In contrast, sera from age-matched children, who were shown to have hypersensitivity to some food, were found to have levels of antibodies to milk proteins as elevated as in infancy. Hypersensitivity was not necessarily to milk but often to some other food. This persistence of greater antibody production to milk throughout childhood in those hypersensitive to some food indicates a fundamental difference from those without hypersensitivity to food, either in permeability, in immunological reactivity of the gut or in development of immunological unresponsiveness. Implications for pathogenesis of clinical disorders are discussed.