Nutritional triggers in asthma.

Food and food additive triggers play an important role in approximately 5-8% of all asthma cases. Exact epidemiological data are lacking, partly because the etiological link is not always obvious, the diagnosis of food hypersensitivity is often complicated and ambiguous, food triggers usually act in concert with other trigger(s), and intraspecies and intrabotanic cross-reactivities between inhalant and nutritional allergens can make the time-course of the symptoms confusing. The participation of airway symptoms in food allergy goes up to 40%. Relevant diagnosis can only be established by the combination of procedures used for both food allergy and asthma. In the therapy avoidance measures are of great importance besides usual asthma therapy, and probably in combination with the reduction of gut permeability.