Elimination Diet: Are You Overdoing It?

I have been bombarded with advice, from doctors or others, of what type of food I should not give my son. If I list down all the types of food mentioned, the list will be incredibly long. I really have serious problems with elimination diet, especially implementing it to a child. If you’ve noticed, just about all of the major food groups are mentioned in the list, leaving eczema sufferers with almost no options for healthy foods. As a result of a strict following to the elimination diet list, eczema sufferers have a multitude of deficiencies in beta carotene, zinc, selenium, quercetin, essential fatty acids (omega-3, omega-6, omega-9 & GLA), magnesium, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E and B complex vitamins. I have heard many parents worry that their child with eczema is constantly underweight. Now the question to ask yourself is, are you eliminating too much from your child’s diet?

More recently, another deficiency that has been associated with eczema sufferers is niacin (vitamin B3). Niacin is a vitamin that is involved with the enzyme systems, which convert food into energy. It also prevents a very serious skin disease, called pellagra. Pellagra manifests as rough, thickened, blisterlike lesions of the skin of the hands, feet and face witha soreness of the mouth and tongue. It is the nicotonic acid from niacin that provides the preventative agent against pellagra. Food sources for Niacin are liver, whole grain breads and cereals, poultry, fish, peanuts, potatoes, and milk. Now assuming that you are familiar with the list of foods the medical community recommends eczema sufferers to eliminate from their diet and understanding the food sources for Niacin, its understandable why eczema sufferers still suffer after implementing their extreme elimination diets. The very nutrients they need to restore their health are being further depleted by the extreme elimination diets. Think about it.