The American Academy of Pediatrics updated earlier suggestions, which made parents feel like they were not doing their best to prevent their children from food allergies, asthma and allergic rashes. The AAP says breast-feeding helps prevent babies' allergies, but there's no factual evidence to show that taking certain foods during pregnancy stage, either using soy formula or delaying introduction of solid foods beyond six months could also be helpful.

The doctors group advised mothers of infants in August 2000 that mothers with family history of allergies should avoid taking cow's milk, fish, eggs, peanuts and tree nuts while breast-feeding

Milk and egg allergies now appear to be more persistent and harder to outgrow, according to new research from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

Researchers followed more than 800 patients with milk allergy and nearly 900 with egg allergy over 13 years in the largest studies to date of children with milk and egg allergies

Researchers from Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken) have identified a protein that controls the body cells' secretion of histamine, which causes allergic reactions.

The Riken's discovery published on Monday in the website of the U.S. science magazine Nature Immunology offers a clue on how to better treat allergies by regulating the protein called STIM1

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced that popular allergy drug Zyrtec-D can now sell without a prescription for people aged 12 and older.

Zyrtec-D, which combines the antihistamine cetirizine with a nasal decongestant, pseudoephedrine, is available as a prescription drug since 2001

A consumers group in Taiwan warned that hang-drying clothes indoor without proper ventilation poses a health risk to people, the Chinapost.com reported on Wednesday. The Consumers Foundation based its findings on a young woman who developed skin and nose allergies and lung disorder after hang-drying clothes in her apartment without opening windows for years.

Five different doctors failed to determine the cause of the woman's condition, but an environmental specialist said inhaling laundry detergents caused the allergies and lung problem