Dietary exclusions for improving established atopic eczema in adults and children: systematic review

Atopic eczema is the most common inflammatory skin disease of childhood in developed countries. We performed a systematic review of randomized controlled trials to assess the effects of dietary exclusions for the treatment of established atopic eczema. Nine trials (421 participants) were included, most of which were poorly reported. Six were studies of egg and milk exclusion (n = 288), one was a study of few foods (n = 85) and two were studies of an elemental diet (n = 48). There appears to be no benefit of an egg- and milk-free diet in unselected participants with atopic eczema. There is also no evidence of benefit in the use of an elemental or few-foods diet in unselected cases of atopic eczema. There may be some benefit in using an egg-free diet in infants with suspected egg allergy who have positive specific IgE to eggs - one study found 51% of the children had a significant improvement in body surface area with the exclusion diet as compared with normal diet (95% CI 1.07-2.11) and change in surface area and severity score was significantly improved in the exclusion diet as compared with the normal diet at the end of 6 weeks (MD 5.50, 95% CI 0.19-10.81) and end of treatment (MD 6.10, 95% CI 0.06-12.14). Despite their frequent use, we find little good quality evidence to support the use of exclusion diets in atopic eczema.