Nutrition economic evaluation of allergy treatment in infants and children: background for probiotic studies

The treatment of food allergy is based on avoidance of the foods, which cause symptoms, and their replacement with nutritionally comparable foods. The cost of food allergy and elimination diets to families and society is poorly known. Our results suggest that estimation of dietary costs on the basis of dietary records was possible but challenging. In infancy, cost differences were small but vary depending on the age group with the reduction of median yearly costs around 180–240€. Thus, further studies are required for a more accurate cost estimate and an estimation of the impact of specific probiotics.