[Kwashiorkor after an exclusion diet for eczema]

Nutritional disorders observed in children with eczema may be aggravated by inappropriate diet, sometimes with dramatic effects.

A child aged 3 years 7 months presented a state of severe malnutrition with edema (kwashiorkor). The child had chronic eczema and had been given a highly restrictive diet based on a principle of exclusion without medical advise. Cure was achieved without sequelae with a normal diet.

This case illustrates the fragility of nutritional status in children with chronic widespread skin disease due to the risk of cutaneous loss of protein. Kwashiorkor is an exceptional observation in developed countries and, in this context, might be on the rise due to the popularity of exclusion diets for presumed allergic disease.