Can food choices be associated with nutritional status and atopic dermatitis severity in children and adolescents?

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic and relapsing skin disease frequently observed in childhood with a multifactorial pathogenesis; however, diet is a contributing factor. Some studies have verified that fruit, vegetables, milk, or meat intake (>1x/wk) reduced the incidence of AD symptoms. Otherwise, highly frequent fast-food consumption (>1x/wk) is associated with increased AD symptoms. Also, elimination diets are common in individuals with AD and often conducted incorrectly. The present study hypothesizes that food intake can be associated with AD severity and nutritional status. A food frequency questionnaire was administered to assess food frequency and elimination diets, in addition to obtaining anthropometric data to estimate nutritional status. One hundred and four individuals participated in the study, with age ranging from 1 to 17 y and 11 mo. The results indicated no significant association between food intake and nutritional status or SCORAD (P > 0.05). Approximately 30% of participants reported elimination diets, of which 31% had no prescription. Elimination diet was adopted by 29.8% of participants, with most (67.7%) stating that they were restricting certain foods on the recommendation of a health care provider. Association between food intake and AD severity was not observed. However, the consumption of some ultra-processed foods was associated with nutritional status. We encourage qualitative research on food consumption and cause-effect research on the association between elimination diets and worsened AD symptoms. This study was registered at the Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials-ReBEC (RBR-7q6g5b).