WEDNESDAY, Aug. 22, 2001 (HealthDayNews) -- The pillow is stuffed with buckwheat hulls, and the ads promise you'll sleep better, avoid headaches, reduce jaw pain, even cut your stress. But nowhere do they say you also might increase your risk of a potentially deadly nighttime asthma attack.
But that's what a group of Korean researchers found and documented in a recent issue of the European journal Allergy. Though the research involved only three children, one American doctor hails it as one of the most rigorous studies yet done on the subject.
"The study was small, but we should not let that dissuade us from the seriousness of the findings. It was, in fact, such a thorough and complete study that the results are to be taken seriously," says Dr. David P. Skoner, chief of Allergy and Immunology at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh.
Skoner says the pillows, thought to originate in Korea or Japan, "are readily available in this country, and I think this study can serve to alert American doctors to a potential source of allergy that we might not have otherwise been so quick to recognize."
The trendy pillows are sold virtually everywhere. A quick check on the Internet reveals dozens of online outlets. Some even sell buckwheat-hull mattresses, and many major health and natural living catalogs and stores prominently feature the items. Infomercials have appeared on nighttime TV, and at least one major television shopping retailer touts them as one of their biggest selling items.
Even more alarming, buckwheat hulls are used in a variety of infant products, including stuffed animals laced with herbs to help lull babies to sleep and pillows to cushion infant car seats. In an unrelated incident last year, the Consumer Product Safety Commission yanked buckwheat filled "Baby Bucky Pillows" from the market because of the risk of suffocation.
While an allergy to buckwheat flour is not new, one expert says allergic reactions are few and far between because the flour is so seldom used in American food.
"As a grain it can provoke as potent an allergy as any other grain. It's just not much of a concern because buckwheat flour is not used that often," says Dr. Robert Wood, a pediatric allergist at Johns Hopkins Children's Center.
In addition, many folks overlook the pillows as a potential source of buckwheat allergies because they were filled with the hulls, which ordinarily don't prompt an allergic reaction.
"In order to have an allergy, you have to have a protein, so the hull itself is not likely to cause problems," says Skoner.
However, hull processing can leave flour residues that can cause problems with the pillows.
"If you inhale the flour residue, then you are setting yourself up for a possible allergic reaction," says Skoner.
The study looked at the cases of three children with nocturnal asthma. A detailed lifestyle history revealed all three had been using buckwheat-hull pillows.
Researchers then put the kids through a number of extensive allergy tests, including the skin prick test and a radioimmunoassay, which searches the immune system for signs of allergy. Most importantly, the children also were tested for sensitivity to dust mites, a potent allergen that often underlies asthmatic reactions to bedding, draperies, carpeting and upholstered furniture.
While the dust-mite test was negative, interestingly, it showed the children were allergic to buckwheat flour, suggesting the pillows were inducing the nighttime asthma.
When the buckwheat pillows were removed from the children's rooms for seven days, symptoms improved dramatically in all three children, and further testing confirmed that buckwheat flour on the hulls was causing the allergic response.
The researchers write that "[buckwheat chaffed pillows] should be considered a main cause of childhood nocturnal asthma in those asthmatics exposed to the pillows."
Still, Wood doesn't see the pillows as much of a threat.
"It's useful to know it's out there, but I don't think it's going to start filling up our clinics. I'm not worried," he says.
Skoner takes a less casual approach: "I think that as we become increasingly aware of the use of these pillows in the United States, more and more doctors will start considering them as a source of allergy, and it's possible we may soon find problems are more widespread than we realized."
What To Do
To learn more about the causes of asthma and the latest treatment options visit the the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
For a list of online information resources on food allergies, click here. And, if you're fuzzy on what buckwheat looks like, here are a few pictures and explanations.
