Cow's milk allergy prevention and treatment by heat-treated whey-A study in Brown Norway rats.

Background: Food processing, including heat-treatment, can affect protein structure and stability, and consequently affect protein immunogenicity and allergenicity. A few studies have shown that structural changes induced by heat-treatment impact the intestinal protein uptake and suggest this as a contributing factor for altered allergenicity.

Objective: To investigate the impact of heat-treatment of a whey-based protein product on allergenicity and tolerogenicity as well as on intestinal uptake in various animal models.