A long time after a landmark study showed that feeding young babies peanut products could prevent the growth of life-threatening allergies, new research finds that the change has made a big difference in the positive world.
Around 60,000 children have avoided developing peanut allergies after a report first published in 2015 changed medical wisdom by warning of the introduction of the allergen to babies from 4 months of age.
“That’s unimportant, right?” said Dr. David Hill, an allergist and researcher at Immature Hospital of Philadelphia and author of a study published Monday in the medical journal Pediatrics. Hill and her colleagues analyzed electronic medical records from dozens of pediatric practices to track food allergy diagnoses in young children before, during and after the guidelines were issued.
“In fact, I can stand before you today and tell you that there are fewer children with food allergies today than there would be if we had not implemented this public vitality effort,” he added.
Researchers found that peanut allergies in children ages 0 to 3 decreased by more than 27% after the guidelines for high-risk children were first published in 2015 and by more than 40% after the recommendations were expanded in 2017.
The effort has not yet limited the military rise in food allergies in the U.S. in recent years. About 8% of children are affected, including more than 2% with peanut hatred.
Peanut hate occurs when the body’s immune system mistakenly identifies peanut proteins as harmful and releases chemicals that trigger allergic symptoms, such as hives, respiratory symptoms, and sometimes life-threatening anaphylaxis.
For decades, doctors had recommended delaying feeding children peanuts and other foods that could trigger allergies until age 3. But in 2015, Gideon Lack of King’s College London published the groundbreaking study Learning Early About Peanut Allergy, or LEAP.
Lack and his colleagues showed that introduction to peanut products in childhood reduced the future risk of developing food allergies by more than 80%. Further examination showed that protection persisted in approximately 70% of the children into adolescence.
The study immediately generated new guidelines calling for early introduction of peanuts, but implementation has been slow.
According to surveys, only about 29% of pediatricians and 65% of allergists reported following the expanded purpose published in 2017.
Confusion and uncertainty about the best way to introduce peanuts early in life caused this delay, according to a commentary that accompanied the study. At first, both medical experts and parents questioned whether the technique could be adopted outside of strictly controlled clinical settings.
The data for the study came from a subset of participating allergy centers and may not represent the entire U.S. pediatric population, noted the commentary, led by Dr. Ruchi Gupta, an expert in childhood allergies at Northwestern University.
However, the new research offers “promising evidence that early allergen presentation is not only being adopted but may be having a measurable impact,” the authors concluded.
Advocates for the 33 million people in the United States with food allergies welcomed signs that early introduction of peanut products is gaining popularity.
“This research reinforces what we already know and highlights a significant opportunity to address the incidence and prevalence of peanut hate nationwide,” said Sung Poblete, CEO of the nonprofit group Food Allergy Research & Education, or FARE.
The new study emphasizes the current goal, updated in 2021, which calls for introducing peanuts and other major food allergens within four to six months, without prior screening or testing, Hill said. Parents should consult their pediatricians if they have any questions.
“It doesn’t have to be a lot of food, but small flavors of peanut butter, cream-based yogurt, soy-based yogurts and tree butters,” she said. “These are really good ways to allow the immune system to be exposed to these allergenic foods safely.”
Tiffany Leon, 36, a registered dietitian in Maryland and director of FARE, early introduced peanuts and other allergens to her own children, James, 4, and Cameron, 2.
At first, Leon’s own mother was surprised by the advice to feed babies on those foods before age 3, she said. But Hero explained how science had changed.
“As a dietitian, I practice evidence-based recommendations,” she said. “So when someone told me, ‘This is how it’s done now, these are the new guidelines,’ I thought, That’s right, well, this is what we’re going to do.”
——-
The Associated Press Health and Science Unit is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Unit and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
