They solved the case.
Children who are exposed to peanut products as early as four months of age are less likely to develop peanut allergies later in life, a British study published Tuesday found. NEJM Evidence.
Researchers at King’s College London looked at more than 500 children up to the age of 12. They found that children who consumed peanuts in paste or puree form before the age of five were 71% less likely to develop a peanut allergy than those who avoided peanuts.
Other studies have found similar results, but only included children up to age 5, and “it’s not clear that was necessarily long enough to demonstrate long-term resistance,” said Michelle F. Huffaker, director of translational medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and one of the new study’s authors. He told The Washington Post.
Both studies were sponsored and co-funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health.
A new study found that 15.4 percent of children who avoided peanuts developed an allergy by age 12, compared with just 4.4 percent of children who were exposed to peanuts.
“Today’s findings should give parents and caregivers greater confidence that feeding peanut products beginning in early childhood in accordance with established guidelines can provide durable protection from peanut allergy,” said NIAID Director Jeanne Marrazzo. He said in a statement.
“If widely implemented, this safe and simple strategy could prevent tens of thousands of cases of peanut allergy among the 3.6 million children born in the United States each year,” she added.
Gideon Lack, lead researcher and professor of paediatric allergy at King’s College London, said: He told CNN He wasn’t surprised by the findings.
“Peanut allergies develop very quickly in most children, between the ages of 6 and 12 months,” Lack says, “so if you want to prevent the disease, you need to do it before the disease develops.”
“This biological phenomenon is based on an immunological principle known as oral tolerance induction,” he continued. “We have known for decades that young mice and other laboratory animals fed foods such as eggs, milk and peanuts do not develop these allergies later in life.”
Although parents are being encouraged to feed peanuts to young children, many are still wary of feeding their children the legume. This was revealed in a recent study.
The guidelines say peanut butter can be spread thinly or mixed with breast milk, formula or puree, but health officials warn that whole or chopped peanuts can pose a choking hazard.
“There are lots of options out there, but for a 4-month-old baby, regular peanut butter mixed with warm water is fine — it doesn’t need to be anything more special than that,” said study author Huffaker.
