Feeding children peanut products from infancy to age five reduces the risk of developing a peanut allergy into early adolescence, researchers say.
Children who regularly ate peanut butters or puffed peanut snacks from four to six months were 71% less likely to have a peanut allergy at age 13 than those who avoided peanuts, indicating a long-lasting effect of early peanut consumption.
The simple dietary intervention could prevent about 10,000 cases of potentially life-threatening peanut allergies each year in Britain alone, doctors said, and reduce the number of cases worldwide by 100,000 a year.
Gideon Lack, professor of pediatric allergy at King’s College London, said decades of advice to avoid peanuts has made parents wary of giving them to their children from such a young age. But he said the evidence was now clear that early exposure to peanuts provided long-lasting protection against the allergy.
“I strongly recommend that babies are introduced to peanuts at four months if they have eczema, and from six months if they don’t have eczema,” Lack told the Guardian. Babies with eczema are at greater risk of developing peanut allergies, probably because traces of the food can more easily penetrate the skin and are targeted by the immune system.
The number of cases of peanut allergy has increased in many Western countries in recent decades. One in 50 children in Britain now have the allergy, with around 14,000 new ones diagnosed every year. Although 20% of children typically outgrow the allergy, for the rest the condition can mean avoiding peanuts for life and inevitably worrying about a severe allergic reaction if they accidentally come into contact with it. food.
Despite their name, peanuts are legumes and come from a different plant family than nuts, such as almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, pistachios and walnuts. About a third of children with a peanut allergy have an allergy to at least one type of nut.
Previous work by the same researchers found that regular consumption of peanut products from childhood reduced the risk of peanut allergy at age five by 81%, compared to children who avoided peanuts for the same period. The latest study, known as the Leap-Trio Trial, followed 508 of the children until an average age of 13, during which time they were free to eat or avoid peanuts as they pleased.
The study found that children in the early peanut consumption group had a 71% lower risk of peanut allergy compared to children in the peanut avoidance group. As expected, a small percentage of children overcame their allergy naturally. The results published in NEJM evidence show that the protection remained intact after the age of five, regardless of the children’s peanut eating habits.
Lack said there was a “double benefit” if children started peanut products early. “You prevent the vast majority of peanut allergies, but in those cases where you can’t prevent it, you can identify the children earlier because treating them is much easier,” he said.
“Once they’re seven, eight, nine months old, you’ve really missed the boat. But even if you miss the boat, you can identify children with a peanut allergy early and treat them with immunotherapy.”
The researchers said that peanut butter or peanut puffs can be given to breastfeeding children as soon as they can tolerate soft foods.
The goal should be to feed the equivalent of a heaped teaspoon of peanut butter three times a week. Although whole or chopped peanuts should be avoided due to the choking risk, peanut puffs can be ground into a paste suitable for babies.