Scientists have found a simple new method to reduce the rate of people suffering from a peanut allergy by a staggering 71 per cent.
How? By feeding a child peanuts regularly between the ages of four months old and five years old. What’s more, the method works even if the child then continues to eat peanuts or avoids them entirely after the age of five.
“Decades of advice to avoid peanuts has made parents fearful of introducing peanuts at an early age,” said lead investigator Prof Gideon Lack from King’s College London.
But now, he says, “the evidence is clear that early introduction of peanut in infancy induces long-term tolerance and protects children from allergy well into adolescence. This simple intervention will make a remarkable difference to future generations and see peanut allergies plummet.”
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Two per cent of young children in western countries (UK, Australia and nations across North America and Western Europe) have a peanut allergy – and cases are rising. Allergic reactions to peanuts can be severe, and even life-threatening. This means many parents avoid introducing peanuts into their children’s diets at all.
But the new research, published in journal NEJM Evidence, suggests avoiding peanuts could actually increase children’s likelihood of developing the dangerous allergy.
In fact, according to Lack, purposefully introducing peanuts at a young age could prevent more than 100,000 new cases of peanut allergy across the world every year.
Lack and his team conducted the research in multiple trials. In the first trial, half of the 640 participants were given peanuts regularly for the first five years of their lives, while the other half avoided them.
At the end of this trial, the researchers tested for peanut allergies in the five-year-olds. They found that early introduction of peanuts reduced their risk of developing an allergy by 81 per cent.
In the follow-up trial, the researchers checked up on 508 of the same children as adolescents (they averaged 13 years old). In the years between the trials, they were allowed to consume as much peanut as they wanted.
The researchers discovered that 15.4 per cent of children who had avoided peanuts as young children developed peanut allergies after the age of 12, compared to only 4.4 per cent in the group who had early exposure. In other words, eating peanuts as an infant gave children a 71 lower risk of developing an allergy as a teenager.
Some of those who had early exposure went on to eat few or no peanuts as they approached adolescence – indicating that the protection from early childhood lasts, regardless of subsequent exposure.
The researchers say that babies should be ready to start weaning before being introduced to peanuts. They provide guidance on how to do this safely, advising that peanuts should initially be given in the form of a soft paste or as peanut puffs.
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