Doctors have recommended that new moms and dads remove certain edibles from their little ones’ diets, but new info might change that!
Advertisement
Peanut exposure in restaurants and commercial airplanes was most likely to happen through contact with surfaces harboring allergens rather than by inhalation, according to study findings presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Annual Meeting.
It’s okay if you’re turning your head sideways at the computer screen. Last year, the trial indicated that feeding peanuts to at-risk infants for 60 months reduced their risk of developing a peanut allergy.
“The results of the analysis of infants who managed to consume the recommended amount are most striking for peanut and add to the growing body of evidence from our other studies, that early introduction of peanut prevents the development of peanut allergy in both a high risk population of children with eczema and in a general population”, said Dr Gideon Lack, principal investigator of the study. A significant difference in allergy rates was noted after the 1 year of avoidance; only 4.8% of the original peanut consumers were found to be allergic, compared to 18.6% of the original peanut avoiders. Some of the original peanut-consumers did occasionally consume peanut during the year-long avoidance period, but intermittent, low-dose peanut consumption did not result in new cases of peanut allergy.
“The aim of our study was to find out whether infants who had consumed peanut in the LEAP study would remain protected against peanut allergy after they stopped eating peanut for 12 months” .
It was called a ” landmark study ” for allergy research at the time, but what wasn’t clear was whether the children would have to continue to eat peanuts daily in order to maintain the benefits. Sicherer also repeated that this prevention strategy only applies to those who are at risk of peanut allergy and not to those who are already allergic to peanuts. Researchers also report introducing the food early was not easy.
The new results suggest that early introduction of allergy-inducing foods results in “true tolerance” in at-risk kids, said Dr. Stacy Dorris, an allergist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. It was the first “to show that early introduction of peanut can prevent the development of allergy to it”, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement.
The investigators are planning longer-term follow-up of the study participants to assess whether the benefits of regular early-life peanut consumption are maintained over many years when followed by consumption of peanut ad lib, or as much and as often as desired. The children were given an allergy test after they turned five. The scientists had parents fill out questionnaires and they collected dust samples from kids’ beds to test for peanut proteins to make sure the participants were adhering to the rules. Both studies were conducted by the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), from Kings College London.
Advertisement
The group who avoided peanuts during the trial were better at avoiding them during follow-up, and this may affect the findings for the overall comparison. “The bottom line is it’s believed that the unnecessary delay probably contributed to some of the increase of food allergies that we see”, Cummings told Global News.
