New evidence suggests that feeding children peanut products during infancy can help reduce their risk of developing a peanut allergy.
A new study claims that compared with avoiding peanuts, starting peanut consumption as early as around 4 months of age, and continuing regularly to around 5 years-old, was associated with a 71% reduced rate of peanut allergy among adolescents. The data also indicates that the protection lasts no matter how often kids eat peanut in later childhood.
Researchers say the study, published in the journal NEJM Evidence, provides conclusive evidence that achieving long-term prevention of peanut allergy is possible through early allergen consumption. Lead investigator Gideon Lack, professor at King's College London, said this simple intervention could cause peanut allergies to plummet across the globe.
"Decades of advice to avoid peanuts has made parents fearful of introducing peanuts at an early age. The evidence is clear that early introduction of peanut in infancy induces long term tolerance and protects children from allergy well into adolescence," Lack said in a statement.
The new findings build on a 2015 clinical trial, during which half the participants were asked to regularly consume peanuts from infancy until age 5 years, while the other half were asked to avoid peanuts during that period. Researchers found that early introduction peanuts reduced the risk of peanut allergy at age 5 by 81%.
The investigators followed up both groups from age 6 to age 12 or older. In that period, children could choose to eat peanuts in whatever amount and frequency they wanted. They found that 15.4% of participants from the peanut-avoidance group and 4.4% from the peanut-consumption group had peanut allergy at age 12 or older.
These results indicate that regular, early peanut consumption reduces the risk of peanut allergy in adolescence by 71% compared to early peanut avoidance.
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, according to Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"[The] findings should reinforce parents' and caregivers' confidence that feeding their young children peanut products beginning in infancy according to established guidelines can provide lasting protection from peanut allergy," Marrazzo said in a statement.