Peanut allergies in children drop following advice to feed the allergen to babies, study finds

An estimated 40,000 children avoided peanut allergy diagnoses aft the guidelines for erstwhile to archetypal exposure kids to the nutrient allergen changed, according to caller research.

The melodramatic driblet successful puerility peanut allergies arrives a decennary aft a watershed survey recovered that feeding peanut products to babies reduced their chances of processing an allergy by implicit 80%.

For decades, parents were advised to debar feeding communal allergens, specified arsenic peanuts, to infants. In 2015, guidance shifted astir peanuts for high-risk kids and expanded 2 years later.

A survey published Monday successful the diary Pediatrics recovered that peanut allergy rates successful children nether the property of 3 dropped by astir 43% aft the recommendations were expanded successful 2017. Rates for each nutrient allergies dropped by astir 36%.

“What I was amazed by was the magnitude of the results,” said Dr. David Hill, an attending allergist astatine the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and elder writer of the study. Even being capable to accidental that allergy rates plateaued “would beryllium immense news, but the information that we really saw a simplification successful the onset of caller nutrient allergy successful kids nether 3 is incredible.”

Hill and his colleagues analyzed physics wellness records from astir 50 pediatric practices to way diagnoses of nutrient allergies successful astir 120,000 children betwixt 0 and 3. Fifteen months marks the highest onset of peanut allergy, according to the study.

Kids were deemed recently allergic if they received a diagnosis codification by a supplier for a nutrient allergy and were prescribed an EpiPen, Hill said.

The reductions successful diagnoses were recovered adjacent though lone astir 29% of pediatricians and 65% of allergists reported pursuing the expanded guidance issued successful 2017, surveys found.

Confusion and uncertainty astir the champion mode to present peanuts aboriginal successful beingness led to the lag, according to a commentary that accompanied the study. Early on, aesculapian experts and parents alike questioned whether the signifier could beryllium adopted extracurricular of tightly controlled objective settings.

Sung Poblete, main enforcement of the nonprofit Food Allergy Research and Education, who was not progressive successful the study, hailed it for its absorption connected real-world data.

While it’s wide that the signifier of “eat early, devour often” for foods that tin provoke allergic reactions works successful a objective setting, “it’s truly important to cognize that successful the existent world, this tin besides alteration incidence and prevalence for the babe population,” she said.

When a idiosyncratic has a peanut allergy, their assemblage responds to the proteins successful peanuts arsenic though they’re dangerous. The immune strategy tries to combat them off, triggering symptoms ranging from hives and diarrhea to anaphylaxis, a life-threatening condition.

Poblete said that the findings item the request to alteration argumentation to further thrust down life-threatening allergy diagnoses. That could see the U.S. Department of Agriculture including peanut products successful their babe nutrient packages, she said.

Food allergy prevalence has been connected the rise, with 2.2% of U.S. children having a peanut allergy, according to commentary connected the caller study. Besides delayed instauration of allergenic foods, different hazard factors see cesarean conception births and antibiotic exposure, according to Hill.

“This is conscionable a telephone to treble down our efforts to recognize wherefore it is that children make nutrient allergies and however we tin amended dainty and yet cure these diseases,” Hill said.

Since the play the researchers studied, children’s nutrient guidelines person expanded further. In 2021, the Academy of Pediatrics recommended introducing large nutrient allergens, including peanuts and eggs, to each infants betwixt 4 and 6 months of age.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.