Feeding babies allergy-inducing foods may prove helpful: studies
Print Edition
TWO new studies bolster evidence that feeding babies peanuts or other allergy-inducing foods is more likely to protect them than to cause problems.
One study, a follow-up to landmark research published last year, suggests that the early prevention strategy leads to persistent, long-lasting results in children at risk for food allergies. It found that allergy protection lasted at least through age five and didn’t wane even when kids stopped eating peanut-containing foods for a year.
That means at-risk kids who don’t want to eat peanut butter on a weekly basis can safely take a break, at least for a year.
The second new study suggests that the early strategy could also work with eggs, another food that can cause allergies in young children. It found that allergies to peanuts and eggs were less common in young children who started eating those foods at three months of age than in kids who as infants received only breast milk.
The New England Journal of Medicine published both new studies online on Friday, coinciding with their presentation at a medical meeting in Los Angeles.
Food allergies are common, potentially serious and sometimes deadly. They’re becoming more prevalent in children in many countries, affecting up to eight percent of kids under age three. About two percent of US kids have peanut allergies.
The results from last year’s study prompted a sea change in experts’ approach to preventing these allergies. 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.
It also led to new draft guidance issued on Friday by a panel convened by Fauci’s agency. The recommendations include giving at-risk kids peanut-containing food as early as four- to six-months of age. Infants at risk are those with severe skin rashes or egg allergies; allergy tests are recommended beforehand.
The agency paid for last year’s study and follow-up, and will issue final guidelines after a 45-day comment period. The draft guidance echoes advice issued last year by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups in response to the ground-breaking study.
That study involved more than 600 at-risk British infants.
By age five, peanut allergies were much less common in children who had started eating peanut-based foods before age one, usually peanut butter or a peanut-based snack, than among children who’d been told to abstain.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
