IIntroducing peanut butter, soups and other products made from peanuts into your child’s diet early on may help prevent him or her from developing an allergy later in adolescence, a new study finds.
Published in NEJM Evidence on Tuesday, the study found that feeding children peanut products regularly from infancy to age five reduced the rate of teenage peanut allergies by 71 percent. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), whose National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) sponsored and co-funded the study, said the results “provide conclusive evidence that long-term prevention of peanut allergy is possible.” through early detection of allergens. consumption.”
“Today’s findings should reinforce the confidence of parents and caregivers that feeding their young children peanut products from infancy, according to established guidelines, can provide lasting protection against peanut allergy,” said the NIAID director. , Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, in a press release for the to study. “If widely implemented, this simple and safe strategy could prevent tens of thousands of cases of peanut allergy among the 3.6 million children born in the United States each year.”
The new research, known as the LEAP-Trio study, is based prior work conducted by the same researchers. In a previous study, half of participants regularly consumed peanut products from infancy to age five; the other half avoided peanut products over the same period. Researchers found that introducing peanut products to children from early childhood reduced the risk of peanut allergy by age five by 81%. At the time the study was released, then-NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci he said“The results have the potential to transform the way we approach food allergy prevention.”
See more information: How to Prevent Peanut Allergies
Researchers embarked on the recent LEAP-Trio study to determine whether the protection offered by early consumption of peanut products would last into adolescence, even if children could choose to eat peanuts as much as they wanted.
Of the 640 participants in the original study, 508 were enrolled in the more recent study; 255 of them were in the peanut consumption group and 253 in the peanut avoidance group – 13 being the average age of participants in the latter study. The researchers tested participants for peanut allergies by giving them gradually increasing amounts of peanuts to see if they could safely eat at least 5 grams – just over 20 peanuts.
Among participants in the peanut-avoidance group, more than 15% had a peanut allergy at age 12 or older. Among the peanut consumption group, only 4.4% had a peanut allergy.
Although children in the peanut-eating group ate more peanuts during childhood than those in the peanut-avoidance group, the frequency and amount of peanuts participants ate varied in both groups; there were even periods when participants did not eat peanuts.
“This demonstrated that the protective effect of early peanut consumption lasted without the need to consistently consume peanut products throughout childhood and early adolescence,” the NIH shared in the press release.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
