A Counterintuitive Way to Prevent Peanut Allergies: Update

In an earlier blog, we discussed an intriguing randomized controlled study that found that giving peanuts to infants who were at high risk of peanut allergies significantly reduces the risk of developing peanut allergies. Now two more studies add more weight to the evidence. . . .

The first of the new studies picked up where the old study left off. At the end of the five year study, the kids now avoided peanuts for the next year. The researchers wanted to see if the effect of early introduction of peanuts lasted. And it did. The kids who had been exposed to peanuts still had significantly less peanut allergies: only 4.8% of them had peanut allergies compared to 18.6% in the group who had avoided peanuts as infants. After a year of not eating peanuts, there was no significant increase in peanut allergies in the group who had eaten peanuts as infants (NEJM 2016;doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1514209).

The second new study looked at 1303 ecxlusively breast fed infants and either introduced them to various common allergies at three months or at the more typical six months. Overall, there was no significant benefit to introducing the allergens early. But, curiously, as in previous study, there was a benefit to introducing peanuts early. Early introduction of peanuts significantly reduced the risk of peanut allergy from 2.5% to 0% (NEJM 2016;doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1514210).

Combined, these three studies provide counterintuitive evidence that introducing your baby to peanuts early in life can help prevent the development of peanut allergies.

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