Feeding Babies Peanuts Has Helped Thousands Dodge Allergies
Feeding Babies Peanuts Has Helped Thousands Dodge Allergies
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Feeding Babies Peanuts Has Helped Thousands Dodge Allergies

🕒︎ 2025-10-20

Copyright Newser

Feeding Babies Peanuts Has Helped Thousands Dodge Allergies

"There are less kids with food allergy today than there would have been if we hadn't implemented this public health effort," he added. The researchers found that peanut allergies in children ages 0 to 3 declined by more than 27% after guidance for high-risk kids was first issued in 2015 and by more than 40% after the recommendations were expanded in 2017. The effort hasn't yet reduced an overall increase in food allergies in the US in recent years. About 8% of children are affected, including more than 2% with a peanut allergy. For decades, doctors had recommended delaying feeding children peanuts and other foods likely to trigger allergies until age 3. But in 2015, Gideon Lack at King's College London, published the groundbreaking Learning Early About Peanut Allergy, or LEAP, trial. Lack and colleagues showed that introducing peanut products in infancy reduced the future risk of developing food allergies by more than 80%. Later analysis showed that the protection persisted in about 70% of kids into adolescence. The study immediately sparked new guidelines urging early introduction of peanuts. story continues below The new research offers "promising evidence that early allergen introduction is not only being adopted but may be making a measurable impact," the authors concluded. The new study emphasizes the current guidance, updated in 2021, which calls for introducing peanuts and other major food allergens between four and six months, without prior screening or testing. "It doesn't have to be a lot of the food, but little tastes of peanut butter, milk-based yogurt, soy-based yogurts and tree butters," Hill said. "These are really good ways to allow the immune system exposure to these allergenic foods in a safe way."

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