Attention Parents: Exposing Infants To Peanuts May Prevent Deadly Allergies

Food allergies are a growing problem for parents, but a pair of studies that fed peanuts and other allergy-inducing foods to infants may have discovered a solution.

The LEAP (Learning Early About Peanut Allergy) study in 2015 and a follow-up one this year has uncovered tentative evidence that exposing infants to peanuts, and possibly other allergens, early in life rather than avoiding those foods may provide long-term protection, CBS News reported.

Allergies to peanuts have risen significantly in recent years, and therefore, scientists have been working to understand the allergy and ways to prevent and treat it. According to the Washington Post, from 1997 to 2010, allergies to peanuts rose from 0.4 to 2 percent.

The mild symptoms include hives and other rashes, digestive problems, or shortness of breath. But serious cases can be deadly, causing a swift and widespread reaction that can constrict the airways. People with allergies to peanuts have to be extremely careful about coming into contact with the nut and must carry an EpiPen just in case.

But this latest research with infants may lessen the risk.

Last year, British researchers tested high-risk infants (meaning they had eczema or egg allergies already) aged 4 to 11 months. Every week until they turned five years old, they fed the infants a small amount of peanut protein.

Just under 2 percent of these infants grew to develop allergies to peanuts. About 13 percent of the infants who avoided the nut ended up being allergic. When the study was over, the children were told to stop eating peanut products for a year.

This was the second part of the LEAP study, to see how the consumption — or lack thereof — of peanuts affected the children. Over 500 children who were enrolled in the first study as infants participated in the follow-up. Half had been eating peanuts regularly and the other half avoided them. But for the year in between studies, nobody ate any.

At the end of the year, researchers discovered an encouraging result: they found that 18 percent of kids in the group who had originally avoided peanuts ended up with allergies, and only 5 percent of those who were exposed developed one. That increase was deemed statistically insignificant.

“It would appear early consumption of peanuts gives you long-lasting protection against peanut allergy,” lead study author Dr. Gideon Lack.

The second study also branched out from allergies to peanuts and attempted to replicate the same result with other foods infants and kids are often allergic to: milk, eggs, fish, wheat, and sesame. Parents who participated weren’t too diligent about sticking to the meal plan (which was the same as the one for peanuts), so the study isn’t perfect.

However, researchers had enough data to believe that the exposure approach may work with other allergies.

As usual, more research is needed with infants to determine whether or not exposure to allergens provides a long-term protection against peanuts and other foods. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics is now recommending that parents give high-risk infants peanuts to prevent allergies later in life. Experts urge people to consult with their doctor first.

“We need more research to better understand the mechanisms behind the development and prevention of allergic responses to peanut, and how this might translate to other food allergies,” said study co-author Dr. George Du Toit. “However, it is reassuring that the highly protective intervention demonstrated in LEAP was not only safe, nutritionally favorable and acceptable to participant families but also sustained even with cessation of peanut consumption for 12 months.”

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