New peanut allergy research
I saw this on the baby 411 blog today:
The latest study on peanut allergies found something very revealing: Israeli children who got their first taste of peanuts between 8—14 months of age were LESS likely to have a peanut allergy than their British peers who didn’t start eating peanut products until after 14 months of age. In fact, the British kids were 10 times more likely to have peanut allergies!!! This study was reported in this month’s Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
We’ve reported before on the long term study underway now on offering peanut-containing products to infants as young as four months of age. Those study results will not be available until after those kids turn five…hence we are a few years away from seeing whether or not peanut exposure in infancy helps or hurts the number of kids with peanut allergies.
However, this latest study provides evidence that there may, indeed, be some rethinking on recommendations for infants and some of the high allergenic foods.
For the time being, please do not give your four month old a PB&J.
I haven’t read the actual report but it reminded me of something I wrote last year:
I was at a friend’s wedding this weekend and saw, Dave, an old friend I haven’t seen or spoken to in more than 10 years. We were seated at the same table and when the salads came around he asked the waiter if the dressing contained any peanut products. I’d forgotten that Dave was allergic to peanuts. He’d had a reaction once when we were together but it wasn’t a severe one so it didn’t really stick out in my memory. But he was the only person I knew with a peanut allergy until recently, when it seems like the rate of food allergies has more than doubled.
Remembering Dave’s love for conspiracy theories I asked Dave if he knew anyone else with a peanut allergy when he was a kid, knowing he’d probably launch into an elaborate speech about the rise in peanut allergies and his theories about what causes them. And he did.
His theory? Genetically modified foods. He says that because the peanut is a hardy crop scientists have taken peanut genes and spliced them into others. The result is an abundance of the proteins in peanuts in a variety of unlikely foods. The proteins in allergenic foods are what cause the allergy. Since so many of the foods we eat contain peanut genes without actually containing peanuts, exposure to the allergens has increased exponentially, increasing the number of babies who eventually develop allergies.
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