Eating nuts may cut risk of allergy

INFANTS can be protected from peanut allergy by ensuring they eat peanut-based food, a study has found.

The findings from the first large-scale trial testing a method of preventing food allergy suggest parents may have been given wrong advice for decades.

Barring peanuts and other allergenic foods from babies might actually increase the risk of food allergy, the authors claim.

The Leap (Learning Early About Peanut allergy) study compared two groups of children aged four to 11 months, all of whom suffered from severe eczema or egg allergy and were considered at high risk of developing an allergy to peanuts.

One group ate a peanut-containing snack food at least three times a week, while peanuts were kept away from the other.

Of the children who avoided peanuts, 17 per cent became allergic to the food by the age of five. But only three per cent of the children who were randomly selected to consume peanut as infants went on to develop a peanut allergy. Lead investigator Professor Gideon Lack, from King’s College London, said: “For decades allergists have been recommending that young infants avoid consuming allergenic foods such as peanut to prevent food allergies. Our findings suggest that this advice was incorrect and may have contributed to the rise in the peanut and other food allergies.”

Prof Lack added: “Parents of infants and young children with eczema and/or egg allergy should consult with an allergist, paediatrician or their general practitioner prior to feeding them peanut products.”