Feeding baby peanut could prevent allergy, study suggests
Children who don’t eat peanut before their first birthday are more likely to be allergic to the food at age three, a new study suggests.
Researchers said such babies were more than four times as likely to have a clinical allergy to peanut by age three than those who ate it in the first 12 months.
The data involved more than 2,600 Canadian children enrolled in the long-running CHILD Cohort Study, which investigates the root causes of an array of chronic diseases, including asthma, allergies and obesity. None of the infants introduced to peanut before six months were sensitized to the food at age three.
Lead researcher Elinor Simons said the findings suggest even babies at low risk of developing an allergy should consume peanut early.
Other well-known studies have focused on the importance of introducing peanut to babies at high risk of developing an allergy.
“This study’s findings should reassure parents, caregivers and health-care professionals about the benefits of early peanut introduction for all children,” Simons, a clinician-scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba, said Thursday.
The study also found that children who did not try peanut by 18 months were more than seven times more likely to be sensitized to peanut compared with those who started eating the food before nine months.
“This tells us that if peanut is not introduced before the age of 12 months, it should still be introduced as soon as possible,” added Simons, also an assistant pediatrics professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and a pediatric allergist at the Children’s Hospital of Manitoba.
The findings were published online Thursday in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.
The Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Cohort Study is tracking nearly 3,500 Canadian infants and their families to help determine the root causes of several chronic diseases.
The study spans four provinces and involves more than 140 researchers, students and research staff.
The study subjects were drawn from the general population. Most were not considered to be at high risk of developing an allergy.
“Even when we excluded high-risk children, early peanut introduction was associated with a lower risk of peanut allergy by age three,” Simons said.
Infant feeding guidelines have changed significantly in recent years and Simons acknowledged that some parents might be wary of introducing potentially allergenic foods to young children.
But the findings are in line with previous research by the CHILD Cohort Study, which found in June 2017 that delaying common allergenic foods for infants increases the risk of sensitivities later on.