New research casts doubt on government health recommendations that infants and new mothers avoid eating peanuts to prevent development of food allergy.
The study shows that children who avoided peanut in infancy and early childhood were 10 times as likely to develop peanut allergy as those who were exposed to peanut.
Researchers measured the incidence of peanut allergy in 8,600 Jewish school-age children in the United Kingdom and Israel.
They compared these results with data on peanut consumption collected from mothers of infants age 4 to 24 months.
Prevalence of peanut allergy in the United Kingdom was estimated at 1.85 percent, versus .17 percent in Israel.
“The most obvious difference in the diet of infants in both populations occurs in the introduction of peanut,” lead author George Du Toit, MD, FAAAAI, wrote in the article.
At 9 months of age, 69 percent of Israeli children were eating peanut, compared to 10 percent of those in the U.K.
Dietary guidelines in the United Kingdom, Australia and – until earlier this year – the United States advise avoidance of peanut consumption during pregnancy, breastfeeding and infancy.
Read more at Medical News Today
