Eating peanut butter PREVENTS allergies???

[Lovecat]

Apparently there's evidence now that eating it at an early age will provide protection against allergies??

This was on the BBC news headlines this morning but I had to go out before the story came on - looked it up online as it sounded so unlikely and I thought I'd misheard it! Link here

Interesting to see if it's true - but would you really offer your child for this trial when they already have allergy problems? Not sure I would....

hmmm, interesting but how awful would it be if the studies were wrong and you ended up with a child who has an anaphalactic reaction to nuts

Gosh thats good timing, theer is a discussion on parenting about this at the moment.

I do wonder if someone has misread 'Cause and effect' and decided that children who eat lots of peanut butter at a young age are not allergic to it - well, duh! If they were allergic to it they'd never got more than 2 servings of it, would they!

Not evidence - just a theory that is being tested. Brave parents who put their child into the study.

No way would I put any child of mine into a study like this - will it be valid as it can hardly be double blind can it? Everyone would know it was peanut butter.

I think it's very interesting.

Dd was one of those 'high risk of a peanut allergy' children - egg allergy, milk and soya + eczema and asthma but I scoffed down the nuts when I was pregnant and breastfeeding and she had them from a younger than recommended age (by accident) and loves them!

I was never sure if we were just lucky but it'll be interested to see if it was more than just a coincidence!

(incidentally, they are doing these tests under the supervision of a consultant so it's not just people sitting at home feeding their high allergy risk kids peanuts iyswim)

I'll be not it'll be (grr at typing mistakes)

i have hayfever

dd1 is allergic to cats

ate peanut butter in all three pgs, gave peanut butter from about 11 months

no sign of any food allergies here

i always eat peanuts when pregnant and give my kids peanut butter !

no they don't necessarily appear before 3 but if they appear before then then there is a 20% chance of outgrowing nut allergy, higher for some allergies (like egg and milk allergy).

dd2 is part of this study, as a high risk child, first stage next week. We were interested to be part of the study as it means dd2 will be tested for all allergies at a very early age, and monitored at regular intervals until she is 5. Having another child with allergies, we thought this would be useful to know.

As foxinsocks says it is a controlled environment, with peanuts being given in hospital only and not at home. Obviously, with any child there comes a point where they first encounter peanuts, and it's best for that time to come in a setting where they could be cared for immediately in case of reaction? She may be part of the placebo group, not receiving peanuts though .

i should add that obviously your child is tested for peanut allergy as part of the battery of tests FIRST, and if shown to be allergic, they are (obviously) not given peanuts to eat, and take no futher part in the study. So it is safe.

Oh, are kids with eczema high risk for peanut allergy. Well, being a American, I consider it cruel and unusual punishment to keep a toddler from eating peanut butter and jam sandwiches. DD, who does have eczema, had been enjoying peanut butter since she had enough teeth to chew the toast it comes on.

It makes perfectly good sense to me. After all, aren't we told that one of the reasons there are so many (nad more and more) allergies is that our bodies are not sufficiently exposaed in infancy? How come people living in countries were pewanuts are a staple food don't have peanut allergies?

Thirteen years ago when my cousin was weaning her first child in Israel she was giving her dd paenut products within months - nobody overrr there had even heard of peanut alergy and peanuts were considered nutritionally sound. This is a Western problem, and a lifestyle issue, rather than a biological one.

I ate loads of peanut butter in pregnancy and breastfeeding and my dd1 - 8 - is anaphylactic to all nuts. .

I agree PC, I think it makes total sense too. It seems logical doesn't it.
We have a higher rate of peanut allergy and yet we are the country that has been stricter in our guidelines of not giving peanuts in young children.

Seems like quite a coincidence otherwise.

anaphylactic with? with regards to? when exposed to?

LOL zizou

what a pain and a worry though I am sure

sounds better with 'anaphylactic reaction to' but as I wear the dunce's hat when it comes to English grammar and spelling, I really wouldn't take my word for it.

aDad, I would have had dd down like a shot for this sort of trial too - it provides great access to the doctors and lots of monitoring etc. doesn't it! I was going to get dd to join a study in Cambridge to find out why some children outgrow egg allergies and why some don't but it really is just too far for all of us to schlep up there only to have dd jabbed with needles!

foxinsocks - absolutely, so next week we will know what she is allergic to, which will come in handy as we're about one month into BLW with her. So will be able to proceed with confidence.

problem is that the other countries may not treat peanuts the same way we do (see below for quote on a study about China). I'd also want to be convinced that the lower rate is other countries is genuine, not poor diagnosis, and that it wasn't down to different rates of parasitic worm infestation/ use of skin cream. Allergies are poorly researched so its good that they are doing the study but I wouldn't assume the advice will change at the end.

"Conclusion: The methods of frying or boiling peanuts, as practiced in China, appear to reduce the allergenicity of peanuts compared with the method of dry roasting practiced widely in the United States. Roasting uses higher temperatures that apparently increase the allergenic property of peanut proteins and may help explain the difference in prevalence of peanut allergy observed in the 2 countries."

Gideon Lack, who is in charge of the study, is the head of the practice we see for our two sons. I think there may already have been some studies elsewhere which show the preventive effect of having peanuts early. I'd join in if either of mine were the right age.

I do really hope they are right with the theory as it would provide safer guidelines for the future, but if they are not, I sincerely hope the initial attention this study is getting continue until they get some results. I fear that there would be far more people hearing about the theory than the results, and if they were to be wrong this could lead to many many problems.

FWIW mine had a single piece of peanut at 2.5 yrs old that he spat out, now he can not even put his hands on something that was in contact with peanuts without getting a reaction. But, I guess that the problem with allergies is that it's difficult to draw a general rule about anything, it may depend in soooo many factors, and reactions can be so varied that what is safe for a child may be totally unsafe for another, but it is impossible to know until it happens