Peanut Allergies In Children Have Dropped Significantly: Study

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Allergies to peanuts and other foods dropped significantly after the introduction of new guidelines, according to a study published on Oct. 20.

Just 0.45 percent of young children from 2017 through 2019 had an allergy to peanuts, according to researchers with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s allergy and immunology division and other institutions. That was down from 0.79 percent from 2012 through 2014.

“Our results support ongoing efforts to encourage early food introduction to prevent food allergy,” Dr. Stanislaw J. Gabryszewski, an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and one of the researchers, said in a video presentation that was released alongside the study by the journal Pediatrics.

Food allergies, which develop when a person comes into contact with a protein in food that their immune system identifies as harmful, are the most common cause of severe allergic shock in children. The shock can in rare instances lead to death.

The researchers analyzed diagnosis codes and other information in electronic health records from 48 facilities, including 17 privately owned pediatric offices. They looked at the incidence of allergies among children from Sept. 1, 2012, through Aug. 31, 2014, before new guidelines were introduced; from Sept. 1, 2015 through Aug. 31, 2017, after the introduction; and from Sept. 1, 2017, to Aug. 31, 2019, after the guidelines were updated.

For years, doctors and groups—including the American Academy of Pediatrics, which runs Pediatrics—recommended not giving children peanuts or peanut products early in life. The academy said in 2008 there was no evidence delaying peanuts and other foods prevented allergies.

It was not until after a trial called Learning Early About Peanut Allergy that found early introduction of peanuts reduced the risk of peanut allergy that organizations said, in 2015, that infants at high risk of allergies should consume products such as peanuts and eggs early in life.

In 2017, federal officials broadened that guidance to more children. In 2021, experts said it applied to all kids.

Gabryszewski and co-authors said they looked at records from young children because the peak time of incidence of peanut allergies is 15 months of age, while the peak for any food allergy is 13 months. They also said that because the guidelines and addendums came in 2015 and 2017, it was not possible yet to assess whether they impacted allergies for older children.

The researchers estimated that exposing about 200 infants to a food allergen earlier in life prevents one child from developing an allergy.

They also said they found that within the population they studied, peanuts are now the second most common allergen, down from first. Eggs moved to first from second. Milk remains third.

Limitations of the study include the reliance on diagnosis codes. Funding came from the U.S. government and the Food Allergy Fund, among other institutions. The researchers reported no conflicts of interest.

In a commentary also published by Pediatrics, Dr. Ruchi Gupta of the Center for Food Allergy & Asthma Research at Northwestern University and two co-authors said that the paper provided evidence that efforts to revamp preventing peanut allergies may be starting to pay off.

They said, the data may not be nationally representative because it came from a small subset of U.S. facilities.

“Future analyses should seek to validate these trends in larger, more diverse samples using expanded diagnostic criteria, such as food allergy testing and oral food challenges,” they said.