WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Researchers at King's College London found that feeding children peanuts regularly from infancy till the age of five can reduce the risk of peanut allergy in their adolescence.
'I strongly recommend that babies are introduced to peanuts by four months if they have eczema and by six months if they don't have eczema,' Gideon Lack, professor of pediatric allergy at King's College London advised as babies with eczema have a higher risk of developing peanut allergy in future.
During the study, also known as the Leap-Trio trial, researchers asked half of the candidates to consume peanut regularly till the age of five whereas the other half were asked to not to consume peanut for the same period.
The early trial showed that eating peanuts reduced the risk of allergy by 81 percent. Later, all the participants were allowed to consume as much or as little peanuts as possible.
By the age of 12 or older, researchers noted that 15.4 per cent of the children who avoided peanuts had a peanut allergy, while only 4.4 per cent of those who ate peanuts from an early age did. Overall, they found that the act of consuming peanuts regularly reduced the risk of allergy by 71 percent in adolescence.
'The evidence is clear that early introduction of peanut in infancy induces long term tolerance and protects children from allergy well into adolescence. This simple intervention will make a remarkable difference to future generations and see peanut allergies plummet,' Lack stated.
In the study published in NEJM Evidence, Lack emphasized the advantage of starting children early on peanut products. 'You will prevent the vast majority of peanut allergy, but for those cases where you aren't able to prevent it, you can identify the children earlier when treating them is much easier,' he continued.
'Once they are at seven, eight, nine months of age, you have really missed the boat. But even if you do miss the boat, you identify children who have peanut allergy early and can treat them with immunotherapy,' Lack added.
Notably, following the habit of early consumption of peanuts could prevent more than 100,000 peanut allergy cases every year across the world.
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