In The Netherlands it is recommended to introduce peanut and egg to babies between 4 and 6 months, to reduce the chances of food allergy.
More information (in Dutch): https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/service/vraag-en-antwoord/...
More information (in Dutch): https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/service/vraag-en-antwoord/...
https://www.food.gov.uk/research/food-allergy-and-intoleranc...
How is that proving the hypothesis?
> ... Early introduction of all the foods was not easy but it was safe. Among the infants who did manage to consume the recommended quantity of the allergenic foods there was a two-thirds reduction in overall food allergy.
> For those who fed their infant the recommended amount of peanut there was a significant reduction in peanut allergy, 2.5% in the standard introduction group compared to no cases in the early introduction group (0%).
> There was also a significant reduction for egg allergy- 5.5% in the standard introduction group compared to 1.4% in the early introduction group.
In other words, in the group as a whole when considering all food allergies, the difference was not statistically significant, but that can be attributed to a large number of families in the test group failing to actually perform the test. It sounds like when you control for actually following the instructions there is a statistically significant difference in overall food allergy incidence.
OP took a sentence out of context that said that overall food allergies across the whole group were not reduced by a statistically significant amount. But the authors go on to explain why that was and explain that if you control for real participation in the test then it is significant.
> food allergy was lower in the group introduced to allergenic foods early but the difference was not statistically significant
Group introduced to allergenic foods early. And of course if you control for kids that don't already display an allergy at the age that they're introducing it, you're going to have a reduced rate of allergy.
There's a reason they're saying it's not statistically significant...
More details are in the paper itself: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1514210
My 4 year old's favourite food is shrimp and sushi... Not sure whether it's related to her eating those when she was a toddler, but it's fun to see the reactions in restaurants when you don't order the children's menu.
> Among the 530 infants in the intention-to-treat population who initially had negative results on the skin-prick test, the prevalence of peanut allergy at 60 months of age was 13.7% in the avoidance group and 1.9% in the consumption group (P<0.001). Among the 98 participants in the intention-to-treat population who initially had positive test results, the prevalence of peanut allergy was 35.3% in the avoidance group and 10.6% in the consumption group (P=0.004). There was no significant between-group difference in the incidence of serious adverse events. Increases in levels of peanut-specific IgG4 antibody occurred predominantly in the consumption group; a greater percentage of participants in the avoidance group had elevated titers of peanut-specific IgE antibody. A larger wheal on the skin-prick test and a lower ratio of peanut-specific IgG4:IgE were associated with peanut allergy.
What goes wrong if they're exposed before that? If the mother eats peanuts and eggs while breast feeding, does that confer desensitisation?
In our case diary products were an issue instead of nuts. My daughter would get very sick from anything that had diary in it, even if my wife ate diary products while breastfeeding. But at about 1.5 years one she got over that and now at 4 she is completely fine drinking normal cow milk.
So allergies in kids are not a permanent set in stone thing. They can get over some, and early exposure makes a difference.
That seems like overkill. I can't imagine having peanuts or peanut butter in the pantry is going to meaningfully affect a 2 month old infant.
If you're avoiding skin contact, then you might not have time to wipe the peanut butter mess off your hands as you rush to rescue your kid who's got into trouble.
Egg albumin is also interesting because the vast majority of kids outgrow it. My toddler has a peanut allergy but has already outgrown his egg albumin allergy.
There are other commenters warning about skin exposure before dietary exposure. If that’s true then it would make sense.
Interesting point about the skin exposure, I’ll go back and review those comments. Evolutionarily/practically i would think it’s tough to get oral exposure to something prior to skin exposure (it hits your mouth/hands/face before your stomach), unless the breastmilk vector you mention is critical