Study: Early Exposure to Peanut Products Offers Long-Lasting Allergy Protection

A new research has showed that eating peanut products as a baby could cut the risk of allergy.

Last year, a study claimed early exposure to peanut products could cut the risk by 80%.

Now researchers say “long-lasting” allergy protection can be sustained – even when the snacks are later avoided for a year.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the new study looked at 550 children deemed prone to developing a peanut allergy.

The latest paper builds on the results of the 2015 research, which was also carried out by King’s College London and marked the first time scientists were able to suggest that exposing children to small amounts of peanut snacks could stave off an allergy.

The new study suggests that if a child has consumed peanut snacks within the first 11 months of life, then at the age of five they can afford to stop eating the food entirely for a year, and maintain no allergy.

The researchers used the same children who took part in the 2015 study – half of whom had been given peanut snacks as a baby while the remainder had been fed on a diet of breast milk alone.

The children taking part in the study were considered prone to peanut allergy, because they had already developed eczema as a baby – an early warning sign of allergies.