A new study shows the prevalence of egg allergy among children has fallen by more than 17%. The journal JAMA Pediatrics published the research from Australia that highlights a shift in guidelines that correlates with the decreased number of kids with egg allergy.
Parents used to be advised to keep eggs away from babies. However, current guidance is almost the opposite. Parents are now advised to introduce eggs to a baby by 6 months of age.
The number of U.S. children with peanut allergies has dropped by nearly half, and the reason is similar. The decline came after parents reversed course and started giving peanuts to their children at a young age instead of waiting until they were much older.
For years, peanuts remained the number one childhood food allergy, often leading to a number of side effects, including hives, difficulty breathing, and in rare cases, death. Pediatricians warned parents against giving their children peanuts until at least age three. That guidance, however, changed in 2015, which led to impressive results.
The medical journal Pediatrics published a study conducted by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia analyzing the dramatic reduction in peanut allergies. It tracked children whose parents followed the updated guidance by primarily introducing the food to the youngsters at just four months old.
“This is probably the biggest public health success in allergy in the modern era,” said study author Dr. David Hill. “What our data shows is that because of, or at least associated with, those early introduction guidelines, there’s about 60,000 less kids with food allergy today than there would have been. And that’s a remarkable thing, right? That’s the size of some cities.”
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The guidelines were changed after a landmark trial published in 2015 in the New England Journal of Medicine of 600 children showed that infants who consumed peanuts beginning at age four months developed fewer peanut allergies than those who waited until age three. That study was inspired by the observation that among Jewish children living in the United Kingdom, where peanut introduction was delayed, peanut allergy was 10 times more common than among Jewish children living in Israel, where peanut-based puffs, called Bamba, are a popular baby snack.
Doctors recommend introducing peanuts to infants by mixing a couple of teaspoons of creamy peanut butter, made with organic peanuts only, with breast milk or formula.
Allergies are the body’s response to substances that are typically harmless that the immune system mistakenly sees as a threat. Experts believe introducing them early helps the body see them as friendly. The new guidance also recommends feeding other potentially allergenic foods to infants, such as dairy, wheat, soy, eggs, shellfish, and tree nuts. In the last decade, those food allergies have decreased by about one-third.
“It’s amazing for me to be able to sit here with you today and say, you know, for the first time in modern history, not only have we reduced the rate of food allergy diagnoses, but we’re actually lower than we were five years ago,” said Dr. Hill.
The idea that introducing foods during infancy helps prevent allergies to those foods also applies to other types of allergies.
For instance, studies show exposure to pet and pest allergens during infancy is linked to reduced asthma risk and lowered pet dander allergies. Children who grow up with cats and dogs have fewer environmental allergies than those who don’t because of early exposure and subsequent immunity not only to the bacteria on the animals themselves, but to the microbes they carry on their paws.
Studies show children who grow up on farms and are exposed to a vast array of animals from an early age have as few as half the incidence of asthma and other chronic respiratory issues, as well as allergies, than those who don’t.
