Peanut butter babies don’t develop peanut allergies

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The secret to avoiding being allergic to peanuts

Peanuts, come designed with a particularly glaring antigenic anomaly, which attracts attention, but when immune cells see this regularly, it becomes normal.

My favourite snack……………….. peanut butter. I don’t even bother putting it on something, I just simply dip the spoon in the peanut butter jar, load and lick.

So, why am I confessing to being a peanut butterholic ?

BECAUSE I can.

But, lots of people can’t.

Death by peanut butter

For many folks, a touch of peanut butter, could “kill” them.

I know, I know………….. sounds melodramatic, but if you’re allergic – one innocent bite, can leave you struggling for breath, as your chest closes up. Some people are so sensitive, they don’t even have to eat a peanut, just coming in contact with someone else’s peanut butter sandwich, can set them off.

A nightmare scenario for any Mom…..

So………… can peanut allergies be avoided ?

For years the experts told Moms, the way to avoiding a peanut allergy….

AVOID PEANUTS, AT ALL COSTS.

Don’t eat them during pregnancy, don’t eat them when you’re breast feeding and don’t feed them to young infants.

The guideline didn’t really work……

Peanut allergies on the rise

The number of people suffering from peanut allergies, didn’t change, in fact, it continued to increase. So doctors stopped talking about it. Officially anyway, but the idea that you should avoid potential allergens during early child development has stuck.

NOTE : Peanuts are not special, allergic conditions across the spectrum have increased. The route cause of this phenomenon, is a lot more complicated than eating/not eating peanuts, a growing body of evidence suggests allergies stem from missing “germs” and sunshine.

From avoidance to indulgence

Intrigued by an observation that the incidence of peanut allergies, differed in ex pat communities, a group of researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, decided to explore, whether indulging in highly allergenic foods, early…………. was ACTUALLY protective.

To do this, they enrolled more than 600 infants, showing signs of being “ALLERGIC types”, into the Learning Early About Peanut Allergy study, LEAP for short. All the little ones were between the ages of 4 and 11 months, at the start of the study and the team tracked them, until they were 60 months old.

The LEAP study

Kids that were already, seriously allergic to peanuts, were excluded. This was assessed by skin testing, kids who formed a wheal, bigger than 4 mm, were considered ALLERGIC, but kids with wheals smaller than 4 mm, made the cut.

Participants were assigned to one of two groups :

Group 1 Moms – were told to, AVOID peanuts
Group 2 Moms – were provided with a “baby” friendly peanut snack and told to feed, junior this or some other peanut treat, three times a week.

LEAPing forward

Five years later………….. the results confirmed, the secret to avoiding being ALLERGIC to peanuts is INDULGENCE, not AVOIDANCE.

In the group of kids, that had avoided peanuts, 13.7 % were allergic, while in the peanut munching group, this figure was 1.9 %. By introducing peanut products into an infant’s diet, early, there was an 81 percent reduction in the subsequent development of peanut allergy.

That’s a big difference and it makes sense…….

The pimple on the peanut

Peanuts, come designed with a particularly glaring antigenic anomaly. I like to think of it, as a really gigantic pimple.

Looking like that, peanuts attract attention.

And, just like you, immune cells, stop and stare. The problem comes, when instead of just giving the pimple, the evil eye, they decide to “squeeze” it.

Seeing it regularly, makes it “normal”.

Eventually, it blends into the background and despite the gigantic pimple, it goes un-noticed.

On the other hand, seeing it once in a blue moon, makes it more of a curiosity.

Curiosity killed the peanut

It takes a certain amount of self-control, to ignore the curiosity. Highly sensitive immune systems, are inherently unable to ignore it.

Standing down is learnt.

And learning requires repetition.

So, if you want to help your little one, avoid a peanut allergy, don’t avoid peanuts.

The peanut lesson

Begin teaching the peanut lesson as soon as you can…….

ideally in the womb,
then during breast feeding and
when baby starts eating solid foods, pop peanut based products, on their plate

Teach the lesson often, until the immune system understands, peanuts are UGLY, but UGLY is not a reason to exterminate them.

Randomized Trial of Peanut Consumption in Infants at Risk for Peanut Allergy. New England Journal of Medicine, 2015; 150223141105002 George Du Toit, Graham Roberts, Peter H. Sayre, Henry T. Bahnson, Suzana Radulovic, Alexandra F. Santos, Helen A. Brough, Deborah Phippard, Monica Basting, Mary Feeney, Victor Turcanu, Michelle L. Sever, Margarita Gomez Lorenzo, Marshall Plaut, Gideon Lack.