Giving children peanut products regularly from infancy may significantly reduce rates of peanut allergies in adolescence, according to a new study from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
New research from the Learning Early About Peanut Allergy, or LEAP, clinical trials found that regular, early peanut consumption from infancy to age 5 reduces the risk of allergy in adolescence by 71% compared to early peanut avoidance.
“Today’s findings should reinforce parents’ and caregivers’ confidence that feeding their young children peanut products beginning in infancy according to established guidelines can provide lasting protection from peanut allergy,” NIAID Director Jeanne Marrazzo said in a press release on Tuesday.
The new finding builds upon the results of the LEAP clinical trial from 2015, in which half of the 640 original participants regularly consumed peanuts from infancy until age 5 while the other half avoided peanut products entirely. The 2015 research found that regular consumption reduced the risk of peanut allergy by 81%.
At the time, then-NIAID Director Anthony Fauci said the results of the LEAP trials could “have the potential to transform how we approach food allergy prevention.”
The results from further trials released on Tuesday followed up with 508 of the original participants to assess whether peanut allergies developed later in life.
The investigators found that 15.4% of the early peanut-avoidance group had developed a peanut allergy by age 12 or older, compared with only 4.4% of the peanut-consumption cohort by the same age.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1 in 3 U.S. adults and more than 1 in 4 children have seasonal allergies, eczema, or food allergies. Nearly 6% of children in the United States have a food allergy, with most reporting more than one.
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NIAID recommends that parents and caregivers introduce peanut-containing foods to children with eczema and other allergies between the ages of 4 months and 6 months to reduce the risk of peanut allergy.
“If widely implemented, this safe, simple strategy could prevent tens of thousands of cases of peanut allergy among the 3.6 million children born in the United States each year,” Marrazzo said.