Early Peanut Introduction Prevents Allergies In 60,000 US Children

A decade after groundbreaking research demonstrated that early introduction of peanut products to infants could prevent life-threatening allergies, a new study finds this advice has led to significant public health benefits. Approximately 60,000 children in the U.S. have avoided developing peanut allergies due to guidelines issued starting in 2015, which recommended feeding peanuts to babies as young as four months old. Peanut allergies in children aged 0 to 3 declined by over 27% after initial guidelines for high-risk infants and by more than 40% after the recommendations expanded to all children in 2017. The research, led by Dr. David Hill and published in Pediatrics, analyzed electronic health records to measure the impact and confirmed fewer children today suffer from peanut allergies due to this shift. Despite these gains, overall food allergies among U.S. children continue to rise, affecting about 8% of children. The change reversed decades of medical advice that had recommended delaying allergenic foods until age three, based on the influential 2015 LEAP trial from King’s College London showing early exposure reduces allergy risk by more than 80%.