NIH advises early peanut exposure for infants
An expert panel sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has issued clinical guidelines to aid healthcare providers in early introduction of peanut-containing foods to infants to prevent the development of peanut allergy.
An expert panel sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has issued clinical guidelines to aid healthcare providers in early introduction of peanut-containing foods to infants to prevent the development of peanut allergy. The new “Addendum Guidelines for the Prevention of Peanut Allergy in the United States” supplement the “2010 Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Food Allergy in the United States.”
Development of the Addendum Guidelines was prompted by emerging data suggesting that peanut allergy can be prevented by the early introduction of peanut-containing foods. Clinical trial results reported in February 2015 showed that regular peanut consumption begun in infancy and continued until age 5 led to an 81% reduction in development of peanut allergy in infants deemed at high risk because they already had severe eczema, egg allergy, or both. This finding came from the NIAID-funded Learning Early About Peanut Allergy (LEAP) study, a randomized clinical trial involving more than 600 infants.
The addendum provides three separate guidelines for infants at various levels of risk for developing peanut allergy and is targeted to a wide variety of healthcare providers, including pediatricians and family practice physicians.
Addendum Guideline 1 focuses on infants deemed at high risk of developing peanut allergy because they already have severe eczema, egg allergy, or both. The expert panel recommends that these infants have peanut-containing foods introduced into their diets as early as four to six months of age to reduce the risk of developing peanut allergy. Guideline 2 suggests that infants with mild or moderate eczema should have peanut-containing foods introduced into their diets around six months of age to reduce the risk of peanut allergy, while Guideline 3 suggests that infants without eczema or any food allergy have peanut-containing foods freely introduced into their diets. In all cases, infants should start other solid foods before they are introduced to peanut-containing foods.