Early exposure to peanuts may prevent allergy
The researchers analyzed the prevalence of peanut allergy and diet histories for 5,171 Jewish children from the UK and 5,615 Jewish children from Israel.
They found that children from the UK had a prevalence of peanut allergy that was 10-fold higher than that of children from Israel...
"The most obvious difference in the diet of infants in both populations occurs in the introduction of peanut," they note. Approximately 69 percent of infants in Israel consume peanuts by 9 months of age, compared with just 10 percent of those in the UK.
Likewise, when compared with the UK mothers, the Israeli mothers consumed significantly more peanuts during pregnancy, Du Toit and colleagues point out.
The researchers suggest that recommendations to avoid peanut in early infancy could be behind the increase in peanut allergy in the UK, Australia and the US.
