Slashdot Mirror
Study: Peanut Consumption In Infancy Helps Prevent Peanut Allergy
Mr D from 63 writes:
According to a report from the Associated Press, "For years, parents of babies who seem likely to develop a peanut allergy have gone to extremes to keep them away from peanut-based foods. Now a major study suggests that is exactly the wrong thing to do. Here's the published paper in the New England Journal of Medicine. It's interesting how this peanut allergy fear is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The situation involves a complete misconception of risk by many parents, and probably it doesn't stop at peanuts. Is there a bigger underlying problem here?
Our pediatrician once told me, every kid should have eaten a pound of dirt by the time they're two. While she didn't mean it literally (at least not that much dirt), she's talked about the 'immune system needing exercise', and that helicopter parenting actually denies kids a certain amount of exposure that's healthy. To be clear she's NOT an anti-vaxxer, on the contrary, but thinks both natural and pharm assisted immunity/resistance is a good idea.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
Honey can contain clostridium botulinum spores which are fatally toxic to babies (the spores are harmless to adults). Not giving babies honey is less a case of "it might cause some side effects later in life" and more a case of "it might kill them tomorrow".
"SUNDAY, Feb. 22, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- A wearable patch that safely and gradually exposes the body to small amounts of peanut allergen appears effective in easing the allergy, an early new study shows."
http://health.usnews.com/healt...
...omphaloskepsis often...
Guys, the honey-botulism thing is like eggs-salmonella. Not every egg has salmonella, and if you eat the clean ones raw, you'll be fine. Not all honey has C.Botulinum spores (which cause it), but if you give some that is contaminated to a young child, they will be badly affected because their gut bacteria hasn't had time to develop--it's a matter of growth, not resistance through exposure. You played the odds and won. Most kids that eat honey will be fine and most batches aren't contaminated. Some of them will get a bad batch and will be less fortunate.
"Were nut allergies always so high and just not reported or is this a more recent development?"
In the 70s at summer camp the government sent us more surplus peanut products than we knew what to do with. The place was littered with open #10 cans* of peanuts. I've never eaten so many peanuts in my life.
No-one ever said the word "allergy".
A.
* that's not "hashtag 10", kids. It's "number 10", a size corresponding to about 110 ounces. It's probably an LD50 quantity of peanuts :-)
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998