[HN Gopher] Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, s...
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       Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says
        
       Author : tosh
       Score  : 572 points
       Date   : 2023-03-17 14:50 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
        
       | cies wrote:
       | Same holds true for most infectious diseases.
        
       | KingLancelot wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | petodo wrote:
       | ...if they survive your experiment in the first place.
       | 
       | Very dangerous advice, both of my kids have very strong reaction
       | to nuts, even half nut is enough, so not sure when should I
       | introduce them, interestingly both me and my wife like nuts and
       | have no problems with them.
        
       | mdwalters wrote:
       | What if some of the babies were allergic to peanut butter in the
       | first place?
        
       | screye wrote:
       | Does this effectively confirm the hygiene hypothesis ?
       | The hygiene hypothesis suggests that a newborn baby's immune
       | system must be educated so it will function properly during
       | infancy and the rest of life.
       | 
       | I'm weighing the need for my (possible future) children to spend
       | time in a 3rd world country with germs & allergens for a little
       | bit, to avoid heavily sanitized environments throughout their
       | early lives. That's against the increased exposure to diseases
       | and terrible pollution.
       | 
       | clarification: This is ofc much easier to do when your family
       | lives in said 3rd world country.
        
         | morpheuskafka wrote:
         | That's not quite the same thing, this is specifically about the
         | allergen itself needing to be introduced vs. avoided. The
         | "hygiene hypothesis" as you said is more a general idea that
         | the immune system should be exposed to a wide variety of
         | foreign or pathogenic material in early age.
         | 
         | The avoidance of allergens was a deliberate thing under prior
         | advice, and/or them being less common in the diet to begin
         | with, it's not really a matter of hygiene or cleanliness.
        
         | brwck wrote:
         | > I'm weighing the need for my (possible future) children to
         | spend time in a 3rd world country with germs & allergens for a
         | little bit
         | 
         | Or go outside with the kid. Visit a farm, park, whatever.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | nradov wrote:
         | You can say least let your children play in the dirt and expose
         | them to a variety of animals without traveling to another
         | country.
        
         | rdedev wrote:
         | Read somewhere that just getting a dog might be enough
        
       | freddealmeida wrote:
       | Peanut allergies are an emergent property. Causal understanding
       | might be better than immunotherapy.
        
       | jimbob45 wrote:
       | Someone has already packaged this concept[0] with eight other
       | allergens for kids in the form of oatmeal. We did it with ours
       | and it seems to have worked out well. Sorry to be a shill but I
       | figure this might help some other parents out there.
       | 
       | [0]https://readysetfood.com/products/organic-baby-oatmeal
        
       | pacetherace wrote:
       | Peanut allergy prevalence is a very interesting topic
       | 
       | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6021584/
        
       | schainks wrote:
       | One caveat that has worked in our household: if your kid has
       | eczema on their face anywhere near the mouth, put a good barrier
       | on it before eating said allergens. Lanolin or vaseline work
       | great.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | Gordonjcp wrote:
       | When I was a baby, I ate everything. When I was a toddler, I ate
       | everything. As a child, I ate everything. Now I'm a grown-up (at
       | least on paper), I eat everything. I'm not allergic to anything.
       | 
       | When my son was a baby, he ate everything. Now he's a toddler,
       | his second-favourite phrase is "I'll try some!" whenever there's
       | some food. Some he likes, some he does not, but so far he's not
       | turned out to be allergic to any of it. Pretty much, he eats
       | everything.
        
       | Madmallard wrote:
       | how anout we instead pull literally all stops and figure out why
       | so many people are developing a condition when their own inmune
       | system tries to kill them when food enters their mouth??? The
       | incidence is increasing dramatically. That's a far bigger
       | problem.
        
       | schainks wrote:
       | In addition to Bamba, Puff Works in the US makes great peanut
       | butter puffs for babies: https://puffworks.com/pages/baby
       | 
       | IMO the baby ones should be in adult sized packaging, they taste
       | better than the adult puffs!
        
       | room505 wrote:
       | I've heard that peanut butter is mainly an American thing. What
       | would be an alternative to peanut butter in other cultures to cut
       | peanut allergies?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | 0xcde4c3db wrote:
         | It's probably necessary to look up more specific info on one's
         | local stuff to be sure that it's safe for babies and is
         | actually made with peanuts, but peanut-based sauces and
         | dressings are fairly widespread. Any place with major influence
         | from south Asia or southeast Asia likely has some form of
         | peanut chutney or satay sauce, for example.
        
         | petodo wrote:
         | I mean you can crush peanuts to powder and use however you
         | want, just make sure to start with microscopic amounts and have
         | strong anti-histamine at hand in case your kid is unlucky one
         | like mine.
        
       | chadash wrote:
       | This is not new news, but nonetheless important to replicate and
       | keep studying. I think the first often-cited study about this was
       | in 2008 [1]. There are several more, including one in the New
       | England Journal of Medicine in 2015 [2].
       | 
       | Basically, the original study looked at Jewish kids in Israel
       | versus the UK and saw that peanut allergies were about 10x lower
       | in Israel, even though Jews of European background (Ashkenazi)
       | there are fairly similar, genetically, to Ashkenazi Jews in the
       | UK (the majority of both groups migrated recently from Central
       | and Eastern Europe).
       | 
       | There is a snack called Bamba that they eat in Israel. It's kind
       | of like a peanut butter Cheeto puff, and it is a nearly-universal
       | snack for young kids in Israel. It melts in your mouth, so a
       | 6-month-old can eat it almost as soon as they eat solid foods.
       | It's about as popular in Israel as Cheerios are in the US, maybe
       | more so. The hypothesis is that Bamba consumption there
       | dramatically lowers the risk of developing peanut allergies.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/full-
       | record/WOS:00026...
       | 
       | [2] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa1414850
        
         | michae2 wrote:
         | Anecdotally, giving our baby Bamba was actually how we
         | _discovered_ his peanut allergy, which was later confirmed by a
         | traditional allergen skin test administered by a doctor. (We
         | noticed puffy redness around his lips after his first piece of
         | Bamba.)
        
         | MrBuddyCasino wrote:
         | Probably ok to eat a little to avoid peanut allergy, but be
         | careful about eating too much poly-unsaturated fatty acids.
         | They do a lot of long-term damage.
        
         | ijustwanttovote wrote:
         | Target sells Bambas in the USA. We bought it to feed our infant
         | for the same reasons you mentioned.
        
         | vorpalhex wrote:
         | Bamba is also delicious. The fat content from the peanut butter
         | gives it a good body, like a cheese puff.
         | 
         | If you decide to get some for your kid, get some extra for
         | yourself.
        
           | ortusdux wrote:
           | TJ's also sold some that were dipped in dark chocolate. They
           | are the unholy hybrid of vanishing caloric density and a
           | peanut butter cup.
        
           | LeifCarrotson wrote:
           | I'm pretty sure most of the fat content comes from the palm
           | oil, but I don't disagree with your conclusion.
        
         | perakojotgenije wrote:
         | If you can't find Bamba but you have European or Balkan shop
         | nearby you can try buying Smoki [1], it's the same thing.
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://www.google.com/search?q=smoki&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiE...
        
           | pkaye wrote:
           | TJs carries Bamba.
        
           | taejo wrote:
           | Looks like it's what's called Erdnussflips in Germany
        
         | ars wrote:
         | They researched bamba, but then recommended peanut butter.
         | 
         | I remember reading that boiled and roasted peanuts have
         | different allergen profiles, and are not interchangeable.
         | 
         | If you want to do this with your child, use actual bamba, not
         | peanut butter.
        
         | hiidrew wrote:
         | Man, I had an Israeli boss that turned me onto Bamba. Loved
         | that stuff.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | ladberg wrote:
         | For anyone wondering, Trader Joe's sells these in the US!
         | They're great, and they're "real" Bamba and not a TJ's replica.
        
           | lotsofpulp wrote:
           | Target sells them too:
           | 
           | https://www.target.com/p/osem-bamba-peanut-butter-baby-
           | puffs...
        
           | poisonarena wrote:
           | they are also somehow cheaper here than in Israel and it is
           | infuriating to me
        
           | savagedata wrote:
           | I've found them at HEB and Randall's too!
        
           | mattgreenrocks wrote:
           | Yep. We used that with our kid and he seems to have avoided
           | peanut allergy. It also tastes pretty good! But, it didn't
           | stop him from developing a walnut/pecan allergy. Probably
           | because we don't really eat either of those in our house.
        
             | gingerlime wrote:
             | My child also has walnut/pecan allergy. I don't recall him
             | eating much Bamba before (I'm from Israel originally, so it
             | won't surprise me if he did). No peanut allergy luckily. It
             | triggered when he was quite young after eating brownies
             | with pecan/walnut.
        
             | mcculley wrote:
             | As someone who loves walnuts and pecans, I find this
             | tragic. I had no idea that was a possible outcome. Sorry to
             | hear that. I will advise new parents to investigate.
        
           | nukeman wrote:
           | I've found them at Publix in SC.
        
           | latchkey wrote:
           | https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/058373
           | 
           | "Bamba Peanut Snacks contain just four, simple ingredients:
           | corn grits, peanut paste, palm oil, and salt."
        
             | brewdad wrote:
             | The palm oil is less than ideal but this isn't exactly
             | health food to begin with.
        
               | throwaway12245 wrote:
               | >palm oil is less than ideal
               | 
               | Why do you say this? Just curious. Palm oil is one of the
               | better plant oils, no?
        
               | scythe wrote:
               | Palm oil generates an incredible amount of pollution in
               | Internet comment sections whenever it is mentioned,
               | because people don't realize that it's simply the most
               | productive oil per unit acre by far. If not for
               | Indonesian rainforest palm oil you'd need to cut down
               | 2-3x as much Brazilian rainforest for soybeans or
               | Phillippine rainforest for coconuts to meet the same
               | demand. 71% of palm oil is consumed between the Caspian
               | Sea and the Pacific. Approximately one-third is used for
               | nonfood applications, particularly the Indonesian
               | biodiesel industry, which if you wanted to do something
               | about deforestation, you could pay them to stop doing
               | that in particular.
               | 
               | https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/palm-
               | oil...
               | 
               | It is a saturated fat, but it's being mixed with highly
               | unsaturated peanut oil, so the whole-product average is
               | probably insignificant.
        
               | Swizec wrote:
               | The main problem with palm oil isn't health afaik, it's
               | the orangutan habitat destruction since most palm oil
               | still comes from wild forests instead of farming.
               | 
               | https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/8-things-know-about-palm-
               | oil
        
               | supernova87a wrote:
               | Palm oil is full of saturated fats isn't it?
        
               | KingLancelot wrote:
               | Palm oil harvesting is killing endangered orangutans.
        
               | sph wrote:
               | Massive amounts of inflammatory PUFAs.
               | 
               | No, palm oil is terrible and everywhere in ultra
               | processed food because it's extremely cheap.
               | 
               | There are few healthy vegetable oils and they tend to be
               | very expensive: olive, macadamia, coconut, etc.
               | 
               | EDIT: I stand corrected, it has moderate amounts of PUFA,
               | but terrible Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio (45/1), which is
               | thought to have metabolic consequences.
        
               | hombre_fatal wrote:
               | Canola oil is cheap and it improves health outcomes in
               | humans despite twitter sophistry.
        
               | zerocrates wrote:
               | My understanding has been that it's cheap, saturated, and
               | solid/stable, so it's a straightforward replacement for
               | the hydrogenated oils that were previously being used in
               | many of the same applications before the whole trans fat
               | issue banished them.
        
               | dghughes wrote:
               | Massive harm of the environment by companies that farm
               | it. Orangutans' habitat for one.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | berry_sortoro wrote:
               | [dead]
        
           | robotnikman wrote:
           | I love those things! I usually end up always grabbing a bag
           | when I go shopping there.
        
           | tshaddox wrote:
           | How serendipitous! I just saw these at my Trader Joe's for
           | the first time a week or two ago and I've been addicted to
           | them.
        
           | spelunker wrote:
           | They're delicious by the way, once you get over the fact that
           | they look a lot like Cheetos.
        
           | gimmeThaBeet wrote:
           | I was seeing that, I was a bit surprised that it seemed like
           | the actual branded product. My habit is to figure out who
           | makes that kind of stuff, when I saw Osem, I was thinking
           | "how haven't they been acquired by some behemoth?" And then
           | quickly found "ah nevermind, nestle"
           | 
           | Peanut butter cheetos sounds like an incredible proposition,
           | I'm going to be looking around for them this weekend!
        
             | gnicholas wrote:
             | I love cheetos and pb (I even put PB powder in my
             | smoothies), but having tried these many times, they are not
             | very tasty. I understand that some people who at them a lot
             | as very little kids continue to like them as adults. But
             | they have never been tempting to me, even when we had them
             | in the house for the purpose of feeding them to our babies.
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | Trader Joes (and Costco) are just fine selling branded
             | product if they can get a deal for it cheap enough. It's
             | usually the manufacturer that doesn't want to "cheapen
             | their brand" to hit the price points, but they're willing
             | to "bulk up" for Costco or sell direct to Trader Joes at
             | times.
        
               | logicfiction wrote:
               | Also a lot of things at Trader Joes are just white
               | labeled versions of other products. As in, literally the
               | same product, just inside packaging that says "Trader
               | Joe's <Similar Name to Other Product>"
        
               | bombcar wrote:
               | Those are the companies that don't want to admit selling
               | their stuff for cheaper, so they get it store-branded.
        
               | fsckboy wrote:
               | you say it like it's a sort of corporate slut-shaming,
               | but it's not. If you build a factory big enough to make
               | 1/2 the cheese puffs in the world, there's an incentive
               | to make it bigger and make all the cheese puffs in the
               | world. Going from small batch bake/frying to assembly
               | line flow is the 1st step, but once you're over that
               | hurdle, you might as well go big, as long as you can
               | handle the risk of being stuck with the risk of owning
               | the 2nd biggest cheese puff tumbler in the world. That
               | type of cooking is a natural monopoly.
               | 
               | that's the factory, but brands don't come from the
               | factory, they come from the market, and have different
               | reputations, strategies, customers and distribution
               | channels. If you have a giant computer controlled cheese
               | puffery, it's not that big a deal to change the
               | formulation of the cheese, change the logo bags, etc. all
               | on the fly, and it's much cheaper for you to do it than a
               | smaller less sophisticated operation making you more
               | customizable and still the low-cost producer.
               | 
               | did you know that even if you aren't a very big pizzeria
               | or bakery you can order custom-milled flour from King
               | Arthur for your restaurant? Their factory can handle it,
               | and it engenders brand loyalty from fussy chefs.
        
               | bombcar wrote:
               | I have no problem with it myself; but the
               | companies/brands certainly do.
               | 
               | Lots of national brands have a "this is not produced in a
               | factory or machine that produces any store brand".
        
               | ghaff wrote:
               | >did you know that even if you aren't a very big pizzeria
               | or bakery you can order custom-milled flour from King
               | Arthur for your restaurant? Their factory can handle it,
               | and it engenders brand loyalty from fussy chefs.
               | 
               | I didn't. Although I'm not that surprised given I think
               | King Arthur Flour has maybe around 500 employees or so
               | including a cafe, retail shop, and cooking classes and
               | sells a pretty premium product. (Was actually surprised
               | the number is so low. It's also employee-owned.)
        
               | werber wrote:
               | CNBC has a youtube video on the economics of Trader Joe's
               | and the piece that stuck out to me is that they will have
               | essentially a white label option, but have it slightly
               | modified so it is "unique" to them
        
               | maccard wrote:
               | Ive got family who have worked in food production lines,
               | it's often not the same product, maybe a slightly
               | modified recipe or using different ingredients or ratios.
        
               | bombcar wrote:
               | Yeah, sometimes they mix it up enough to claim it's not
               | the same, sometimes it's even openly branded as being the
               | same (think Costco tortilla chips)
               | 
               | https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/kirkland-
               | signature-to...
        
               | blarghyblarg wrote:
               | I can't reply to the deeper comments, so I'll reply here.
               | The "store branded" products are also sometimes the exact
               | same stuff, but they pay less (or the premium brands pay
               | a premium) to have "first run" rights. That is, the
               | premium brands are packaged first, right after a
               | cleaning, so you're less likely to have "inclusions" like
               | chunks of tomato goop in your ketchup.
        
               | the_mar wrote:
               | That's not always true. I actually don't know how true it
               | is at all. At least in facilities that I know about,
               | everything was manufactured exactly the same, there was
               | no such thing as "first run after cleaning", as far as I
               | know "first run" premium has more to do with volumes and
               | scheduling (e.g. at a candy factory you'll get priority
               | to get your orders filled before halloween) or if any
               | equipment goes down your orders will always be
               | prioritized
        
               | miriam_catira wrote:
               | We went on a factory tour at Cabot Creamery in VT several
               | years ago, and they were packaging an off-label that day.
               | The guide didn't specify what store it was for, but we
               | thought we recognized it. When we went to TJ's the next
               | week, we saw that same exact packaging on the shelves.
        
               | the_mar wrote:
               | Many years ago I worked at a candy company. I tell you
               | more. MOST of "private label" stuff is actually
               | manufactured by the same company as the "name brand",
               | what is more companies routinely manufacture stuff for
               | each other depending on the factory loads, e.g. our plant
               | would manufacture Reese's despite having no relation to
               | the brand and it's a very common practice.
        
               | stametseater wrote:
               | I've seen Trader Joes selling branded canned chili
               | (Stagg) and the cashier remarked that they were only
               | stocking it that week for the super bowl.
        
             | Arrath wrote:
             | Yeah I have to say those sound excellent. Time to go
             | hunting.
        
         | subpixel wrote:
         | It's a full-on trend in the US to feed these to your baby to
         | prevent peanut allergies. My daughter probably ate her own
         | weight in Bamba.
        
         | lacrosse_tannin wrote:
         | Maybe all the allergic infants died and didn't make it into the
         | study.
        
           | darzu wrote:
           | Considering peanut allergies are ~1:50 - 1:200, that would be
           | a lot of dead infants and I think that would show up in stats
           | and news.
        
         | cmurf wrote:
         | As popular as it is, I wonder if there's effectively
         | microdosing happening from baby's 1st week, even before they
         | eat it themselves?
        
           | afterburner wrote:
           | Good question, I mean how many people were actually feeding
           | Cheeto puffs to their 6 month old _before_ it became a health
           | trend
        
             | stametseater wrote:
             | The peanut allergy hysteria narrative says that I can't eat
             | peanuts on a plane or in a classroom with somebody who's
             | allergic because the mere odor of peanuts might kill them.
             | If there is any shred of truth to that narrative (which I
             | seriously doubt), then perhaps trace peanut dust in a home
             | from adults eating crunchy peanut-based snacks is enough
             | early exposure to inhibit an allergic reaction.
        
           | hgsgm wrote:
           | You mean from exposure to other kids?
        
             | cmurf wrote:
             | Mom, dad, siblings. Anyone snacking on it will have it on
             | their faces, finger tips. It'll get on the counters and
             | floor. And find its way on a bottle nipple, blankets,
             | sheets, fingers, etc.
        
             | PebblesRox wrote:
             | My guess is through breast milk - which I was wondering
             | about with the study as well; does it make a difference for
             | breastfed babies whether their moms eat a lot of peanuts?
        
               | myshpa wrote:
               | Anecdotal: a pregnant woman ate a lot of the stuff
               | (something similar to Bamba) when pregnant, and I mean a
               | lot. The child was diagnosed with peanut allergy when 1
               | y.o.
               | 
               | Solution? Peanut microdosing, increasing dose
               | progressively, in few months the allergy was gone.
        
               | newaccount74 wrote:
               | Anecdote from my partner: Allergies come and go, they're
               | not necessarily permanent even if you don't treat them.
        
         | NikolaNovak wrote:
         | That's fascinating! In ex-Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Croatia in my
         | case) we were raised on Smoki which looks very similar!
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoki
        
           | myth_drannon wrote:
           | Yeah, in USSR we also had these corn puffs(Kukuruznye
           | Palochki). Bamba is different despite looking the same. It
           | has very "peanutty" taste (and ingridient) unlike the corn
           | puffs which are just sweet.
        
         | itronitron wrote:
         | was this research funded by the maker of Bamba?
        
         | 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
         | I always joke to new parents that they should adopt this
         | strategy. Glad to see I was right!
        
         | tablespoon wrote:
         | > There is a snack called Bamba that they eat in Israel. It's
         | kind of like a peanut butter Cheeto puff, and it is a nearly-
         | universal snack for young kids in Israel. It melts in your
         | mouth, so a 6-month-old can eat it almost as soon as they eat
         | solid foods. It's about as popular in Israel as Cheerios are in
         | the US, maybe more so. The hypothesis is that Bamba consumption
         | there dramatically lowers the risk of developing peanut
         | allergies.
         | 
         | Target sells these "Lil Mixins" sachets that contain peanut
         | powder. They're designed to mix in to milk or oatmeal, etc. The
         | packaging says you can use them with kids as young as 4 months.
         | They also sell similar sachets of tree nuts and egg powder.
        
       | flerchin wrote:
       | With the incidence rate being so low, all the anecdata in this
       | thread is largely worthless. I'm not equipped to evaluate the
       | quality of the study.
        
       | OOPMan wrote:
       | As a South African in Canada the nut restriction in schools here
       | is incredibly annoying.
        
       | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
       | I always wondered how kids end up with pollen allergies. I mean
       | who doesn't take their kid outside in the spring?
       | 
       | Or is the offending pollen only endemic to certan areas, so you
       | could grow up in a normal way somewhere and still get it?
       | 
       | I'm not strongly allergic to anything, but certain mosquitoes and
       | also horseflies will make the bite swell up a ridiculous amount
       | sometimes. But it never happened with the mosquitoes and
       | horseflies where I grew up and still doesn't when I visit.
       | 
       | But I'm also allergic to certain soaps starting in my 20s, yet
       | I'm pretty sure my parents gave me plenty of baths as a baby. It
       | did occur after a course of antibiotics, maybe that helped
       | trigger it somehow.
        
         | nerdponx wrote:
         | > Or is the offending pollen only endemic to certan areas, so
         | you could grow up in a normal way somewhere and still get it?
         | 
         | This happened to me. I never had seasonal allergies growing up
         | in New York, but in Massachusetts I am brutally allergic to
         | whatever pollen is in the air in the spring and fall.
         | 
         | I also never was allergic to my pet cats until I went away to
         | college and wasn't constantly exposed to cat hair. I first
         | started getting itchy eyes when they slept on my bed after I
         | came back home to visit.
         | 
         | > It did occur after a course of antibiotics, maybe that helped
         | trigger it somehow.
         | 
         | This doesn't surprise me at all. I'm glad the research is
         | finally starting to catch up to this kind of thing too. People
         | with issues like this have been pooh-poohed out of doctors'
         | offices for decades.
        
           | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
           | Actually thinking back... I _think_ my first experience
           | having the reaction to mosquitoes was vacationing in Denmark
           | at 15, and at 14 I had burst appendecitis with moderately
           | progressed peritonitis that required extensive laparotomy
           | with a hefty antibiotic course to prevent progression to
           | fullblown sepsis. The infection even flared up weeks later(or
           | it was a new infection) and I had to do another course on a
           | different antibiotic this time. It was around 15 that my
           | mental health really started to deteriorate too.
           | 
           | The one mentioned earlier was at age 20 due to severe
           | pneumonia. And my mental health took yet another nosedive
           | after that as well.
           | 
           | The appendix interacts with the gut microbiome and the immune
           | system, which interact with eachother, and both have been
           | linked to mental illness in various ways.
           | 
           | I always felt like all these things were somehow connected
           | but I could never quite nail it down. I asked my GP once but
           | she gave me a look that could only mean "who do you think I
           | am, Greg House?" And very little concrete came of it.
           | 
           | The allergies might be the "signal" that helps give weight to
           | this theory beyond my fool's hope that it can all be cured
           | with a fecal transplant or something.
        
         | eindiran wrote:
         | Anaphylactic allergies, particularly food-based ones, seem to
         | have a rather different etiology than other allergies.
        
           | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
           | Is an anaphylactic allergy just an allergy severe enough to
           | cause anaphylactic shock, or does it denote a different
           | mechanism altogether?
        
       | nr2x wrote:
       | Yes! Give your kids bamba! Israeli friends told me about how they
       | basically have no peanut allergies and the science backs it. Made
       | sure my kid ate it, and so far so good. I think it's a gross
       | snack but he loves it.
        
         | cortesoft wrote:
         | My kids still eat them at 4 and 7.
        
       | soperj wrote:
       | Somehow all the studies end up being on jewish kids in Isreal vs.
       | jewish kids in England. Not exactly a representative sample of
       | people across the globe. The studies themselves have all the
       | hallmarks of shit science, but everyone on here seems to agree
       | with it because it fits their world view.
        
         | s1k3 wrote:
         | Well the opposite view isn't really based on science , only in
         | faulty risk mitigation. So is it riskier to let your kid go
         | without knowing for a long time or is it better to test in a
         | limited controlled window where you can react and adapt if
         | something goes wrong.
        
           | soperj wrote:
           | Neither is based on Science when the science is shit.
           | P-hacking isn't science, and yet it gets published as Science
           | all the time, particularly in nutrition studies.
        
         | rabidonrails wrote:
         | But that's exactly why this is so interesting. You take a set
         | of people with extremely similar genetics but somehow have very
         | different reactions.
         | 
         | I suppose a technical (albeit not precise) analogy would be you
         | producing 100 servers and selling half to both AWS and Azure.
         | Then you find out that 25 of the servers at Azure are
         | overheating and dying while AWS doesn't seem to have this
         | problem at all. So you look into it and find that AWS is air-
         | cooling their systems while Azure isn't. Sure you could argue
         | post post hoc ergo propter hoc but you'd also probably call the
         | folks at Azure and tell them to install an air-cooling system.
         | 
         | Extrapolating that to your point, you're saying it would be
         | "shit" to tell the folks at Azure to install the air-cooling
         | because you didn't test this acrossa majority of servers you've
         | produced. The folks at Azure would point the incredible
         | similarities (this is the same server model, the same chips,
         | the same manufacturing run etc.) and then would promptly find
         | another vendor.
        
           | soperj wrote:
           | > But that's exactly why this is so interesting. You take a
           | set of people with extremely similar genetics but somehow
           | have very different reactions.
           | 
           | Or it's based on a hundred different other things than when
           | they first tried peanut butter.
        
         | nukeman wrote:
         | The entire point was looking at very similar populations, but
         | controlling for one variable (peanut product consumption in
         | early childhood). While I agree that the studies should be
         | expanded outward to ensure reproducibility and verify the
         | hypothesis, a useful starting point is to look at two similar
         | populations with only one variable.
        
           | soperj wrote:
           | That original study was made 8 or 9 years ago now, and
           | they're following it up with an additional study of jewish
           | kids in britain and israel here. If you look at the study,
           | they're trying to determine why early exposure to peanut
           | butter has not decreased the incidence of allergy in
           | Australia. Somehow a study of Jewish kids in Israel & Britain
           | is supposed to prove this out.
        
       | conorcleary wrote:
       | But not honey! Not until infants are over a year old.
        
       | ilickpoolalgae wrote:
       | My kid is allergic to peanuts (we did a peanut butter test at
       | about 5 months and had to rush him to the ER as his face started
       | swelling up). Food allergies are a really interesting subject
       | because it doesn't seem entirely reliant on genetics. For example
       | East Asians have an extremely low rate of peanut allergies, but
       | East Asians who grow up in western countries tend to have an
       | equal or higher rate of peanut allergies compared to the general
       | populace. Strangely enough, children that move to Australia after
       | the early infancy period seem to retain the same low rate of
       | peanut allergies as children who spend their entire time in
       | China. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26728850/
       | 
       | There's a great clinic in the bay area called Latitude that
       | conducts oral immunotherapy which is a fancy word, afaik, to do
       | slow introduction to foods that you're allergic to. My child is
       | on a 6 month program that he started at 1 year old to slowly
       | increase his peanut consumption, via peanut flour, to a couple
       | peanuts a day.
        
         | adamredwoods wrote:
         | We also tried to give our child (when a baby) peanut butter
         | early and was rushed to the ER. Terrifying.
        
           | chunk_waffle wrote:
           | I'm wondering why the article doesn't point out that risk
           | either. If your child is 3-5 months old and is severely
           | allergic (but you don't know it yet) it seems like they could
           | have a severe reaction to even a small amount of peanuts.
        
         | chunk_waffle wrote:
         | > For example East Asians have an extremely low rate of peanut
         | allergies, but East Asians who grow up in western countries
         | tend to have an equal or higher rate of peanut allergies
         | compared to the general populace.
         | 
         | Interesting... my wife is East Asian and has no history of
         | Peanut allergies in her family. Same for my family (Caucasian,
         | US) yet our daughter is allergic.
         | 
         | My wife also ate a lot of peanut butter while pregnant...
        
           | brianherbert wrote:
           | Same here, no peanut allergies on both sides of our family
           | but one of our daughters has a peanut allergy. We are the
           | same mix.
        
         | petodo wrote:
         | Yeah, it doesn't seem to be hereditary, both me (European
         | Caucasian) and my wife (Chinese Asian) have 0 problems with
         | nuts and can crunch them as much we want (same with everyone in
         | direct line), but both of our kids have very strong nut allergy
         | (not just peanuts, also pistachios, walnuts and especially
         | cashew nuts) with immediate swelling, whole body red, very
         | dangerous, even just piece of peanut. Also interestingly son
         | spent 1st year of life in China, while daughter was born in
         | Europe and it doesn't seem to make any difference.
         | 
         | Before I had kids I heard in Europe about peanut allergies only
         | from US movies and TV shows and never met person who would be
         | allergic to them, so was shocked to find my kids having such
         | "made up" US allergy.
        
         | xyzzyz wrote:
         | Very interesting. While the theory that most peanut allergy is
         | caused by no exposure in infancy is well supported by the
         | evidence, seems like it's definitely not the entire story,
         | given your experience -- after all, you could hardly have a lot
         | of exposure in children to peanuts earlier than 5 months! I
         | don't think we were feeding our kids solid foods at 5 months
         | yet at all, so definitely they had no peanut exposure yet, but
         | nevertheless they don't suffer from allergies. The evidence you
         | are pointing to about disparate rates of allergy for children
         | growing up in different places is also very interesting. Sounds
         | like there just is something in the air, or dirt, or daily
         | practices, or whatever else it is, that causes those allergic
         | immune reactions at elevated rates in western nations.
        
           | blondin wrote:
           | has anyone looked into the source of the peanut products?
           | sounds like the US is dis-proportionately affected by these
           | allergies.
        
           | hammock wrote:
           | >you could hardly have a lot of exposure in children to
           | peanuts earlier than 5 months!
           | 
           | Don't have a baby, but couldn't you put a few drops of
           | unrefined peanut oil in the bottle? Or a quarter teaspoon of
           | peanut butter?
        
           | rdedev wrote:
           | Exposure need not come from only peanuts. Other compounds or
           | organisms can have similar structures. My hypothesis for why
           | allergy is more prevalent in the US mostly comes down to how
           | clean everyone keeps their homes. Clean as in using clorox or
           | other anti bacterial over all surface clean. Stuff like that
           | are rarely done in Asian countries. But hey, I'm not a
           | scientist so I am possibly wrong or missing something
        
           | nickelpro wrote:
           | > the theory that most peanut allergy is caused by no
           | exposure in infancy is well supported by the evidence
           | 
           | The evidence supports this as one source of allergies. The
           | cited study says 77% of such allergies may be sourced to lack
           | of exposure, that still means almost 1/4 people with peanut
           | allergies have them "naturally"
        
           | jraines wrote:
           | Same experience. My wife ate extra peanut butter while
           | pregnant and nursing (offtopic but maybe relevant), and we
           | tried giving my daughter the tiniest dab of peanut butter
           | very early, and the reaction was nuts. We watched with rising
           | panic as the inflammation started at her mouth, traced down
           | throat and chest to stomach, and spread, in what seemed like
           | real time.
           | 
           | She is 3 now has to have an epipen ready to go. 2nd girl: no
           | issues at all - same house, basic maternal diet, vaccine
           | schedule, etc
        
             | le-mark wrote:
             | Same here, nearly killed our son at 5 months with a few
             | crumbs of peanut butter cookie. Other kid no problem.
             | Really seems like there's more to it than simply early
             | exposure.
        
               | Balgair wrote:
               | Adding our horrific experience here too. Gave our baby a
               | little bit of peanut powder at 7 months. About 2 hours
               | later, vomiting like crazy, turned about as grey as a
               | rain cloud, rushed to the ER blowing through stoplights.
               | 
               | We have never been so scared in our whole lives. Facing
               | the very real loss of a child due to your own hand is a
               | thing you never want to go through. I unreservedly have
               | some good trauma from that experience. Took about a week
               | to get back to normal, the dehydration was so bad and
               | they could not get a vein for IV fluids.
               | 
               | We carry an epi-pen everywhere now.
               | 
               | Fun Fact: Allergy tests (IgG and skin prick) have a ~10%
               | false negative rate and a ~50% false positive rate (!!!).
        
               | LUmBULtERA wrote:
               | Adding to this list here as well... momma had peanut
               | butter and jelly sandwiches nearly daily while pregnant
               | and breastfeeding, and yet my son's first exposure to
               | peanut butter as soon as he was able to safely have solid
               | food showed he was allergic.
        
               | canes123456 wrote:
               | As with all things it not a panacea. The studies only see
               | that peanut allergies decrease with early exposure.
               | However, there always some kids that will have or not
               | have allergies in both groups.
        
             | geraldwhen wrote:
             | Same here. Early introduction -> emergency room.
        
       | iddan wrote:
       | It's a cliche by this point. But it was proven in research that
       | because peanut puffs (most common brand name is "Bamba") snacks
       | are so common in Israel the rate of peanut allergy is so low
        
       | robg wrote:
       | The research on peanut butter puffs in Israel convinced us small
       | amounts were far better for our young kids than avoiding
       | completely.
       | 
       | https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02782-8
        
       | yamtaddle wrote:
       | Been a suspicion of many for quite a while that the rise of
       | "don't give babies nuts or nut-based products, they might die!"
       | advice and going from one nut allergy per school to one per class
       | wasn't coincidental, but was caused by precisely that reduction
       | in early exposure. Folk-wisdom nets a win, this time, I suppose.
        
         | CatWChainsaw wrote:
         | In addition to other societal trends about helicopter
         | parenting, I could see parents extrapolating danger from honey
         | to other substances out of fear, out of lack of information.
         | 
         | (In case anyone's curious. Honey contains spores of Clostridium
         | botulinum, the bacterium responsible for botulism/botulinum
         | toxin aka the world's deadliest molecule. People over the age
         | of 1 can ingest honey safely. Infants need time to build up
         | their immune systems.)
        
           | ajross wrote:
           | Nitpick: it's the gut flora, not the immune system. Adults
           | can ingest botulinum safely because in our guts it gets out-
           | competed by the existing microbes that have been living there
           | for years. Infants haven't developed that gut ecosystem yet,
           | so the bad bacteria can find a home and start making toxins.
        
             | CatWChainsaw wrote:
             | Ah, right, thanks.
             | 
             | I suppose that means I'd be helping my own gut flora if I
             | had more probiotic foods, but I'm generally not fond of
             | sour tastes.
        
       | jacooper wrote:
       | I'm hitting a redirect loop between bbc.com and bbc.com.uk?
        
       | rc_mob wrote:
       | Ha I did this. Snuck in PB and "rub dirt on their face" as young
       | as 6 months. 2 kids and no allergies.
        
       | kazinator wrote:
       | Bonus: if you give four-month-olds tiny tastes of the crap shown
       | in the stock picture, they might also avoid allergies to corn
       | starch and hydrogenated vegetable oil.
        
       | modeless wrote:
       | If your infant has a reaction to peanut or other foods, doctors
       | will probably tell you to avoid that food completely and wait
       | until they are older to see if the allergy goes away. This is
       | _exactly wrong_ , just like the old advice to avoid early
       | introduction.
       | 
       | It is actually quite likely that you can help your infant outgrow
       | their allergy with oral immunotherapy (simply eating the food,
       | but in strictly controlled amounts). Recent research is showing
       | that oral immunotherapy is dramatically more effective and safer
       | for infants than older kids or adults. Every month that goes by
       | reduces the chance of success, so start immediately (with the
       | help of an allergist, not on your own) as soon as you discover a
       | food allergy.
       | 
       | Also, treating allergies promptly (as well as eczema) may reduce
       | your child's chance of progressing to hay fever and asthma later,
       | as well.
        
       | pksohn wrote:
       | I have a two year old with a moderate peanut allergy. I'm
       | convinced that early introduction at 6 months and oral
       | immunotherapy have saved him from a more severe allergy.
       | 
       | Interestingly, multiple allergists we've spoken to have alluded
       | to a recent theory (not sure if supported by the literature) that
       | a child is more likely to develop an allergy if the allergen is
       | first introduced through the skin than through the gut,
       | especially if the skin exposure involves inflammation like
       | eczema. Their advice was to make sure new allergens get in the
       | mouth and not all over the skin early on.
        
         | sofixa wrote:
         | How and why would peanuts get all over the skin? Are there
         | peanut-based creams or something?
        
           | wil421 wrote:
           | Oh man! Let me tell you something...I have 3 kids 3 and under
           | and spaghetti nights are crazy. My 3 year old is better but
           | my 1.5 year old is a hot mess. He has to be shitless during
           | most meals or else the shirt isn't going to last. Everything
           | is smeared on his face and arms when he eats, even with a
           | watchful parent it only takes half a second.
           | 
           | We've noticed spaghetti sauce will start to give him a rash
           | on his belly only.
           | 
           | My 5 month old had beets last night for the first time and a
           | full bath was not optional.
        
             | ubj wrote:
             | I can confirm this. I have two kids under 4 along with
             | several nieces and nephews. Kids are unbelievably messy
             | when they first learn to eat. Food ends up in places you
             | never thought imaginable. Mealtimes always involve a "blast
             | radius" of food products spilled / smeared / dropped /
             | thrown / regurgitated.
        
           | codexb wrote:
           | Because peanuts are oily as all get out and every young kid
           | that eats peanut butter is literally covered in it and will
           | rub it on everything they touch, including kids that don't
           | eat peanuts yet.
        
       | dontomasini wrote:
       | Not news, but yes, early introduction of allergens is best to
       | reduce/mitigate allergies.
       | 
       | The only approved treatment of peanut allergy is basically
       | nothing else than slightly roasted peanut protein packed up in
       | appropriate sized packages that increase the dose slowly.
       | 
       | Given the prevalence of peanut allergy and other allergies in the
       | US vs. RoW I found it interesting that a product like SpoonfulONE
       | recently announced they would stop sales in the US due to low
       | interest and focus on RoW.
        
       | tohnjitor wrote:
       | After confirming we had no history of nut allergies in either
       | family, our pediatrician gave us a free sample of a peanut
       | butter/apple sauce baby food when my daughter was ~3 or 4 months
       | old. I must have spent hundreds of dollars on the stuff over time
       | because it was her favorite. Unfortunately the brand seems to no
       | longer exist. https://my-peanut.com
       | 
       | My wife now makes the baby food from scratch since with triplets
       | it would become quite expensive quite quickly to buy premade.
       | Those My Peanut pouches were awfully convenient though.
       | 
       | When did the apparent uptick in peanut allergies begin? There was
       | no one in my entire school (~1,000 students) with a severe peanut
       | allergy but now peanuts are banned entirely from campus. Did
       | peanuts change or did children change>
        
         | AlanSE wrote:
         | From 2005 until now, rates of peanut allergies have increased
         | 2-fold or more in the US. Similar for tree nuts. Anecdotally,
         | it feels like more. There's a huge generational shift even
         | among recent parents, where it feels like a problem just didn't
         | have very long ago, but we do now.
         | 
         | It's true that we had bad advice to not introduce peanuts which
         | provably made the problem worse (and has now been reversed),
         | but this is only part of the problem. Papers on the subject
         | make clear that are other countries that are not doing
         | intentional early-introduction (which we are now in the US) and
         | don't have the problem.
         | 
         | It's also abundantly clear from the research that the
         | population-scale problem is 100% environmental... as you would
         | expect since the SAME POPULATION saw rates go through the roof
         | in a decade. It's something we did, environmentally, and we
         | don't know what.
         | 
         | It also feels frustrating that the medical profession seems
         | overwhelmingly incurious about discovering whatever it is we're
         | doing that is literally harming children.
        
           | myshpa wrote:
           | Same with gluten allergy. I've come across the opinion that
           | the problem isn't really the gluten, but the pesticides.
           | 
           | Something similar may be to blame here.
        
       | llimllib wrote:
       | If you do this, be prepared with benadryl and be ready to handle
       | the situation if your kid does have an allergy.
       | 
       | Speaking from experience, here. Wife is an ER doc and it was
       | still a scary situation. (He's fine, but still has the allergy 7
       | years later)
        
         | zwieback wrote:
         | Similar experience, our first kid ate peanut butter happily for
         | two years or so, then developed more and more of an allergy. It
         | was gradual, basically the reverse experience of developing a
         | tolerance as many others experience.
        
         | mirsadm wrote:
         | Yeah we gave our 6 month old peanut butter and ended up in
         | hospital. This happened during the Covid lockdowns so it was
         | quite scary. The recommendation here is to give them the food
         | and see if they are allergic. I'm not sure I would follow that
         | guideline again.
        
           | weberer wrote:
           | Nowadays your doctor can just take a small blood sample and
           | run a battery of allergy tests on that.
        
             | QIYGT wrote:
             | I don't think that's common. Our pediatrician, who is part
             | of a US major hospital, never mentioned this and basically
             | said "introduce new foods on days without much going on in
             | case you need to go to the ER."
        
             | Balgair wrote:
             | IgG and skin prick test have a ~10% false negative rate and
             | a ~50% false positive rate.
             | 
             | You have to work really hard with a really good allergist
             | to get reliable results.
        
             | LesZedCB wrote:
             | blood tests aren't very reliable like that. i have been
             | with my partner to the immunologist many times over the
             | years and observed skin prick tests and seen blood test
             | results and watched her get epipen'd after a bad prick
             | test.
             | 
             | she will go into anaphylaxis if you wear a jacket you
             | brought to somebody's house who has a cat.
             | 
             | her blood work says the IgE count is fairly low.
             | 
             | they can indicate more testing should be done, but they
             | aren't perfect. neither are skin prick tests. i can dig up
             | some of her reddit comments about it if you're interested.
        
               | CadmiumYellow wrote:
               | I had a bunch of allergy blood tests after having an
               | allergic reaction to kiwi fruit. My results came back
               | "severely allergic" to almond and sesame, both of which I
               | have eaten all my life with zero issues. No antibodies to
               | any of the pollen I am actually allergic to or to kiwi. I
               | didn't show any allergies to anything when they gave me a
               | skin prick test either, despite having had hay fever my
               | entire life, which was ultimately the cause of the kiwi
               | allergy via oral allergy syndrome. The doctor basically
               | shrugged and told me "allergy testing is more of an art
               | than a science."
        
           | itronitron wrote:
           | Yeah, I think there is some other factor that is driving the
           | increase in incidence of peanut allergies. Wife eating peanut
           | butter while nursing doesn't seem to have prevented our
           | oldest child from having a severe peanut allergy. edit-->
           | didn't expect to be downvoted for this comment, lol
        
           | yread wrote:
           | Same here, started with peanut butter and egg for a 4 month
           | old. Now has allergies for both. I guess it works across
           | populations. Or the research is wrong
        
             | wil421 wrote:
             | I have 3 kids 3 and under, no twins. We did a similar thing
             | around 5-6 months. They hate eggs with a passion but no
             | allergies. About to start the peanut butter trials with my
             | 5 month old.
             | 
             | We did the same with shrimp and oysters. My son loves
             | seafood gumbo and made a whole restaurant turn around when
             | he first tried it. He loves it.
             | 
             | Have you stopped trying allergic foods?
        
         | modeless wrote:
         | Benadryl can reduce itching and hives but it _will not_ treat
         | the life-threatening parts of an anaphylactic reaction
         | (suffocation from tongue /throat swelling and/or dangerously
         | low blood pressure). Epinephrine is the only thing that can
         | save you from anaphylaxis, and it should be given early to stop
         | the reaction _before_ it spirals out of control. Don 't give
         | Benadryl and think that you're safe, call 911 immediately on
         | _any_ sign of swelling or breathing difficulty or lethargy from
         | low blood pressure.
         | 
         | All that said, you absolutely should give peanut butter (and
         | other allergens) early and often. If you don't, you're signing
         | your kid up for much worse odds of anaphylaxis later. The good
         | news is fatal anaphylaxis is extremely rare even in people with
         | confirmed food allergies, and even lower in infants than older
         | kids and adults. Even when anaphylaxis occurs epinephrine is
         | extremely effective, so anaphylaxis deaths are almost always
         | due to failure to treat with epinephrine. So just make sure
         | that you have access to prompt medical treatment if you need it
         | (i.e. not camping in the mountains far from any hospital), and
         | give those allergens ASAP.
        
         | jaywalk wrote:
         | I've heard a recommendation to do this in an ER parking lot for
         | this reason.
        
           | Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote:
           | Do you give them a heads up first or just say yolo and hope
           | everyone survives?
        
             | myshpa wrote:
             | We managed to reduce the child's allergy by using
             | nano/microdosing and increasing the dose over several
             | weeks/months until it practically disappeared.
             | 
             | Avoiding allergens and hoping the child grows into
             | adulthood (with allergies) didn't seem like a very good
             | strategy to us.
             | 
             | Being afraid of accidental exposure and epipens and stuff,
             | no fun.
        
           | s1k3 wrote:
           | The idea is you basically just touch their lips with a dab at
           | first, so if there is any sort of reaction it isn't life
           | threatening. Then you increase a bit, etc.
        
           | TheCapn wrote:
           | Depending on how the hospital operates and whether there is a
           | reason to be concerned some pediatric units will allow you to
           | do the introduction on-unit. I'm sure things can change day
           | to day, but that's the case for the hospital my wife works
           | at, and is what we were advised to do when we're going to
           | attempt some food re-introductions in a few months for our
           | child.
        
         | nbaugh1 wrote:
         | Yeah, I have a peanut allergy which isn't super severe and used
         | to have an egg allergy. My mom is a nurse fortunately and knew
         | how to react when I had reactions as an infant. I think my
         | peanut allergy has gotten less severe over time, but is
         | definitely still there, and I'm 100% fine with eggs despite
         | them giving me welts on my skin as a baby
        
       | surfsvammel wrote:
       | When my kids were babies, we drove and parked outside the ER. We
       | then game them taste portions of all kinds of food that normally
       | is associated with allergies.
       | 
       | We then waited a while, then drove back home.
       | 
       | We did that twice with a couple of months in between.
       | 
       | Some called us crazy :)
        
       | dzonga wrote:
       | are scientists lazy these days ?
       | 
       | cz surely this, didn't need a study for.
       | 
       | this has been obvious for hundreds / thousands of years.
       | 
       | simply: expose your kids to the whole spectrum of food as soon as
       | they're weaned. free range kids.
        
       | taeric wrote:
       | This is a weird one to me. I had these allergies confirmed
       | medically before I was 1. Almost died from reactions to the smell
       | of foods I later had to avoid. Skin was irritated by cotton, such
       | that I was hard to get to sleep.
       | 
       | That said, I have outgrown pretty much all allergies. And super
       | grateful that my kids are free of any. Super curious to see new
       | learning on this.
        
       | nerpderp82 wrote:
       | > Food allergies are the result of our immune system mistaking
       | something harmless for a severe threat.
       | 
       | If you IDS has never seen X and X is unlike anything it has seen,
       | it will probably flag it.
       | 
       | > There had been long-standing advice to avoid foods that can
       | trigger allergies during early childhood. At one point, families
       | were once told to avoid peanut until their child was three years
       | old.
       | 
       | This advice was never based on science.
       | 
       | Cultures where infants are fed on the same broad spectrum of
       | foods that adults eat have MUCH lower incidence of allergies.
       | France and Israel to name two.
       | 
       | Datapoint of 1, I started giving my own child chewed up food I
       | was eating at about 2.5 months. She was eyeballing some chicken I
       | was eating, I popped it out of my mouth, offered it to her and
       | she ravenously devoured it.
       | 
       | A couple weeks later, I wiped a small amount of peanut butter on
       | her lip and checked for any allergic reaction, then proceeded to
       | slowly ramp the amount the next day.
       | 
       | Same thing with shellfish. I am not suggesting anyone else do
       | this, but it worked for us.
       | 
       | Train how you live as soon as possible.
        
         | sdflhasjd wrote:
         | On the other hand, my mum did the same to me with muesli and I
         | developed a nut allergy.
        
           | the_mar wrote:
           | yeah 70% not 100% some people will still develop allergies
        
           | mburee wrote:
           | Could also be related to hay fever if you have that. [1]
           | 
           | I had allergies for basically all my life but the food stuff
           | only started at around 10 or 11 years. Now I can't really eat
           | any uncooked fruit, vegetables or nuts. Interestingly enough,
           | most citrus fruit are just fine, something with not being
           | exposed to those pollen maybe...
           | 
           | [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_allergy_syndrome
        
         | hinkley wrote:
         | Did I not read at some point that nursing mother eating the
         | allergenic foods offer some benefits to the child as well?
        
           | darth_avocado wrote:
           | This is one of those grandma's tales that I've heard. Feeding
           | pregnant women (and nursing mothers) a diet that is varied in
           | nature allows the child to be healthier and allergy free.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | guywithabike wrote:
         | Not sure how widespread this advice is, but my son's
         | pediatrician had us start introducing peanut butter before he
         | was eating solids by adding progressively more peanut butter to
         | his bottle. So it feels like this is becoming the recommended
         | approach to avoiding food allergies.
        
           | Spooky23 wrote:
           | It's become more widespread guidance in the last decade.
           | There are a few studies iirc comparing cousins living in the
           | UK as opposed to Israel. The Israeli kids get a peanut based
           | cracker as a common snack and have much lower incidence of
           | peanut allergies.
           | 
           | I think in the US the issue is that there isn't a ton of
           | published material on it. My info may be out of date as my
           | kids are well past this stage.
        
             | fullstop wrote:
             | One thing to be careful about here, and I don't have any
             | data or skin in the game here, is survivorship bias. It
             | would be worth noting the difference in deaths from
             | anaphylactic shock in very early childhood by country.
             | 
             | I guess what I'm getting at is that you might not be
             | counted as having a peanut allergy if you're dead.
        
           | tinco wrote:
           | Where I live (The Netherlands) we had multiple child care
           | professionals recommend we feed the baby both egg and peanut
           | butter as early as possible specifically to prevent allergies
           | as well, so I don't think this is controversial in the
           | medical community at least.
        
           | firstlink wrote:
           | Essentially illegal in the US though, given school
           | requirements.
        
             | dragonwriter wrote:
             | No, its not. For one thing, schooling (even preschool)
             | starts well after the target age for this.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | rtkwe wrote:
             | Decidedly not. There's plenty of meals given to kids
             | outside of school to perform this intervention, it doesn't
             | need to be in every meal on top of what other people have
             | said about the timing.
        
             | bigbillheck wrote:
             | How many kids do you think there are in schools who aren't
             | eating solid foods yet?
        
               | skrbjc wrote:
               | Many many people put their kids into daycare at 3 months
               | of age since that's all they get for maternity leave.
        
               | myko wrote:
               | In the US 25% of mothers are back at work within 2 weeks
               | of childbirth
               | (https://www.vox.com/2015/8/21/9188343/maternity-leave-
               | united...). FMLA requires jobs to let mothers take time
               | but does not require they be paid, and most folks are
               | living paycheck to paycheck and need the money.
        
               | gus_massa wrote:
               | It's 25% of the _all_ mothers or 25% of the mothers that
               | were working before the birth?
        
               | boomboomsubban wrote:
               | It's a Department of Labor study, so presumably done on
               | people already in the labor force. Doesn't change how
               | terrible the stat is, even assuming 50% of mothers aren't
               | in the labor pool that'd still be 12% of mothers back in
               | work in under two weeks.
        
               | silversmith wrote:
               | I knew this before, as a fact like any other.
               | 
               | Now that I've recently become a parent, it's... it's
               | shocking. The idea of handing someone that young and
               | helpless off to strangers raises a strong "NO!" reaction,
               | right from the gut instead of the brain.
               | 
               | In my neck of the woods we get 1.5 years maternity leave,
               | and experiencing it myself I'm honestly not sure even
               | that is enough.
        
         | heywhatupboys wrote:
         | > I started giving my own child chewed up food I was eating at
         | about 2.5 months
         | 
         | You gave a TWO AND A HALF MONTH OLD CHILD chicken??? this is so
         | incredibly careless that I HAVE to call out this crazy
         | misinformation on HN. DO not ever replicate this please,
         | everyone else.
        
         | lm28469 wrote:
         | > At one point, families were once told to avoid peanut until
         | their child was three years old.
         | 
         | > This advice was never based on science.
         | 
         | I'm like 99% sure this was to avoid babies/young kids choking
         | on peanut
        
           | bialpio wrote:
           | Even the article mentions this: "Experts warn whole or
           | chopped nuts and peanuts are a choking risk and should not be
           | given to children under five."
        
           | salamanderman wrote:
           | Maybe at first it was a sane reason like this. When we were
           | having a kid, though, we were definitely told by reputable
           | sources (like an obgyn) not to feed the kid peanuts in any
           | form until 3 years old. We decided that the bureaucracy of
           | what advice to give hadn't caught up to the science we'd
           | read, and just tried small amounts of peanut butter when we
           | moved to solids.
        
             | dham wrote:
             | An OBGYN isn't a scientist. Move to "solids" is such a
             | weird thing to say. Once you're off breast milk / formula
             | you just go to whatever. The pureed food has to be one of
             | the biggest scams in human history and leads to required
             | orthodontia.
        
         | raverbashing wrote:
         | Exactly
         | 
         | How in tarnation did anyone think keeping babies away from the
         | allergens would help with allergies is beyond me
         | 
         | Which countries has the least amount of peanut allergies?
         | Countries where people give it without much concern
         | 
         | Thanks to these misguided though there are people severely
         | allergic to peanuts
        
           | dragonwriter wrote:
           | > How in tarnation did anyone think keeping babies away from
           | the allergens would help with allergies is beyond me
           | 
           | No one, AFAIK, thought it would reduce the rates of people
           | developing allergies.
           | 
           | What people thought was that it would reduce the rates of
           | people _having dangerous allergic reactions as infants_
           | (which it does) and that the longer term effects would not be
           | so negative as to outweigh that benefit (which seems, in the
           | case of certain allergens - particularly peanuts - to very
           | much _not_ be the case.)
        
           | mrpopo wrote:
           | Not saying that you're wrong, but your line of reasoning is
           | incorrect. It could also have been because all the people
           | with peanut allergies have died and the people surviving all
           | have some sort of genetic advantage against peanut allergy.
           | 
           | Again, the above reasoning is wrong but not completely
           | baseless.
        
             | raverbashing wrote:
             | I see what you mean, I'm not so sure if there's a genetic
             | connection to allergies (specific to allergies, not
             | intolerances, which are a different thing) and/or how
             | strong it is relating to different elements
        
         | havblue wrote:
         | This is a point of frustration between my wife and me and it
         | repeats every 6 months or so. "Honey, let's feed the girls some
         | shrimp so they don't get allergies." "No. Not yet. I don't want
         | them to get mercury poisoning. It can wait."
        
           | bradleyjg wrote:
           | I was under the impression that shrimp was among the lowest
           | mercury seafood, along with herring, anchovies, and a few
           | others.
        
             | stametseater wrote:
             | The smaller the fish, the less mercury it has. The ones you
             | have to watch out for are the big fish that eat lots of
             | medium fish that in turn eat lots of smaller fish; each
             | stage in the food chain concentrates more and more mercury.
             | Sharks and tuna have a lot of mercury. And smaller tuna,
             | like skipjack, have less mercury than larger tuna.
             | 
             | Also I think the threat of mercury in fish is greatly
             | overstated anyway. Look at Japan; they eat _tons_ of fish
             | and they 're not all brain damaged dummies.
        
           | Gordonjcp wrote:
           | You'd have to be eating an unreasonable amount of seafood to
           | get enough mercury in you to be a problem.
        
           | ericd wrote:
           | I thought mercury was mostly an issue with apex predators?
        
             | havblue wrote:
             | That was more of a paraphrased quote. Her concern is
             | primarily in farm raised seafood I believe. It is an issue
             | with apex predators though, since I'm married to one.
        
         | 1970-01-01 wrote:
         | >Train how you live as soon as possible.
         | 
         | There are dangerous caveats to this advice! For example, don't
         | feed infants fish or shellfish more than this allergy test.
         | They contain one of the highest levels of mercury in the entire
         | food web. Best to wait until the they've grown.
        
           | UniverseHacker wrote:
           | Most seafood is actually very low in mercury, only a few
           | species that are high in the food chain (e.g. shark) are high
           | in mercury due to bio-magnification.
           | 
           | Moreover, it has been observed that traditional fishing
           | cultures that have a high mercury intake have zero symptoms
           | of mercury toxicity. The leading hypothesis of this is that
           | the high selenium content in these same fish is protective
           | against mercury exposure[1]. Consider also the observation
           | that cultures with high fish intake have good health
           | outcomes, and that omega-3 supplementation fails to recover
           | those benefits. This makes me feel that eating a lot of fish
           | is likely much healthier than avoiding it, and avoiding it is
           | probably leading to nutrition deficiency, including possibly
           | selenium, which is a much bigger risk than the potential for
           | mercury toxicity.
           | 
           | [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01
           | 618...
        
           | eloff wrote:
           | Unless you feed them huge quantities of seafood, I fail to
           | see how this is an issue.
           | 
           | From an allergy standpoint small exposure would be enough to
           | reduce risk of developing an allergy.
        
             | 1970-01-01 wrote:
             | The new FDA risk-benefit analysis is currently ongoing and
             | will be published later this year. Right now, it's no more
             | than 2oz/week for certain fish.
             | 
             | https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/the-role-of-
             | seafo...
        
             | CameronNemo wrote:
             | Even small amounts of mmercury during early development can
             | have significant effects.
        
         | bell-cot wrote:
         | Feeding infants and toddlers food which an adult has pre-chewed
         | for them is an _old_ practice. Older than humankind, actually -
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premastication
        
         | bryanlarsen wrote:
         | > This advice was never based on science.
         | 
         | No, it was based on common sense. If X causes problems, not
         | doing X is generally a good idea.
         | 
         | It turns out that in this particular scenario, common sense was
         | wrong. But allergies weren't understood by science, so all we
         | had to go on was common sense.
        
           | stametseater wrote:
           | Peanut allergies were exceptionally rare decades ago when
           | nobody worried about peanut allergies in the first place. In
           | the 20th century everybody in America sent their kids to
           | school with peanut butter sandwiches and virtually everybody
           | was fine. I didn't even know people _could_ be allergic to
           | peanuts until I was an adult. Now schools ban peanut butter
           | sandwiches and it seems like every other family claims their
           | child is allergic to peanuts. Common sense says that we need
           | to give kids more peanut butter sandwiches, like we used to,
           | and it would stop being a problem.
           | 
           | Also, we should stop testing for allergies unless there is a
           | good reason to test a specific person for a specific allergy
           | (e.g. they already had a bad reaction to something, and need
           | to figure out what.) Those allergen tests have many false
           | positives, people that could have gone their whole lives
           | eating peanuts without thinking twice about it will instead
           | spend their whole lives avoiding peanuts because a
           | precautionary allergen test came back _sliightly_ positive
           | and they  "don't want to take the risk". More medical testing
           | is not always a good thing.
        
           | soperj wrote:
           | > common sense was wrong
           | 
           | I don't think that's been proven conclusively.
        
             | atomicUpdate wrote:
             | This is literally an article with proof that the previous
             | guidance we was wrong and actively harmful to the children
             | that were subjected to it.
        
               | soperj wrote:
               | This is literally an article that is pointing to a
               | research paper that doesn't definitely conclude anything.
        
               | shkkmo wrote:
               | I'm not sure which article or paper you are reading?
               | 
               | The paper the article references says:
               | 
               | > A 77% reduction in peanut allergy was estimated when
               | peanut was introduced to the diet of all infants, at 4
               | months with eczema, and at 6 months without eczema. The
               | estimated reduction in peanut allergy diminished with
               | every month of delayed introduction. If introduction was
               | delayed to 12 months, peanut allergy was only reduced by
               | 33%.
               | 
               | Edit: While I'm not sure what your standards are for
               | "conclusive", the author's of the paper have drawn pretty
               | strong conclusions and any doubts I see are around
               | precisely how much the effectiveness of peanut
               | introduction drops off with infant age, not about wether
               | such a drop occurs.
        
               | soperj wrote:
               | Based on a population of jewish children in england vs. a
               | population of jewish children in Israel, literally a
               | repeat population from the first study 8 years ago.
               | 
               | The paper in question also states: "Moreover, it should
               | be noted that since the change in Australian guidelines
               | in 2016, consumption of peanut during the first year of
               | life increased from 28.4% before the guidelines (2007-11)
               | to 88.6% after the implementation of the guidelines
               | (2016-18). Despite this change, a recent publication has
               | shown no decline in the observed prevalence of peanut
               | allergy in Australia in 2020, which remained stable at
               | 3.1%."
               | 
               | It's been tried in a large population with literally zero
               | effect.
        
           | ssivark wrote:
           | What's "common sense" is drastically different depending on
           | whether you assume a complex system is static or adaptive.
        
             | magicalist wrote:
             | You can expose a six month old to honey as well but their
             | complex and adaptive digestion system still isn't going to
             | kill the botulism spores that might be in it.
             | 
             | "I don't know how this bad thing works, better rub it on my
             | gums" is not a good strategy in general.
        
               | myshpa wrote:
               | (removed)
        
               | strifey wrote:
               | Botulism spores do not "train immune systems". Babies
               | don't have strong enough digestive systems until they're
               | at least six months old to kill the spores.
               | 
               | https://www.cdc.gov/botulism/infant-botulism.html.
        
           | panzagl wrote:
           | My daughter developed (non life-threatening) allergies to
           | corn, eggs, and apples, all of which she had been exposed to
           | plenty beforehand, so it's not necessarily that
           | straightforward.
        
           | gus_massa wrote:
           | And that we should use the real scientific method instead of
           | "common sense" disguised as science.
           | 
           | I have three children, and they had three different
           | pediatricians when they were babies. The three pediatricians
           | had a different incompatible list of food the children must
           | eat when they had between 6 and 12 month old. And if you go
           | to the web, there is even more disinformation and snake oil.
           | 
           | It was funny to compare the list of food of the pediatricians
           | of my children with the list of foods of the pediatricians of
           | the children of my friends. Also, sometime people get too
           | attached to this recommendations and make a big mess if the
           | children of a friend does not follow the rules of their own
           | children.
           | 
           | (I think the only food in the intersection was honey, because
           | it's too difficult to pasteurize. It make sense, but I'm not
           | sure how thoughtfully it was tested.)
        
           | cacois wrote:
           | No, this was done from fear. My generation were given peanut
           | butter early, and it was tested in a small amount to see if
           | there was a problem first. This was common sense for a long
           | long time, and it seemed to work fine.
           | 
           | A generation later parents were told to avoid it until age 3
           | or 4 for no real reason, and it created a ton of peanut
           | allergies in those kids. They were scared of their kid having
           | a peanut allergy. This was fear, counter to the common sense
           | they themselves were raised with.
        
           | nobodyandproud wrote:
           | No, it was based on what we now phrase as "an abundance of
           | caution."
           | 
           | One of these days I will draw a one panel image that
           | demonstrates the fallacy of this thinking.
        
         | bigbillheck wrote:
         | > If you IDS has never seen X and X is unlike anything it has
         | seen, it will probably flag it.
         | 
         | It's a whole lost more complicated than this, see for example
         | antigens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigen and epitopes
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitope
        
         | m463 wrote:
         | On the other hand, I wonder if infants without a mature immune
         | system might do better not being exposed to a lifetime of
         | pathogens in found adult saliva.
         | 
         | I think the normal way babies ramp their immune system is
         | breastfeeding - their body struggles with soemthing, it is
         | transferred to mom's nipple when breastfeeding, the mother
         | forms an immune response, it is incorporated into the breast
         | milk, the baby retrieves it next breast feeding.
         | 
         | I mean too early. Not sure when too early is.
        
           | dsego wrote:
           | I am always worried about sharing my caries or gum disease
           | bacteria, so I avoid sharing spoons and food. And then I've
           | seen mothers pick up a pacifier from the ground and put it in
           | their mouth to "clean" it before giving it back to the baby.
        
             | pbhjpbhj wrote:
             | Do you [personally] have specifically bad bacteria in your
             | gums?
        
               | dsego wrote:
               | I do have some gum recession, and a lot of fillings. My
               | wife has better dental health, even though she gives her
               | teeth less attention than me in terms of hygiene. But
               | I've also found articles online about spreading cavities.
               | Here is an example.
               | 
               | > Dental caries, commonly known as tooth decay, is the
               | single most common chronic childhood disease. In fact, it
               | is an infectious disease. Mothers with cavities can
               | transmit caries-producing oral bacteria to their babies
               | when they clean pacifiers by sticking them in their own
               | mouths or by sharing spoons.
               | 
               | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/14022011240
               | 2.h...
        
         | cpuguy83 wrote:
         | I think this advice was more about not giving the baby a known
         | allergen because they are a baby and it could kill them and it
         | could be difficult to even tell they are having a problem
         | because babies are often crying for any number of reasons.
         | 
         | I'm not saying the advice is sound, just giving a perspective
         | on what led to that advice. It's not about "they might develop
         | an allergy so don't give it to them" it's "they may be allergic
         | already and cause significant harm".
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | unixgoddess wrote:
         | however, there are other factors to keep in mind.
         | 
         | you mention giving your chewed up food: I read a few years ago
         | that babies who sleep in the same bed as the parents have a
         | much higher mortality rate; assuming it's true, I guess that
         | with mouth to mouth germ exchange it would be even worse.
         | 
         | Also, a lot of food today is full of chemical residues etc that
         | are tolerated by adults, not quite so by babies.
        
           | NineStarPoint wrote:
           | SIDS is very poorly understood, but highest probability seems
           | to be that it's not germ related but related to breathing
           | (more like complex sleep apnea for infants, where sometimes a
           | baby has a messed up breath response. This tracks with SIDS
           | seeming to have a strong genetic component). For what studies
           | we do have, yes sleeping with the parent seems to have a
           | marginal increase in SIDS, although less of one than things
           | like having a loose blanket in a crib.
           | 
           | Ultimately risk falls off around four months though, so yeah
           | maybe 2.5 months is a bit early to try weird things.
        
             | dsego wrote:
             | Afaik, babies have weak neck muscles and can't lift their
             | heads. I remember also reading that really small babies
             | can't breathe through their mouth. So it seems easy to
             | imagine a situation where the babies airway is blocked and
             | it can't help itself.
        
               | TheCapn wrote:
               | Both things you say are correct. And as far as I've seen
               | on most recent studies it is indeed related to some sort
               | of deficiency in the signaling from the brain to "wake
               | up" when oxygen is low, with suggestion that there's a
               | genetic component to it (sorry no link to the study I
               | saw).
               | 
               | Basically the SIDS risk as understood currently is like
               | you said: obstruction getting in the way, baby not
               | waking...bad outcomes. Co-sleeping with the parents
               | increase risk by bringing pillows, blankets, themselves
               | into the bed to add obstacles or opportunities for the
               | infant to suffocate.
               | 
               | It's a highly nuanced topic. In my parent's day it was
               | common for babies to be put to sleep on their stomach
               | whereas now the advise is to back sleep even though
               | there's increased risk for flat head, but lower risk for
               | SIDS. Once the kid is able to turn themselves it becomes
               | much more simple as they'll move around throughout the
               | night so back/stomach becomes a non-issue once they reach
               | that age.
        
           | mertd wrote:
           | Isn't the mortality because of SIDS? It has not much to do
           | with germ transmission.
        
             | bradleyjg wrote:
             | SIDS and also suffocation, which is now separated out from
             | SIDS.
             | 
             | However, in recent years there has been a backlash to the
             | backlash, and under certain conditions (no drugs/alcohol,
             | exclusive breastfeeding, no blankets) some doctors will
             | recommend co-sleeping. It's controversial.
        
             | dragonwriter wrote:
             | > Isn't the mortality because of SIDS?
             | 
             | SIDS isn't a cause, SIDS is a name for when no cause is
             | known.
        
               | Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote:
               | Is also a concession to the parents whose kid probably
               | just died of suffocation. Much like the historical trend
               | of not reporting overdose deaths.
        
           | rocketbop wrote:
           | Why would exposure to more germs be bad? Seems like it would
           | be positive.
           | 
           | If you're talking about sudden infant death, I don't think
           | it's related to germs, although it's a poorly understood
           | phenomenon.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | stametseater wrote:
           | A parent rolls over in their sleep and suffocates their
           | infant. A tragic accident. Writing up the cause of death as
           | unintentional homicide, or even an accident, won't do anybody
           | any favors; it would only cause emotional anguish to the
           | parents. So instead the cause of death is "SIDS."
           | 
           | I'm not saying this is what happens in every instance, but
           | it's probably the way it happens at least some of the time.
        
         | DebtDeflation wrote:
         | >Cultures where infants are fed on the same broad spectrum of
         | foods that adults eat have MUCH lower incidence of allergies.
         | 
         | Most mammalian wild animals (and humans until 100 years or so
         | ago) drink their mothers milk up until they're able to eat
         | regular food and then from that point on eat whatever adults of
         | their species eat. They don't go through 5 different levels of
         | Gerber before eating real food.
        
       | dap wrote:
       | I still can't get over that the official guidelines for years
       | were the opposite of this, and it seems to have led to a
       | tremendous increase in severe peanut allergy. I get that public
       | health organizations have to make recommendations in the face of
       | uncertainty. But to get it so wrong, with severe consequences --
       | was there a postmortem or investigation of how that happened? How
       | are people to trust public health guidelines when that stuff
       | happens without explanation?
        
         | dboreham wrote:
         | My understanding of this is that the original problem was
         | children _choking_ on _whole_ peanuts. Hence the advice not to
         | eat _peanuts_. This somehow got lost in translation and became
         | "don't eat any peanut-based food".
         | 
         | Disclosure: son has severe peanut allergy.
        
           | dawnerd wrote:
           | Guessing same with honey? I hear people freak out a lot about
           | infants having anything with honey in it. I feel it might be
           | more along the choking lines with raw honey too.
        
             | Herodotus38 wrote:
             | The problem with honey is that it can cause botulism.
             | Infants under 1 are most susceptible.
        
           | ramraj07 wrote:
           | How long did you actively avoid peanut products for your son
           | though?
        
         | azinman2 wrote:
         | If you zoom out, people used to use leaches for disease. Humans
         | generally go through waves of health care trends. Generally
         | speaking the progress gets better over time.
        
           | boomboomsubban wrote:
           | Leeches are still used in some medical situations, usually
           | various types of tissue grafting.
        
             | hguant wrote:
             | Or in any situation where there's necrotic tissue! They're
             | incredibly selective about only eating dead tissue.
        
               | GrinningFool wrote:
               | Those would be maggots. Leeches are the blood drinkers.
        
           | Gordonjcp wrote:
           | Leeches are awesome for haemochromatosis.
        
           | slingnow wrote:
           | What does one have to do with the other? We live in a time of
           | significantly more advanced medicine and understanding of the
           | human body. Just because we used to do something questionable
           | in the past doesn't give a free pass for people to make
           | boneheaded decisions in the present day.
           | 
           | It still makes sense to ask why we got this so wrong. Not
           | just "this technique doesn't work the way we thought it did".
           | We're talking COMPLETELY backwards.
        
             | magicalist wrote:
             | It's absolutely not backwards. More children developed
             | allergies (almost definitely because of the lack of
             | exposure), but it wasn't known that would happen. What we
             | did know is not exposing children to a trigger of
             | anaphylaxis would prevent them from dying from anaphylaxis,
             | so, similar to many dangers, the most logical course of
             | action is to remove the risk altogether.
             | 
             | Yes, it's well known doing that with anything can have
             | unknown secondary effects, but there's also a million
             | everyday things we logically don't let infants do or be
             | exposed to that we aren't establishing the statistical
             | significance of either.
             | 
             | Incidentally, with all of our advanced medicine and
             | understanding of the human body, we still don't understand
             | why some people develop severe allergic reactions to some
             | foods and others don't, so let's not pat ourselves too hard
             | on the back for developing better food exposure protocols
             | from trial and error over decades.
        
               | dap wrote:
               | > It's absolutely not backwards.
               | 
               | But it is. The best population-level guidance (now) is
               | early exposure. We told people to do the opposite. The
               | result was a lot more kids with anaphylaxis-level
               | allergy. (I don't know if this increased the total number
               | of people who died. That'd be an interesting question,
               | but given that we reversed the guidance, I assume from a
               | public health perspective people now believe the original
               | guidance was exactly the wrong thing to do.) The best you
               | can say is this was the best we knew at the time, but
               | it's exactly wrong.
               | 
               | > What we did know is not exposing children to a trigger
               | of anaphylaxis would prevent them from dying from
               | anaphylaxis, so, similar to many dangers, the most
               | logical course of action is to remove the risk
               | altogether.
               | 
               | I think you mean that it's intuitive, but I don't think
               | it's logical, for exactly the reason that it turns out
               | not to be a good idea. It's based on a wrong model of how
               | the world works. Yes, that wasn't known. But I feel like
               | we have to account for the fact that we might not know
               | everything. (Admittedly, this drives me particularly nuts
               | because I think this fallacy pervades so much public
               | health advice, especially for kids.)
               | 
               | Like I said above, I get that people need to make
               | recommendations in the face of uncertainty. But I feel
               | like when we find that we've recommended the exact
               | opposite of what was good (i.e., exactly flipped the
               | previous guidance) with such severe consequences, it
               | seems appropriate to step back and look at our
               | methodology to ask if something went wrong or if there's
               | something we can do to improve it?
        
               | magicalist wrote:
               | > _I think you mean that it 's intuitive, but I don't
               | think it's logical, for exactly the reason that it turns
               | out not to be a good idea._
               | 
               | If operating with the best model you have is intuitive
               | and not logical, then everything in science it intuitive
               | and not logical, so we might have to redefine your use of
               | "logical" to be more useful.
               | 
               | Peanut exposure caused anaphylaxis in some kids. Many
               | kids in the world are never exposed to peanuts with no
               | ill effects (in fact, a large portion of the globe went
               | all of recorded history up until the Columbian exchange
               | without exposure to peanuts). If we still want peanuts in
               | anyone's diets, waiting until the child is older for
               | controlled exposure is a logical response. Yes we didn't
               | know how that would affect developing allergies, but as I
               | mentioned in my comment, we _still_ don 't understand how
               | allergies develop, so the only difference is we conducted
               | a massive peanut exposure experiment with other countries
               | operating as incidental controls.
               | 
               | > _I don 't know if this increased the total number of
               | people who died. That'd be an interesting question_
               | 
               | In fact, this (plus quality of life + cost of
               | prevention/treatment) is the only measure on which the
               | old guidance could be "exactly wrong", which hopefully
               | gives some insight on why talking about it being
               | "backwards" is itself wrong. It's not Thalidomide.
               | Exposure at 6 months isn't the opposite of exposure at
               | age 3. And whatever harm metric you can define is going
               | to be a result of a mixture of effects, including
               | allergic kids that weren't exposed and kids that
               | (probably) developed an allergy because of the lack of
               | exposure. It's almost certainly on the cost side that
               | it's come out negative, because treatment has improved
               | and exposure prevention has become so widespread.
               | 
               | > _It 's based on a wrong model of how the world works.
               | Yes, that wasn't known. But I feel like we have to
               | account for the fact that we might not know everything.
               | (Admittedly, this drives me particularly nuts because I
               | think this fallacy pervades so much public health advice,
               | especially for kids.)_
               | 
               | I mean, all models are wrong, some are useful. We'll
               | never know everything and you have to work with the
               | evidence you have. Delaying exposure to something that
               | could kill 1% of kids is categorically different than
               | some new study saying "we detected a small magnitude but
               | statistically significant result on speech acquisition
               | due to magnesium supplementation".
               | 
               | If you instead mean we need to better communicate
               | uncertainty in developmental and health recommendations,
               | I completely agree. You can see it in this thread, for
               | instance, assuming that early exposure prevents all
               | peanut allergies. Even if you assume exposure is the only
               | causal variable here (almost certainly wrong), we can
               | observe a baseline level of peanut allergy incidence, so,
               | no, early exposure is not a panacea, but that doesn't
               | seem to have been communicated well.
        
       | kspacewalk2 wrote:
       | >Instead, eating peanut while the immune system is still
       | developing - and learning to recognise friend from foe - can
       | reduce allergic reactions, experts say.
       | 
       | >Other studies have suggested introducing other foods linked to
       | allergies - such as egg, milk and wheat - early also reduced
       | allergy.
       | 
       | I admit I haven't looked at studies, but this made such intuitive
       | sense to us that we've been first giving both our sons very small
       | samples, then feeding them absolutely every kind of food (that's
       | safe, e.g. not raw honey, and non-junky, e.g. no soda pop) we
       | eat, as early as possible. If for no other reason, then to find
       | out if they do have an allergy. Anecdata [?] data, but both of
       | them have zero allergies as far as we know, 6 and 2 years old
       | now. Obviously, the nutritional needs of children and adults are
       | different, so they consume different _amounts_ of each kind of
       | food than we do.
        
         | s1k3 wrote:
         | We did the same. My wife was nervous but I'm like, it's common
         | sense.
         | 
         | We did hold off on honey until they were one due to the
         | botulism risk tho.
        
           | lotsofpulp wrote:
           | In certain cultures of India, it is tradition to give a baby
           | a drop of honey as soon as they are born.
        
       | samketchup wrote:
       | Why not develop an mrna shot for peanut butter?
        
         | gus_massa wrote:
         | The objective of the mRNA shot for covid-19 is to make the
         | person produce a antibodies that trap the covid-19 when it
         | appears later. I think that for an allergy you want less
         | antibodies, but an mRNA shot gives you more antibodies.
         | 
         | Also, I'm not sure what part of the peanut butter is the more
         | important for the allergy. If it is a protein, perhaps a mRNA
         | shot can make it better/worse, because the mRNA shot make some
         | of your cell produce a protein.
         | 
         | If the allergenic substance in peanut butter is not a protein,
         | I think it would be more difficult to make a mRNA shot that is
         | good/bad.
        
           | morpheuskafka wrote:
           | It is definitely a protein and I don't see much use for mRNA
           | here. Clearly, there's nothing about the produced protein
           | that marks it as safe just because it was produced in the
           | body's own cells, otherwise the vaccine wouldn't generate a
           | response.
           | 
           | So all this would do is introduce a lot of protein directly
           | into serum. If someone was allergic, that would cause a
           | reaction, and if not, it's not clear what it would do. It may
           | not be a good idea for it to suddenly appear in the body
           | without having been exposed through the GI tract.
        
             | gus_massa wrote:
             | What about a vector virus that target the thymus?
             | 
             | [Disclaimer: In case it's not obvious, I'm not a medical
             | doctor. https://xkcd.com/938/ ]
        
         | varenc wrote:
         | I think you have this backwards. mRNA vaccines get your body to
         | produce a strong immune response in reaction to the whatever
         | protein the mRNA got your body to produce. Peanut allergies are
         | caused by your body already having an incorrect and very strong
         | immune reaction to something inert.
        
       | LinuxBender wrote:
       | This might work but I would also like scientists to start looking
       | for root causes, such as peanut _and all legume_ crops
       | alternating with cotton crops and what concentration of cotton
       | pesticides in the soil get absorbed by the peanuts and what those
       | chemicals get converted into and what impact they have throughout
       | the embryonic development stages.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | alienthrowaway wrote:
       | People never believe me when I tell them I _used_ to be lactose
       | intolerant until I was 5 or 6. My favourite dish as a child was
       | milk-based and I 'd get all the symptoms, which gradually all
       | went away completely.
        
       | davchana wrote:
       | In Punjab too we have a yearly festival on January 13th, Lohri,
       | where everybody eats peanut, jaggery, & nut seeds. I have not
       | heard any peanut allergies there.
        
       | kqr wrote:
       | The annoying thing is When one of the parents is very allergic to
       | peanuts, so you have to give it to the child elsewhere, and no
       | friends or relatives want that responsibility. You get very
       | little support from elsewhere.
       | 
       | (My wife is allergic to sesame. We have tried to get people to
       | have hummus parties with our children but to this day they have
       | not eaten any sesame as far as we are aware.)
        
         | AlanSE wrote:
         | I'm in the same boat, and it's true, even doctors don't get it.
         | Gone through several pediatricians and got a blank stare back,
         | mouth-agape.
         | 
         | Children are getting older, and thankfully, are no afflicted
         | with the same allergy as their mother. But as time wears on, it
         | is truly emotionally draining. The nuts held in a hermetically
         | sealed container are compared to a caged viper - as they can
         | easily cause life-threatening anaphylaxis for exactly 1 person
         | in the household. We have to follow a super-clean process
         | outside-and-inside to give an introduction, but you know what,
         | kids don't always want to do what they're told. It sucks, and
         | it's a problem more and more people will have in the future.
        
         | jjulius wrote:
         | Genuinely curious, not trying to criticize, am parent of
         | littles myself.
         | 
         | You mentioned your wife is allergic but you're not, and talked
         | about the difficulty you've had finding friends/family to
         | expose them to it. I don't see mention of you being the one to
         | expose them to it in a setting a safe distance away from your
         | wife, and I guess I'm just curious! Hummus as a snack when
         | you're at a park, or something?
         | 
         | Like I said, genuinely not trying to criticize, just another
         | parent who's curious. I've been lucky to not have any allergy
         | issues with my kiddos, so I guess I'm ignorant and just
         | wondering what it's like and how complicated it could be.
        
       | numbers_guy wrote:
       | Where does peanut allergy come from anyway? The first time I
       | heard about it was on American TV sitcoms. Two decades later we
       | have EPIPENs in our schools too, but in my childhood food
       | allergies were never discussed at all. Not a single mention at
       | all.
        
         | sam36 wrote:
         | [flagged]
        
           | SeanLuke wrote:
           | This is an extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary
           | evidence.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | sam36 wrote:
             | Uh, ok.
             | 
             | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9345669/
             | 
             | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8667923/
             | 
             | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10714532/
             | 
             | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15462710/
        
             | anhner wrote:
             | There's gonna be no extraordinary evidence FOR that claim,
             | only AGAINST it, since billions of people have been
             | vaccinated all around the world yet allergies have only
             | gone up in a few countries.
        
           | anhner wrote:
           | If we're going down the route of speculative correlation, we
           | might as well say it's the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere,
           | since that also steadily increased in the last years...
        
         | strictnein wrote:
         | I'm not saying it isn't more prevalent now, but there were
         | definitely kids in my elementary school (~500 kids) in the
         | 1980s who couldn't have peanut butter. I always felt so bad for
         | them too, because I more or less survived on the stuff.
        
           | justinator wrote:
           | I remember in elementary school in the 80's, we were merely
           | _talking_ about peanuts for some class unit, and the girl
           | known to have an allergy to peanuts threw up in front of
           | everyone. Poor girl.
        
         | hammock wrote:
         | There is a mostly ignored body of research linking at least
         | some food allergies to food proteins in vaccines. Here is one
         | such study
         | https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3571073
        
           | anhner wrote:
           | There's probably a good reason why it's ingored...
        
             | hammock wrote:
             | The science is definitely mixed[1]. The proposed mechanism
             | of action is logically sound, though, and probably worth
             | exploring more than it is
             | 
             | [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5845772/
        
               | anhner wrote:
               | It's possible the mechanism is plausible, but then how do
               | we explain the fact that in most developed countries
               | vaccination rates have gone up, yet allergy rates have
               | gone up only in a few? Surely there must be some other
               | factor causing it.
        
               | hammock wrote:
               | How do we explain the fact that countries with the
               | highest growth of ice cream sales, have the highest
               | growth of sunburn cases as well?
               | 
               | Hard to take a huge macro view of only two factors as you
               | are doing and draw any meaningful conclusion. Hence the
               | need for deeper study
        
               | weberer wrote:
               | Probably not all countries use peanut oil as an adjuvant.
        
         | petodo wrote:
         | Yeah same here (Europe), never heard about anyone having
         | (pea)nut allergy, but now my own kids have it (for the record
         | wife also doesn't have it), and not just peanuts, other nuts as
         | well (cashew, pistachio, walnuts). But from what I've seen in
         | Prague kindergarten lists of allergic kids, it's still quite
         | rare, like 1-2 kids max out of 20-24 kids class. Seems gluten
         | allergy is more common than (pea)nuts.
        
         | jonhohle wrote:
         | In my late 30s I developed a legume allergy (including
         | peanuts). Not knowing much about child peanut allergies (we
         | gave all of our kids peanut butter from an early age), I've had
         | to adjust my own life to avoiding peanuts, soy, and so many
         | delicious beans.
         | 
         | My symptoms are just gastro related, so it's probably not the
         | same as childhood peanut allergies, though.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | bialpio wrote:
           | > My symptoms are just gastro related, so it's probably not
           | the same as childhood peanut allergies, though.
           | 
           | Maybe it's food intolerance, which is distinct from food
           | allergy? Those I'm sure can develop later in life.
        
           | johnyzee wrote:
           | Peanuts contain a unique kind of lectin, which, unlike almost
           | all other plant lectins, does not break down with preparation
           | (heat, mechanical, etc.). Lectins irritate the gut lining and
           | therefore cause gastro issues for a lot of people, peanuts
           | probably moreso than other foods.
        
           | hammock wrote:
           | Do you get a flu shot every year?
        
             | jonhohle wrote:
             | I used to, but haven't been regular about it for several
             | years. Is there a link between it and adult onset
             | allergies?
        
               | hammock wrote:
               | It has been proposed for at least egg allergy, since the
               | flu shot contains egg protein and there is a plausible
               | MoA. Some of the shots also use adjuvant 65, which
               | contains peanut oil and it's possible the same MoA
               | applies. Your own personal risk-reward calculation
               | applies of course
        
       | Xeoncross wrote:
       | There are interesting studies being done about the effect of
       | cesarean (non-vaginal) birth is having on babies not picking up a
       | lot of the bacteria from the mother.
       | 
       | I know soap marketing has convinced us all that bacteria is evil,
       | but apparently some bacteria is essential for humans (and
       | animals, insects, etc..) being able to process certain foods.
       | 
       | Some bacteria is bad, some is bad in high quantities, and some is
       | essential to digestion and/or virus control. If this is true, I
       | would expect countries with higher cesarean birth rates to also
       | have more allergies (though that wouldn't have to be the only
       | reason).
        
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