[HN Gopher] Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies
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Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies
Author : peutetre
Score : 63 points
Date : 2024-07-31 03:43 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| praseodym wrote:
| In The Netherlands it is recommended to introduce peanut and egg
| to babies between 4 and 6 months, to reduce the chances of food
| allergy.
|
| More information (in Dutch):
| https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/service/vraag-en-antwoord/...
| mikeyouse wrote:
| That's the current guidance in the US as well.
|
| https://mana.md/peanut-allergies-may-affect-your-child/
| soperj wrote:
| Australia changed their recommendations to match this years
| ago, and the incidence of allergy didn't change measurably.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I always think about the low incidence of peanut allergies in
| developing countries and wonder if the mother's diet during
| pregnancy has an effect on allergies in children? Has this been
| researched? Because instead of introducing peanuts and eggs to
| babies, introducing it to mothers is almost a no brainer.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Only if mom isn't allergic.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| It most likely has to do with how bored our immune systems are.
|
| We evolved to be constantly dirty, and we live in an extremely
| clean society. When your immune system has a lot to fight, it
| doesn't worry to much about dumb shit like pollen and peanuts.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Clean vs. dirty isn't even the right way to think about it.
| We used to be immersed in an environment full of life, and
| now we live in mostly sterile environments free of life
| except for maybe some of the first wave colonizer specialist
| microorganisms. You are filled and covered with life that
| isn't from your own genes, and that microbiome is now mostly
| disconnected from the biosphere.
|
| I get some weird skin issues sometimes which are almost
| magically fixed if I visit a natural body of water... it's
| clearly an issue of my immune system interacting unfavorably
| with a microbiome which is out of whack.
| supertofu wrote:
| How fascinating. This reminds me that my autoimmune
| condition went into a brief and mysterious remission two
| summers ago, when I spent most weekends swimming in creeks.
| I will have to see if increased creek swimming this summer
| will help my autoimmune symptoms...
| nytesky wrote:
| Yeah getting hooked up with some bugs from the creek
| keeps your immune system occupied.
|
| Hookworms are another option; maybe two generations ago
| kids regularly walked barefoot in grass and was pretty
| common.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy
| kristianp wrote:
| Just curious, is it the ocean, or a fresh water body that
| helps?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| About 20 years a doctor told me that this was a theory that
| wasn't widely accepted YET, but it deserved to be taken
| seriously. Now it's much more mainstream.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| No link because I'm on mobile, but I remember reading about how
| peanut allergy in Israel is nearly non-existent. This is
| notable because:
|
| 1) Israelis come from all over the world, and the incidence of
| peanut allergies are lower in, say, Sephardic Jews living in
| Israel compared to Sephardic Jews living in Spain.
|
| 2) a very popular snack there for kids(but also adults) are
| these peanut butter corn-puffs called "Bambas"(like, literally
| 25% of the snack market is this one snack)
| type_enthusiast wrote:
| Strictly speaking, if all babies eat peanuts, you'll get to
| "nearly non-existent" peanut allergy one way or another. But
| you need better data than that to conclude that the change
| comes from allergy prevention, rather than... allergy
| "removal".
| Vecr wrote:
| You think Israel could cover something like that up?
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I don't think parent is hinting at a conspiracy, and more
| at "natural" selection based on omnipresence of peanuts.
|
| With no knowledge about how i goes for babies, the
| question would be how a 2~3 month allergic kid [0] would
| react to peanuts including, when not directly ingested.
| If it had adverse effects it would go along the line of
| what parent is describing.
|
| [0] can kids that age already be allergic to peanuts ?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| So, at the end of a long thread full of information that
| discards genetics, your explanation for it is...
| genetics.
| nytesky wrote:
| I am kinda of curious about populations where peanuts aren't
| common at all. I certainly didn't have many fancy nuts (i know
| peanuts aren't nuts) until well into adulthood. Why were there
| not wide spread peanut allergies among migratory populations?
| ilickpoolalgae wrote:
| Allergies are weird and our understanding of them is very
| incomplete. My son has/had a peanut allergy (very successful
| oral immunotherapy, knock on wood) and I ended up doing a lot
| of research. One study that is particular interesting is this
| one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26728850/
|
| It shows that east asian children, who very rarely have nut
| allergies in their home countries, develop nut allergies at a
| higher rate than non-asian children when born in Australia
| while east asian children who immigrate to Australia after
| their early infancy continue to maintain very low rates of nut
| allergies.
| eskibars wrote:
| Our son is very allergic to peanuts and less so to cashew, and
| sesame. We went through oral immunotherapy and it's been
| absolutely life changing. He used to need an epi pen in case of
| chance encounter, but now he eats 2 whole peanut m&ms every day
| to keep his dosage up. It's been difficult finding an allergist
| in Germany that's willing to accept this and move forward
|
| Obviously everyone's mileage will vary, but I'm happy to see this
| treatment being more widely adopted
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