Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says • Hacker News Board

Re: Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

#231

Post by nickelpro » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 6:46 PM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #69

ilickpoolalgae wrote: post #64

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…

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 ye…

> 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"

Re: Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

#232

Post by geraldwhen » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 6:47 PM UTC

jraines wrote: post #87

xyzzyz wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ye…

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 gi…

Same here. Early introduction -> emergency room.

Re: Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

#233

Post by dap » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 6:49 PM UTC

magicalist wrote: post #156

slingnow wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 COM…

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 ca…

> 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?

Re: Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

#234

Post by tshaddox » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 6:49 PM UTC

ladberg wrote: post #42

chadash wrote: post #16

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 (Ashkena…

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.

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.

Re: Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

#235

Post by ars » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

chadash wrote: post #16

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 (Ashkena…

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.

Re: Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

#236

Post by strifey » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 7:03 PM UTC

myshpa wrote: post #220

magicalist wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

(removed)

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.

Re: Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

#237

Post by NikolaNovak » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 7:04 PM UTC

chadash wrote: post #16

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 (Ashkena…

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

Re: Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

#238

Post by stametseater » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

unixgoddess wrote: post #27

nerpderp82 wrote: post #2

> 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…

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.

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.

Re: Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

#239

Post by brwck » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 7:19 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #152

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 aga…

> 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.

Re: Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

#240

Post by cmurf » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 7:21 PM UTC

hgsgm wrote: post #77

cmurf wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As popular as it is, I wonder if there's effectively microdosing happening from baby's 1st week, even before they eat it themselves?

You mean from exposure to other kids?

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.