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.
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.
> We evolved to be constantly dirty
And infested with worms. Most allergies are caused by the antibody we evolved to fight worms (and venom) [1].
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". Edit: I guess I was just trying to say "surprising data needs detail." I should have just said that, instead of making light of how dangerous allergies are. Downvotes deserved…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamba_(snack)#Peanut_allergy You can click on the footnotes for sources.
Thanks! That thread leads to LEAP (Learning Early About Peanut allergy) which is a study that seems to have done a pretty good job of demonstrating that peanut exposure is in fact prophylactic against later allergy (as measured by a skin test). The data is pretty thorough: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1414850
Notably,
> No deaths occurred in the study.
so it's not a "naive analysis" of the kind that I facetiously alluded to. I didn't mean to imply that I believed naivete was a a factor... I was just pointing out that the top-level comment of "I heard {country} doesn't have any peanut allergy, and they eat peanuts from a young age" (without any further detail) was illustrative of a particularly insidious fallacy.
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.
It's mainstream, but has it actually been confirmed in some way beyond "it makes sense"? I've never seen a paper trying to test it in some way. (Would love to know if it's out there)
idk. I was about to say that children from farms have fewer allergies, but I can't actually back that up.
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.
Maybe the children die without anybody diagnosing allergies?
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 ha…
Sorry for being nosy, but did you do oral immunotherapy with or without professional support?
With. First they did a blood test (instead of a scratch test) to identify possible allergy levels. Then the allergist had us come into the office to take e.g. a few micrograms of peanut powder and watch him for reactions. Then we maintained the dose at home every day for the next couple weeks, taking zyrtec with it to avoid hives, etc. Then we'd go back in, try doubling the dose as a challenge. If he had a bad reaction, we stayed on the same dose another few weeks, and if not, it became the new standard level. Rinse and repeat for about a year until we got to 2 peanuts, 1 cashew, and 1/4 tsp of tahini, which we maintained now for the past ~1.5y. We're due for another blood test and challenge here soon, as the allergist suggested there's a small chance that the immunotherapy could result in the allergies essentially receding
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 r…
This is what our allergist said. Living in Australia wife and I are both asian both eat peanuts. No peanut allergies in either families. Wife ate peanuts while pregnant but son has peanut allergy.
What's the implication here? That exposure to peanuts in utero might not help avoid peanut allergies after birth? (I'm not sure what the literature on that says)
Or that there's something unusual about simply being in Australia as an infant that causes peanut sensitivity?
Or that infants in Australia have less exposure to nuts?
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.
How do you see reactivity to house dust, air pollution, stuff like asbestos and adjacent construction materials etc. ? Then I'd assume the living ecosystem also shifted from mostly open air to indoor insects, i.e. "life finds a way" We sure aren't exposed to the same things as 4 centuries ago, but I can't imagine we're living a what anyone would call a "clean" environment.
We're a very different kind of dirty. We've got microplastics in our organs, and pesticides, PFAS, and other pollutants in our blood.
People in the olden days got their hands dirty chopping down trees and building solid wood tables while today we keep our hands clean by buying flat-pack furniture that out-gasses formaldehyde into our homes and our lungs.
We're much dirtier than the people were a long time ago, only it's mostly on the inside. The filth in our bodies doesn't wash off with soap.
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.
Is it possible that in developing nations having more limited dietary options and/or the risk of allergic reaction makes a child less likely to survive and therefore makes it appear that allergies are less common?
This is just speculation, I don't know of any evidence one way or the other.
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/...
> introduce peanut and egg to babies between 4 and 6 months What goes wrong if they're exposed before that? If the mother eats peanuts and eggs while breast feeding, does that confer desensitisation?
I am not sure if you had a child or not, but you don't give the baby food before 4 to 6 months. So its not that you aren't exposing them at all, but not feeding them the food.
This is what our allergist said. Living in Australia wife and I are both asian both eat peanuts. No peanut allergies in either families. Wife ate peanuts while pregnant but son has peanut allergy.
What's the implication here? That exposure to peanuts in utero might not help avoid peanut allergies after birth? (I'm not sure what the literature on that says) Or that there's something unusual about simply being in Australia as an infant that causes peanut sensitivity? Or that infants in Australia have less exposure to nuts?
I read at one point that my oral allergy syndrome, my mild reaction to apples and other fruits, tends to be correlated with hay fever. It doesn't seem unreasonable for something similar to be afoot with peanuts.