Peanut Allergies Have Plummeted in Children, Study Shows (nytimes.com)
- Reference: 0179836156
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/10/20/1524254/peanut-allergies-have-plummeted-in-children-study-shows
- Source link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/well/peanut-allergy-drop.html
> For decades, as food allergy rates climbed, experts recommended that parents avoid exposing their infants to common allergens. But a landmark trial in 2015 found that feeding peanuts to babies [1]could cut their chances of developing an allergy by over 80% .
[2]non-paywalled source .] In 2017, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases formally recommended the early-introduction approach and issued national guidelines.
>
> The new study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, found that food allergy rates in children under 3 fell after those guidelines were put into place -- dropping to 0.93% between 2017 and 2020, from 1.46% between 2012 and 2015. That's a 36% reduction in all food allergies, driven largely by a 43% drop in peanut allergies. The study also found that eggs overtook peanuts as the No. 1 food allergen in young children.
>
> The study did not examine what infants ate, so it does not show that the guidelines caused the decline. Still, the data is promising. While all food allergies can be dangerous, 80% of people never outgrow one.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/well/peanut-allergy-drop.html
[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/peanut-allergies-60000-kids-avoided-2015-advice/
Get 'em used to it now... (Score:2)
because peanuts is they're going to get in the future.
Re:Applied Darwinism? (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Being allergic to peanuts does not reduce your ability to procreate in a significant way, large enough to explain a drop of more than 30% within a single generation.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"peanut allergy is the leading cause of death from anaphylaxis due to food, particularly in teenagers, though the rate is low. The national food allergy death registry reports fewer than four deaths per year over the past 10 years in the US."
[1]https://icer.org/assessment/pe... [icer.org]
4 deaths per year nationwide!
It's one of these things where there is so much written and discussed about a niche issue that all the information leaves people grossly misled more than informed.
[1] https://icer.org/assessment/peanut-allergy-2019/
Re: (Score:2)
> It's one of these things where there is so much written and discussed about a niche issue that all the information leaves people grossly misled more than informed
Maybe there are not more deaths BECAUSE people talk about it so much and are careful...? Just maybe??
Re: (Score:2)
This still does not explain the dropping allergic rate. If you are careful, you are still allergic. You just know how to handle the situation.
Anyway, even at the height of the peanut allergy craze, the number of teenagers dying in car accidents dwarfed the number of teenager dying from an allergic reaction to peanuts. But we know that improved crash security in cars is the main reason why less people today die in car accidents than in the 1970ies, and not bad drivers dying out due to car crashes.
Re: (Score:3)
> This still does not explain the dropping allergic rate. If you are careful, you are still allergic. You just know how to handle the situation.
It is difficult to say that you are still allergic when your immune system stops the allergic response.
My kid lost his allergy to horses (red splotchy rash) after our pediatrician told us to keep taking him to the stables, only leave if he starts wheezing. Another couple trips, and he can now be around horses every day with zero issues.
Re: (Score:3)
The hypothesized cause is right in the AAP article
> Early introduction of allergenic foods, especially peanuts, while once discouraged, has become a cornerstone recommendation following findings of the LEAP trial, which demonstrated that introducing peanut products in infancy significantly reduced the relative risk of peanut allergy among children at high risk of developing peanut allergy.2 These results triggered interim guidance in August 20154 and the subsequent release of the 2017 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)-sponsored Addendum Guidelines for the Prevention of Peanut Allergy in the United States,5 which was endorsed by multiple organizations, including the AAP. The Addendum Guidelines formally recommended early peanut introduction for all infants at low risk of developing peanut allergy (no/mild/moderate eczema) and for high-risk infants (severe eczema and/or egg allergy) if appropriate after testing for peanut allergy.
Yes, early exposure for low-risk infants. (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/doi/10.1542/peds.2025-072593/204627/Encouraging-Trends-in-Peanut-Allergy-Prevention?autologincheck=redirected)
I don't think it works for all allergens, though. I've been bitten by mosquitos thousands of times, still get itchy red bumps. I have no idea why early exposure seems to be preventive for some allergens and not others. The human body is weird.
Re: (Score:2)
That was the new rate. As in they figured this out 10 years ago, changed the advice 8 years ago and the death rate plummeted.
There has not been much written and discussed peanut allergies in at least 5 years because of how we solved most of the problem.
At the height of the problem there was an estimated 100 deaths from peanut allergies a year. [1]https://health.howstuffworks.c... [howstuffworks.com]
[1] https://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/allergies/food-allergy/peanut/how-many-people-die-each-year-from-peanut-allergies.htm
Re: (Score:2)
100 is a lot more than 4, but there's still no way it weeded peanut allergies out of the gene pool!
Let kids play in the dirt (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not a doctor and I don't know the specific science, but intuition and common sense would suggest that early exposure to "dirt" whether that is actual dirt, potential allergens, or other things the body will have to deal with, is how robust and proper functioning immune systems are built. As humans we evolved living outside and exposed to our environment. Isolating kids from the environment they are going to live in as adults, seems like a bad idea from an evolutionary perspective.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Before the 20th century, infection was about half of deaths. Not letting children get covered in filth and bathing frequently was probably very sound advice in the 19th century. And when antibiotics cease to be effective, we may return to that. Antibiotic resistant staph still doesn't like hot soapy water, or at least won't stick to you as easily.
Re: Let kids play in the dirt (Score:2)
We can have the best of both worlds now. Now we can get covered in filth and recover somewhere healthy. Look at illness rates of someone who grew up on a farm vs city.
Re: (Score:2)
The farm-vs-city differential goes back centuries -- look at Edward Jenner and his discovery that farm girls, who worked closely with the animals, would contract cowpox but wouldn't contract smallpox afterward, and developed the technique of variolation to introduce cowpox to uninfected individuals, and acquired immunity to smallpox. But smallpox remained a threat in urban areas until variolation, and later vaccination, became common.
Re: (Score:2)
There have been many studies at this point showing that exposure to dirt, dust, and dander early in childhood results in low rates of asthma. I'm personally fondest of the one a friend of mine (Hi Dubes!) worked on in Papua New Guinea where they found the westernization of formerly isolated cultures where dirt floors are replaced by cement results in an increase in asthma.
I recall recently hearing of a study where it was determined that when an infant's pacifier falls on the ground, and the parent cleans i
No more rhyming - (Score:2)
I mean it!
Re: No more rhyming - (Score:2)
Enough of that.
German study ... (Score:4, Insightful)
back in the early 00's I read a study from Germany. Children from big cities, were given exposure via country life to mice and other animals... the subjected population ( it was in excess of 1000 but could have been bigger ), had a lower allergy rate than the control group.
just sharing my knowledge that's all
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
That's a surprisingly rude response to a banal but not irrelevant point.
Re: (Score:2)
Read their [1]comment history. [slashdot.org] Just a stream of verbal diarrhea with one common theme: Adding absolutely nothing of value to any conversation they are a part of. At least they are willing to put a name behind their bullshit, instead of hiding behind the AC checkbox.
[2]This [slashdot.org] is the only one that stands out, just for the inclusion of one of my favorite uses of the word "fuck".
[1] https://slashdot.org/~cyborg_monkey
[2] https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23769374&cid=65589882
Re: (Score:2)
This study?
[1]Farm living: effects on childhood asthma and allergy [nature.com]
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/nri2871
I never understood this. (Score:2)
It's like this allergy exploded out of nowhere and reached rates high enough to force schools to ban peanut butter (which I ate every day). Why? How? WTF happened to make kids allergic to a dietary staple?
I'm glad to hear it's going away again, but where the hell did it come from?
Re: (Score:3)
I've heard that the cause was a string of news stories several decades ago about rare but potentially fatal allergic reactions in children that caused parents to remove children from exposure to potential allergens. You can probably already spot the irony in this because the reaction by the parents to try to protect their kids actually made them more susceptible to the problem in the first place.
It's a bit like how the news can run a story about shampoo shortages and within a week the stores will have em
Re: (Score:2)
It didn't explode out of nowhere. Some people have always been allergic to nuts. Pediatricians jumped the gun a bit around 2000 based on poor evidence and started recommending completely avoiding exposing high risk babies to nuts until they were three years old (in the US). This turned out to be exactly the wrong thing to do and produced a generation of kids with much more severe nut allergies. More kids with more severe allergies caused even more restriction on exposure.
[1]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/a... [nih.gov]
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6208566/
Re: (Score:1)
> Pediatricians jumped the gun...
Pediatricians are not trained to heal. They are trained to dispense completely unnecessary pharmaceuticals to children.
Re: (Score:2)
Going by prescribed OIT dosages for peanuts, you can have a allergic reaction down to about a little more than 1/250 of a peanut. That means a finely grounded peanut could contaminate up to 200-250~ portions.
That means in a poorly cleaned environment, guess what is going to actually contaminate everything? Its where the labelled concerning peanut contamination comes from.
Similarly, if you are paying for OIT for peanuts, you are paying for roughly 0,5 1 3 6 12 20 40 80 120 160 200 240 300mg of peanut per day
Re: (Score:2)
Just like with any job, some of the people who do it are better than others.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, naturally I am aware that nut allergies are not new. What I was not aware of were guideline changes around 2000. I wasn't aware that there had been such guidelines. "Don't feed babies whole peanuts", makes perfect sense, they could choke. I know I was given peanut butter before I was three, at least as part of learning how to make 't' and 'l' sounds. That, I remember.
Re: (Score:2)
> It's like this allergy exploded out of nowhere and reached rates high enough to force schools to ban peanut butter (which I ate every day). Why? How? WTF happened to make kids allergic to a dietary staple?
> I'm glad to hear it's going away again, but where the hell did it come from?
Fear culture, to be blunt.
Peanut allergies are related to gluten allergies. If you are really allergic to gluten, it is called Celiac. And that allergy is a problem for celiacs.
But as the disease du jour, it seems like everyone and their sister is now dreadfully allergic to gluten, although when pressed, they'll just say "I'm gluten sensitive."
I know of no plants that don't have gluten, so they must be allergic to just about everything.... And vegetarians have long made a meat substitute from pure
Re: (Score:2)
THANK YOU! All plants DO have a gluten. It's just that for folks like my wife, who genuinely has celiac disease, it's primarily the gliadin in wheat, secalin in rye, and hordein in barley..unlike 'allergy' which is described as a histimine reaction, this one triggers a response that damages the small intestine. Honestly people are now saying today's wheat is what's "making Americans fat" while Europeans eat software wheat. I beg to differ; whilst their pastry has softer wheat, as ours should but likely d
Re: (Score:2)
I think we need to just accept that each and every piece of food/diet news or information we get is wrong and should be ignored. If they say it's bad today, it'll be good tomorrow, poison the next day, and a cure for cancer the day after that.
Re: (Score:2)
But didn't the peanut allergies explode before anyone cared about gluten?
Of course, but maybe (Score:2)
From Louis CK:
You know, you have your bad thoughts. Hopefully you do good things. Everybody has a competition in their brain of good thoughts and bad thoughts. Hopefully, the good thoughts win. For me, I always have both. I have, like, the thing I believe, the good thingâ" Thatâ(TM)s the thing I believeâ" and then thereâ(TM)s this thing, and I donâ(TM)t believe it, but it is there. Itâ(TM)s always this thing and then this thing. Itâ(TM)s become a category in my brain That
Re: (Score:2)
Also from Louis CK:
His dick out at inappropriate times
But what about autism? (Score:2)
What about the *studies linking eating peanuts with autism?
* Would I make s*** like that up?
Re: (Score:2)
Tylenol or paracetamol as the rest of the world call it (never get what it is with Americans and trademark names) usage has not particularly changed over the last 50 years but rates of ASD have. Right there we have an issue with the notion that it causes ASD. Yes paracetamol can in an overdose cause liver toxicity so can Vitiman D you berk. Dose is everything.
Same for vaccines. The number of childhood vaccines has basically stayed the same since I was a child 50 years ago, but again the rates of ASD have go
Re: (Score:2)
But we've also changed how we diagnose autism. People also suck down A LOT of non prescription pain killers. And as the average age of birth has risen, it wouldn't surprise me if some of it is from that. I also believe based on my research that a huge percentage of beauty products are mutagens...
Hand sanitizer addicts (Score:1)
I always imagined that the people who can't pass by the ubiquitous hand sanitizer stations without using it get sick a lot more than the average person because of that constant use.
Re: (Score:2)
> I always imagined that the people who can't pass by the ubiquitous hand sanitizer stations without using it get sick a lot more than the average person because of that constant use.
Not always - I was an addict long before hand sanitizers were popular. The wife tells me I'm one wash away from having a handwashing fetish.
When I was a kid, a neighbor kid got something called "trench mouth". My mom told me if I didn't wash my hands, I'd get trench mouth too. Ever since then, my hands have been really clean. And hand sanitizers are used until I can get to soap and water. I even used Phisohex hexachlorophene before they banned it.
FWIW, I get a cold about once every 4 years.
They all are schills! (Score:1)
Clearly the people conducting this study were paid off by Big Nut!
Re: (Score:2)
> Clearly the people conducting this study were paid off by Big Nut!
No - really - I didn't!
Experts? (Score:2)
Are idiots sometimes. What was their plan, eliminate every possible allergen as humanity ends up in sterile bubbles?
As an example of the proper way to handle allergens, our son came back from the stable where we kept our horses, all splotchy the first time we took him there. Wife took him to our pediatrician. He told us - "Keep taking him there, and unless he starts wheezing, his immune system will adapt and the rash will go away. Only took two visits, and the allergy was gone.
The concept that if we a
Peanut Farmers Breath Sigh of Relief (Score:2)
While a peanut allergy is serious and can be fatal. The larger picture is a bit strange.
Introducing Peanuts (Score:2)
15 years ago I listened to a radio interview with Australian scientists from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute on this issue. They explained how to safely introduce these foods to babies. I took these steps with both my kids at 6 months. They are now 13 and 9 and have always been allergy free. The only food that babies should never have is honey because of the risk of botulism. After 12 months, honey is safe.
1. Put a very small amount of peanut butter on the outside of the baby's cheek. Wait to see
Re: Now to finish the job (Score:2)
Airline pretzels are good too. But life hack: if you order a to go meal at the airport and take it on the plane, you get to dine in style and pretend you're in First.
Re: (Score:1)
Don't forget....booze on an airplane also seems to be exceptionally good too!!!
Something about some beer or a good mixed drink just seems to make the works GREAT at 30K feet....
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree with many of your points, but I do want those peanuts back. I didn't think they were as good, but I did like them.
Re: (Score:2)
[1]https://shop.kingnut.com/ [kingnut.com]
King Nut is the brand you see on airlines most. You used to be able to buy the snack mix Southwest served on flights until they discontinued it :(
[1] https://shop.kingnut.com/