Women who eat peanuts during pregnancy may help their children avoid serious allergy, researchers said last night.
A new study has found the more nuts a pregnant woman ate, the lower the chance of a child having the allergy – although researchers say they have not proved there is a direct link.
In the past pregnant women have been encouraged to avoid peanuts and the researchers say this may have contributed to an increase in allergies.
They stress their findings do not apply to women who already suffer from peanut allergy.
The findings, reported in JAMA Pediatrics, come from a study of more than 8,000 children.
Some 308 suffered from food allergies, including some 140 suffering from peanut or treenut allergy. The findings were linked to surveys showing what the children’s mothers ate during pregnancy.
Researcher Dr Michael Young, of Boston Children’s Hospital, Massachusetts, USA, said: "The data are not strong enough to prove a cause-and-effect relationship. Therefore, we can’t say with certainty that eating more peanuts during pregnancy will prevent peanut allergy in children.
"But we can say that peanut consumption during pregnancy doesn’t cause peanut allergy in children.
"By linking maternal peanut consumption to reduced allergy risk we are providing new data to support the hypothesis that early allergen exposure increases tolerance and reduces risk of childhood food allergy."
JAMA Pediatr 23 December 2013; doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.4602.
Leave a Reply