Peanut allergy is considered one of the most serious dangers to children in the Western World. And researchers the world over of researchers have been working on a cure. Now, a ‘retro’ peanut allergy treatment has reemerged as the most effective…
Peanut allergy specialists have been pointing the world in this direction for years. And I take pride in having advocated for their cause when it was still highly unpopular. Now, helping children to avoid growing up with potentially deadly peanut allergies has been proven to be as easy as starting them on peanut products very early – in infancy…
Building on experience
New, hard evidence on the effectiveness of early peanut introduction comes after a years-long follow-up of children who received small amounts of peanuts from infancy to age 5.
As early as 2017, peanut allergy awareness groups were backing the practice of early peanut intro-duction as a means of ensuring children did not develop serious peanut allergies in their teens or later.
If I do say so, myself…
At risk of sounding immodest, I want to go on record as having advocated early introduction well before the experts took up the torch. But I can’t claim to have invented it. In fact, I’ve been a fan of what used to be called ‘desensitization therapy’ for a number of chronic conditions that tend to show up at an early age.
Now-a-days, they call it ‘oral immunotherapy‘. Which simply means feeding a subject whatever it is they’re sensitive to, starting with tiny amounts and building to ‘doses’ equal to normal dietary intakes.
And the latest long-term follow-up study confirms the method’s effectiveness.
What they did
Researchers wanted to determine, once and for all, how effective oral immunotherapy was in dealing with childhood peanut allergies. They followed 500 subjects from infancy to age 12. Some were given small amounts of peanut products every day from infancy to age 5. The others were allowed to con-sume or avoid peanuts according to their own preferences.
What they found
The survey team was astounded to find that the kids who were given small doses of peanuts every day for their first 5 years enjoyed a 71 percent reduction in their rate of peanut allergy in their teens, compared to the random-consumption group.
The results of the follow-up clearly indicated that early oral immunotherapy produced lasting positive effects.
The takeaway
The wisdom about food allergies I inherited from my parents, which they had received from their parents, has finally been vindicated as truth.
My take
Over my adult lifetime, I’ve seen practical techniques such as oral immunotherapy pushed aside. After the Second World War, doctors and big pharma overwhelmingly championed treatments that could be delivered via pills or injections. But now, we find ourselves struggling in a world.
Our rapidly changing environment is forcing major shifts in the way we cope with our world.
Segments of the population whose systems were used to dealing with one set of germs native to their locale are now finding new threats arising as temperatures and sea levels rise. ‘Tropical’ diseases that folks in the temperate zones never had to deal with before are moving north.
One result of our adaptation to the new reality is that folks are becoming more open to new ways, or rediscovering old ways, of coping. As animal-based food sources become less and less sustainable, we’re preparing to move to a largely plant-based diet. The broader health and wellness community is taking off the blinders, looking beyond ‘the conventional’ for different ways of nourishing, medicating and ensuring the resilience of civilization.
I, for one, am looking forward to a future where, ‘everything that’s old is new again’…
~ Maggie J.