Feeding children peanuts regularly from their infancy to the age of five reduced the rate of peanut allergy in adolescence by 71 per cent, a study has found. Around two per cent - one in 50 - of children in the UK have a peanut allergy . It usually develops in early childhood but occasionally, it can appear in later life.
This type of allergy tends to be persistent and only approximately one in five children outgrow it, usually by the age of 10. But the results of a new study carried out by researchers from King's College London show that introducing peanuts into babies' diets can achieve long-term prevention of a peanut allergy. The research, published in the NEJM Evidence journal, was a follow-up of the LEAP-Trio study, which asked half of the participants to regularly consume peanuts from infancy until the age of five, while the other half was asked to avoid peanuts during that period.
New treatment for children with nut and milk allergies hailed as 'a miracle' after trials Peanut allergy tends to be persistent ( Image: Getty Images) Scientists then followed up both groups from age six to age 12 - and during this period, children from both groups could choose to eat peanuts as often and as much as they wanted. The scientists found that 15.4 per cent of participants from the group that avoided peanuts in early childhood and 4.
4 per cent from the group that consumed it had a peanut allergy at the age of 12 or older. Overall, the study found that early peanut consumption can .
