I had heard this anecdotally for some time - nice to see it codified.
From the New York Times:
More Support for Early Exposure to Peanuts to Prevent Allergies
Evidence is accumulating that food allergies in children might be prevented by feeding peanuts and other allergenic food to infants in their first year of life, researchers reported here Friday.
That finding would challenge the recommendation of the World Health Organization that babies be fed exclusively breast milk for the first six months of life.
“At least as far as peanut is concerned, I would recommend parting from that,” Dr. Gideon Lack, professor of pediatric allergy at King’s College London, said in an interview.
Dr. Lack was the senior author of a study last year that found feeding peanuts to young children starting when they are 4 to 11 months old sharply reduced the risk of their developing peanut allergies.
That upended the conventional wisdom that it is best to avoid introducing peanuts until children are older.
On Friday, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped pay for that study, issued proposed new guidelines recommending that children at risk of peanut allergies be fed peanuts starting at 4 to 6 months of age, though they should be tested first to make sure they do not already have an allergy.
Makes a lot of sense - our immune and allergy systems are forming in infancy and if they are presented with something new, they can "wire up" a solution. A child that is older has no defense. Not suggesting that a toddler be handed a PB&J sammich but with some judicious testing (patch test), you can see if feeding some creamed PB baby food is a good thing. Nursing exclusively for too long can isolate the kid from the real world. You need to get some infections to build up your immune system.
I am also worried about the constant use of hand sanitizers - these are fine when on the road or visiting a strange place. I also wipe down surfaces at home and at the store during flu season but constant use is not a good thing.
More at the site - this was a fairly well-done study with what appears to be a decent p-value. Tip of the hat to the excellent BarfBlog for the link.
