The Peanut Allergy Factor

A new study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology finds that the effects of children whose mothers ate peanut products during pregnancy were more likely to test positive for peanut allergies.

That doesn’t mean, however, that these children will actually show allergic symptoms, since the test does not indicate the strength of reaction, said Dr. Scott Sicherer, study author and pediatrician at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

The study included  503 Participants infants between the ages of 3 and 15 months old.  They all had likely milk or egg allergies or significant eczema, which are risk factors for peanut allergy.

Most of the children in the study eat peanuts, so it’s not known what whether they actually have negative reactions to peanut-containing foods, he said. The test just indicates that the child could have a peanut allergy.

Large studies tend to find no effect of peanuts during pregnancy on allergy development, while some small studies such as this one suggest there might be a connection, Sicherer said. Based on reports of peanut product consumption of the the infants’ mothers, the researchers found an association between how much peanut they had eaten and the likelihood of a positive test for peanut allergy in the child.Sicherer has had some patients who avoided peanuts but still have peanut-allergic kids, and others who ate peanuts and wonder whether that caused an allergy in the child.In the past, the American Academy of Pediatrics was indecisive on the issue.

The organization said in 2000 that pregnant and breastfeeding women should avoid peanuts if the infant had an increased risk of peanut allergies based on family history. But it scrapped that advice in 2008 because there wasn’t enough evidence to back it up.