Taste tests for children reduce the risk of allergies
Small tastings of peanut butter, eggs and milk from the age of three months seem to reduce the risk of developing allergies later in life.
This is shown by new research from Sweden and Norway, reports Vetenskapsradion.
Introducing peanuts, milk and eggs early in life seems to reduce the risk of allergies to these substances.
Since 2019, the National Food Administration in Sweden says that all children can be introduced to peanuts, eggs and milk during their first year of life. This after it has emerged that it does not increase the risk of developing allergies - even if the child has eczema or has parents with allergies.
Now comes new Swedish-Norwegian research that shows that on the contrary, there are benefits to parents introducing these foods from the age of three months. Getting to taste the substances early seems to reduce the risk of developing allergies later in life, according to Vetenskapsradion.
In the study, published in the scientific journal The Lancet, approximately 2,400 infants were divided into two groups. One group between the ages of three and six tasted peanut butter, boiled eggs, milk and wheat, four times a week. The other group did not get it.
When the babies then turned three years old, it turned out that the risk of having developed a food allergy to these substances was less than half as great in the group that received samples, compared with the children who did not.
The peanuts gave the greatest effect.
- Our hypothesis is that this stimulates tolerance development and that the body adapts when the immune system develops early in life, says Björn Nordlund, associate professor of children and adolescent allergology at Karolinska Institutet, who has led the Swedish part of the study, to the radio.
No children in the study were negatively affected by the taste portions.
Source:https://www.aftonbladet.se/family/a/rEwLnR/smakprov-till-barn-ger-minskad-risk-for-allergi
