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Infants’ peanut consumption found safe for future growth, nutrition
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Recent data suggested that early-life peanut consumption, as part of a strategy that reduces peanut allergy risk, was nutritionally safe and did not interfere with breast-feeding duration or children’s growth.
“Overall, these findings indicate that early-life introduction of peanut-containing foods as a strategy to prevent the subsequent development of peanut allergy is both feasible and nutritionally safe, even at high levels of peanut consumption,” Marshall Plaut, MD, chief of the food allergy, atopic dermatitis and allergic mechanisms section in NIAID’s Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation, said in a press release.
As part of the Learning Early About Peanut Allergy (LEAP) trial, Plaut and colleagues reported that early-life peanut consumption can reduce the risk for peanut allergy in infants previously considered at high risk. In the United Kingdom, however, only 8% to 10% of infants eat peanut products before age 1 year. As a result, many professional societies recommend peanut introduction during infancy in high-risk infants.
To reassure these recommendations, the researchers assessed 640 infants aged 4 to 11 months randomly assigned to consume 6 grams of peanut protein weekly or to avoid peanut products until age 5 years as part of their LEAP trial.
Peanut products were successfully introduced and consumed with a median intake of 7.5 grams weekly in the consumption group and 0 grams in the control group. No differences in anthropometric measurement or energy intake were observed between groups at any visit. Dietary differences, however, showed that peanut group participants had higher intakes of fat, while controls had greater carbohydrate intake. Protein intakes remained the same between groups. In addition, peanut introduction among breast-feeding infants did not reduce their length of breast-feeding.
“An important and reassuring finding was that peanut consumption did not affect the duration of breast-feeding, thus countering concerns that introduction of solid foods before 6 months of age could reduce breast-feeding duration,” Mary Feeney, MSc, RD, senior dietitian in the department of pediatric allergy at King’s College London, said in the release. – by Will Offit
Disclosure: Plaut reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
Perspective
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Stanley M. Fineman, MD
This study is an interesting sub-analysis of the children from the LEAP study and it does answer the question that has been raised when looking at the LEAP data: Was there any negative impact of nutrition and growth in those children? And, in fact, these findings basically show us that there was not.
If you do have a child at high risk for developing peanut allergy and you provide them with peanut protein early on, these findings demonstrate that there is no detrimental effect on growth, nutrition or potential nursing. There have been concerns in the past that when you start giving infants who are nursing with food that they would be less likely to nurse; however, we are not finding that in clinical practice.
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