HEALTH : Giving babies eggs early cuts risk of allergy

Feeding babies eggs and peanuts may reduce their risk of developing an allergy to the foods, Imperial College London wrote on its website on Tuesday, citing a new study by its scientists.

In the research, which is the largest analysis of evidence on the effect of feeding allergenic foods to babies, the scientists analysed data from 146 studies. In total, the studies involved more than 200,000 children.

The research, titled “Timing of Allergenic Food Introduction to the Infant Diet and Risk of Allergic or Autoimmune Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis”, also found that feeding children between the ages of four and eleven months peanuts may reduce risk of developing allergy to the food.

In addition, the scientists analysed milk, fish (including shellfish), tree nuts (such as almonds) and wheat, but did not find enough evidence to show introducing these foods at a young age reduces allergy risk.

Although previous studies have found feeding children peanuts and eggs may reduce allergy risk, other studies have found no effect.

Dr Robert Boyle, the lead author of the study from the department of medicine at Imperial College London, says: “This new analysis pools all existing data, and suggests introducing egg and peanut at an early age may prevent the development of egg and peanut allergy, the two most common childhood food allergies”.

He says: “Until now we have not been advising parents to give these foods to young babies, and have even advised parents to delay giving allergenic foods such as egg, peanut, fish and wheat to their infant”.

Allergies to foods such as nuts, eggs, milk or wheat are caused by the immune system malfunctioning and overreacting to these harmless foods. This triggers symptoms such as rashes, swelling, vomiting and wheezing.

The research was published on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.