Food allergies fell 38% in the US after a 2015 change in guidelines suggested parents should give their children peanuts from a young age. Peanut allergy incidence in particular fell 43%.
In much of the West, previous advice was to minimize exposure to allergens such as peanuts to avoid reactions. But epidemiologists noticed that allergies were lower in countries like Israel where peanuts were part of infants’ regular diets and changed the recommendations.
The study is observational and cannot prove that the guideline change led to the reduction, but scientists said it was significant, and that it could help “reduce — and perhaps even eventually eradicate — the burden of peanut and other food allergies in children,” one told the Financial Times.