A new study suggests that women who eat peanuts or tree nuts during pregnancy are not putting their children at an increased risk for developing nut allergies.
The study, published online Monday in , found that mothers who ate nuts often during pregnancy had children who were less likely to develop nut allergies compared to pregnant women who avoided eating nuts.
The study looked at 8,205 U.S. children born between 1990 and 1994, whose mothers reported their daily diet before, during and after their pregnancy in the Nurses' Health Study II.
In 2006, the mothers were asked to confirm whether or not their children had developed any allergies and to provide medical records and allergy test results to confirm a diagnosis.
The study found that children whose mothers ate nuts at least five times a month were 69 per cent less likely to have nut allergies than those children whose mothers rarely ate nuts.
The study's authors found a total of 308 children who had developed a food allergy, including 140 peanut or tree nut allergies. Fifty-eight of the children who had a nut allergy had mothers who were allergic to nuts and 82 did not.
"Our study supports the hypothesis that early allergen exposure increases the likelihood of tolerance and thereby lowers the risk of childhood food allergy," the study's authors concluded.
The study's lead author, Dr. Michael Young, told the Associated Press that while the results can't prove a causal relationship, it does add to the evidence that early exposure to potential allergens may be a way to increase tolerance.
JAMA report backs up Canadian study
Earlier in December, the Canadian Pediatric Society and the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology issued a joint , saying that there appears to be no benefits to delaying the introduction of potential allergens in the diet of young children.
The statement said babies can be fed foods like eggs, peanuts and fish as early as six months of age, and that purposely not giving children these foods may even increase the risk of developing an allergy.
The authors of the U.S. study warned that there are limitations to their research, including the fact that they only looked at maternal history. "So any paternal influences on the development of (peanut and tree nut) allergy were not investigated," the study said.
There is also the possibility that other differences in the mothers' diets were having an effect on the data, the study warned. For example, mothers who frequently ate nuts were also more likely to consume fruits and vegetables, which are high in antioxidants and may help decrease the risks of developing an allergy, the study said.
Research suggests that peanut allergies affect between one to two per cent of the population in most Western countries.
With files from The Associated Press
