Peanut allergies have plummeted in children, study shows

Food allergies in children dropped sharply in the years after new guidelines encouraged parents to introduce infants to peanuts, a study has found.

For decades, as food allergy rates climbed, experts recommended that parents avoid exposing their infants to common allergens. But a landmark trial in 2015 found that feeding peanuts to babies could cut their chances of developing an allergy by over 80%. In 2017, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases formally recommended the early-introduction approach and issued national guidelines.

The new study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, found that food allergy rates in children younger than 3 fell after those guidelines were put into place — dropping to 0.93% between 2017 and 2020, from 1.46% between 2012 and 2015. Th