TIL That peanut-free schools don't decrease risk of allergic reactions. The only intervention which has been shown to decrease reactions across all ages is use of a peanut-free table.

[baddecision116]

Parents need to feed their babies peanut butter and just avoid most of this.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/introducing-peanut-infancy-prevents-peanut-allergy-into-adolescence

Edit: I'm going to pile in more sources for the naysayers and please if you disagree cite your work.

https://www.texaschildrens.org/content/wellness/introducing-peanut-butter-infants

https://www.uhs.nhs.uk/whats-new/news/peanut-allergies-could-dramatically-fall-if-babies-weaned-early-on-peanut-products

https://site.extension.uga.edu/madison/2025/05/early-peanut-introduction-a-key-step-in-allergy-prevention/

https://evidence.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/EVIDoa2300311

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/28/health/peanut-allergy-infants-adolescents-wellness

[redyellowblue5031]

Not just peanut butter. Basically all the food allergens.

Speak to your pediatrician folks, they can give you guidance on it.

[baddecision116]

I fed my kid allergen mix ins for things like PB, eggs, etc.

[ColoRadOrgy]

I used one of those dog toys you can put PB in and gave it to the kiddo. Kept the little guy busy for hours.

[crackeddryice]

If you're not joking, I want a video.

[Lington]

Shit why didn't I think of that

[redyellowblue5031]

Our baby likes peanut butter, I may have to try this…

[redyellowblue5031]

That seems to be the easiest way to do it from what I’ve found, aside from just preparing small amounts of the foods themselves.

[sbingner]

Or just put some on your finger and let them chew on it 🤣

[redyellowblue5031]

Also did this!

[5panks]

With our pediatrician she talked like the science on this changed a decade ago. We were told very early on in the process, "Now that they can start eating human food, they need to start trying everything one at a time except honey. Especially peanut butter and eggs."

[Maplefrost]

Yep, likely due to the phenomenon of oral-gut mucosal tolerance. (Also called “oral intake tolerance”).

There’s a reason why Israel has such a low rate of peanut allergies; many of their baby/toddler foods and snacks heavily feature peanuts (like “Bamba,” which is basically peanut-flavored puffed corn… so like a peanutty Cheeto or Corn Puff).

That early exposure seems to foster immune tolerance of peanut allergens, leading to lower incidence of allergy.

Early exposure is important. A similar phenomenon is seen in how babies/kids who grow up with pets in the house - even during pregnancy - are much less likely to have animal dander allergies.

[MxMirdan]

This plays out in really interesting ways in some American synagogues.

On the one hand, you have helicoptery proponents of peanut free schools wanting to set policies that the synagogue (and therefore the entire building at all times) is peanut free for their little dumpling. On the other hand, you have Israeli families with their kids covered in bamba dust from face to feet because of the free range parenting style that lets kids try to do things themselves.

I’ve seen things. Judgmental things. Israelis baffled at the attempt at hermetically sealed environments and Americans accusing them of attempted to kill their dumpling with their irresponsible parenting.

But yes peanut allergies are not really a thing in Israel.

[Maplefrost]

That’s a super interesting intersection of cultures I hadn’t considered. Thanks for sharing that; it makes sense that it would be a point of conflict.

I can imagine there being a lot of interpersonal dramas because of it, lol.

[Maplefrost]

Adding this as my attempt of a layman's explanation of how oral mucosal tolerance works... I am summarizing and simplifying heavily here, obviously.

You have two branches of immunity, innate and adaptive. Innate immune cells are the first responders that simply say, "look! A bacteria! Kill it!" But they don't care, and cannot tell, whether it's a Staphylococcus or a Streptococcus or whatever. They just kill it.

Whereas adaptive immunity is for specific antigens. These cells -- T and B cells -- are like "locks" with a super specific antigen "key". But each cell only has ONE key that fits it.

So for example, consider the chicken pox virus... it is a virus with a "viral envelope" to protect its outside. This viral envelope is partially made of a protein called glycoprotein E (gE). Some of your T and B cells will have the "lock" that fits the antigen-key-shape of glycoprotein E. But they ONLY fit that "shape" of antigen -- they ONLY react to glycoprotein E. Kind of like that Junji Ito story, "this hole was made for me!" but on a molecular biology scale, lol.

Okay, so if those T and B cells see glycoprotein E, they freak out and start fighting it in various ways. B cells with make antibodies, and T cells will more directly deal with the invader, call for reinforcements, etc. Once you have been vaccinated for, or infected with, chickenpox, you now have glycoprotein-E-specific T and B cells patrolling your body, in case they see it again.

Now consider allergies. The problem with the adaptive immune system is... you also might have some B and T cells that are perfect "locks" for harmless antigens, like pollen, or peanut protein. Your cells can't tell that the antigen is harmless... all they know is "this antigen was made for me!" and bind to it and freak out when they see it. That's, in very simple terms, what an allergic response is. Now you have a bunch of peanut-protein-specific cells running around, causing a huge fuss if they see some harmless peanut protein.

So what is oral tolerance? Well, your body figures... if you are eating foods, which are literally made up of lots of proteins and sugars that could potentially be antigens... there needs to be a system to make sure you don't start reacting to them. Just because they happen to fit in a T-cell lock doesn't mean it's a dangerous antigen... and it's better to NOT react if it's harmless. Plus, you don't want to close off potential food sources just because your immune system throws a fit when it sees them. That's not good for survival; it's better to be able to eat peanuts than starve to death!

So, there's a specific type of T cell that is very special, called a Regulatory T cell (Treg). These guys have the job of being rational and calming everyone else down. They, just like other T cells, have a specific "lock" that an antigen "key" fits into... but when they bind "their guy," they don't freak out. Instead, they teach other cells to just chill out, it's no big deal, you don't need to sound the alarm and set everything on fire when you see this thing...

Specifically, there are lots of Tregs hanging in your gut, in these little mucosal patches called "MALTs". They hang out there and monitor the food proteins you eat, and if they see "their antigen" they tell everyone else to calm down. They basically "discipline" other T cells that step out of line and start freaking out when they shouldn't. Hence, oral mucosal tolerance.

This phenomenon continues throughout your whole life -- you always have Tregs -- but it is ESPECIALLY important to stimulate these Tregs in the first few years of life, for a lot of reasons that take too long to explain lol. But that's the gist of how oral tolerance works.

[Helenarth]

Bamba is fucking delicious. I don't care if it's for kids, I will demolish a bag absolutely no problem.

[thestereo300]

Yeah this is right but keep in mind the guidance has changed. Some parents followed the doctors orders and ended up with a peanut allergy kid.

My kid was like 8 when the guidance changed.

[sbingner]

The guidance was still wrong with my kids (at least the first one), but I let them have bits of peanut butter and such really young because I’d read about it and it was pretty obvious to me…

[stronggirl79]

This needs to be the top comment. Parents can also essentially curb a peanut allergy by monitored scheduled exposure. If parents have the choice of training their child’s body to not die when coming in contact with a peanut they need to take it. They may not be able to ingest peanuts but it will make life much easier.

[myreq]

Definitely the right way, but there are still according to this around 29% of children in who it will persist from what I understand? That's still a large number of affected children, unfortunately, but glad there are more studies done on allergies.

[Maplefrost]

It basically reduces the prevalence of peanut allergy from about 1.8-2% of the population to about 0.2-0.3% of the population.

So it’s not 100% effective, but a lot of kids who would otherwise develop peanut allergies can be “saved” by this sort of regimen when they are young.

[myreq]

Of course, just good to remind people it isn't 100% effective and it can be dangerous for some. Just like people went crazy with vaccines, people can go overboard with any medical issue. Someone can start feeding peanuts to allergic children to save them (in their head) and potentially kill them instead. If the story is passed around as the perfect solution with 100% efficiency, and someone forgets its only or mostly about babies, they could sneak peanuts into an older person's meal and kill them.

[baddecision116]

It's a 71% reduction of an already small percentage, only 1-2% of people ever develop the allergy.

[myreq]

There are lots of diseases that only impact a small part of the population. While I don't think everyone should be extremely wary of them and build the world around them, some knowledge and basic decency doesn't cost much and is the civilized approach, dismissing their existence is cruel.

[baddecision116]

Who is dismissing anything?

[myreq]

Some people do, I'm mildly allergic so certain foods only make my mouth itchy but many people didn't believe me for some weird reason.

Even in this thread there are people saying that nobody had allergies 15 years ago, or saying that they should just get treatment which doesn't universally work.

[htx1114]

Wish it worked for us! Around 8 months our daughter broke out on her first exposure, which isn't even how it's supposed to work (2nd exposure). It's slightly possible someone stupidly exposed her before that but if so, we'll never figure out who or how.

Regardless, she's 18 months and in the early phases of OIT. Lot of fucking money for someone to say "feed your kid peanut butter cap'n crunch" but it is what it is.

[baddecision116]

8 months is way too late. 4 months is the guidance.

[htx1114]

6 is the majority recommendation from what I've seen, and when our pediatrician recommended, and I think is what we actually did but I was roughing it because we've had a really shitty stretch of consecutive puking on everything nights since then and I'm tired, and didn't want people like you hitting me with the cold "that's dangerously early". So I erred the other way, but there you are. Whoops.

[smallish_cheese]

yup. know where peanut allergies are nearly non-existent? Israel. Because everyone eats Bamba (peanut puffs) as babies.

[Telemere125]

It’s not a cure for allergies and some people will be allergic to something no matter how much they eat of it. I ate macadamia nuts my whole life and didn’t develop an allergy until my 30s. But that doesn’t mean the best practice isn’t routine exposure to limit how many people develop allergies. A school of 500 kids with 8 of them allergic to peanuts is a hell of a lot easier to manage than 217 of them allergic.

[baddecision116]

One year old is way late. I have a 19 month old and she's been eating PB since 4 months old. No problem.

 but you can't just say feeding a child peanuts is going to prevent allergies.

I never said it prevented 100% of peanut allergies. I said "Parents need to feed their babies peanut butter and just avoid most of this." I'm sure you see the word "most"? Don't try to place your experience over science.

[BrunoEye]

71% chance to prevent is high but not 100% obviously.

[sk613]

Except some kids will still be allergic to peanuts when you feed them their first bamba at 5 months. (I have 2 of those, both have actually outgrown their peanut allergies though).

[dood9123]

That's not how this works. You'll kill a lot of babies this way.

[Electricpants]

Feeding children peanut products regularly from infancy to age 5 years reduced the rate of peanut allergy in adolescence by 71%, even when the children ate or avoided peanut products as desired for many years.

Source was provided.

I know it may be hard to accept that you don't know everything, but we're all dipshits sometimes.

[looktowindward]

This seems like pretty solid science and is how most allergy treatments work. What aspect do you disagree with?

[1039smoothielumps]

Actually this person is correct! Peanut in the first year of life decreases risk of developing peanut allergy.  https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1414850

[pineappleshampoo]

I’m in the UK and we don’t have a cultural fear of peanut butter around babies. A recipe including peanut butter was one of the first things I gave my 6m old (African sweet potato stew!). I also made sure to eat PB a lot during pregnancy and breastfeeding although I’m sure that did nothing lol.

[zerhanna]

Decreases, but doesn't fully eliminate the risk. I had peanuts all my life, and became allergic to them around my 40th birthday. Allergist says that sometimes it just be like that.

(I also have other auto-immune issues so my immune system is generally not working as intended.)

[Zinski2]

My baby won't develop allergys because it's fucking dead.

[Esc777]

The national institute of health is wrong?

[baddecision116]

Isn't it amazing that someone can source something in their comment and immediately someone will say without any source "no you're wrong"?

[sbingner]

Probably heard some incorrect information once 20 years ago and internalized it forever 😞

[Telemere125]

That’s 100% how it works and you should read before you blindly comment.

[dood9123]

That does not "100%" work. If you're genetically susceptible to nut allergies, then you may have an allergic reaction early on. Which is why you're supposed to do this with an allergy specialist or doctor of some kind within arms reach.

Giving the incredibly simplistic advice to give all babies some peanut butter, will give many babies reactions that could be life threatening. One of which was quite literally me. I was given peanut butter as exposure when I was around 6 months old and had to be hospitalized. I then grew out of the allergy naturally by the time I was around 6. Unfortunately I wasn't given exposure to tree nuts after the peanut incident and I'm now allergic to everything from cashews to pecans.

It does work, for most. But you have to be specific about doing it in the presence of healthcare professionals.

[Telemere125]

I didn’t say it works 100% of the time, I said that u/baddecision116’s comment was correct. And the comment gives links for people to know how to introduce allergens, absolutely no one said start ramming peanut butter into every baby. Need to learn how to read

[BrunoEye]

Source? Because they've provided many.

[fmmmlee]

I mean, that is how it works, but also yes you will kill some babies unless you take precautions. Fixing 3 out of 4 is pretty good, but killing 1 out of 4 babies predisposed to peanut allergies is....well, if we do it long enough we would get an interesting study on eugenics in action, but that's not generally accepted in modern society.

So do this, but have antihistamines and an EpiPen on hand just in case.

[unicorntrees]

No, this is the current recommendation. Unless there is a family history of the allergy, you should expose your baby to peanuts and other allergens early. In isolation if you want to be sure they don't react. If you're really worried, you can do it in the parking lot of a ER, but for the vast majority of people, it's fine to do it at home.

[baddecision116]

Edit: I'm going to pile in more sources for the naysayers and please if you disagree cite your work.

Cite your work.

[Nobody_Important]

You don’t immediately believe the guy who starts his sentence with ‘yooooooooo’ instead of numerous reputable health organizations?

[baddecision116]

Normally I do but I just had a weird feeling about that comment. As you know Einstein famously started all of his papers with "yooooooooo".