Health
Feeding peanuts to babies could prevent allergies through the teen years, study finds
![Feeding peanuts to babies could prevent allergies through the teen years, study finds Feeding peanuts to babies could prevent allergies through the teen years, study finds](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/05/boy-peanuts.jpg)
Feeding peanut butter to babies — starting during infancy and continuing until age 5 — has been shown effective in reducing allergies into adolescence, according to a new study by King’s College London.
The LEAP-Trio study, published on Tuesday in NEJM Evidence, showed that children who consumed peanuts early in life were 71% less likely to develop peanut allergies all the way up to 13 years of age.
This was a follow-up to the Learning Early About Peanut Allergy (LEAP) clinical trial. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) sponsored and co-funded both studies.
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In the original trial, half the participants were asked to consume peanuts regularly from infancy until age 5, while the other half were asked to avoid the food during that period.
Researchers found that early introduction of peanuts reduced the risk of peanut allergy at age 5 by 81%.
Feeding peanut butter to babies has shown to be effective in reducing allergies into adolescence, according to a new study. (iStock)
This latest trial included 508 participants from the original study, averaging 13 years of age.
The children were given peanuts in a “carefully controlled setting” to gauge any allergic reactions.
Peanut allergies were “significantly more prevalent” among the children who avoided peanuts in the first five years of life.
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“Regular, early peanut consumption reduced the risk of peanut allergy in adolescence by 71% compared to early peanut avoidance,” the study authors wrote.
This effect persisted regardless of whether the children had eaten peanuts regularly or avoided them over a period of many years.
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“The key finding of this study is that early consumption of peanut, starting early in the first year of life, confers long-term protection against peanut allergy all the way into adolescence, even without continued consumption of peanut beyond the age of five years,” lead study investigator Gideon Lack, a professor at King’s College London, told Fox News Digital.
![Salted peanuts](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2022/01/1200/675/Peanuts-Salted.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Children who consumed peanuts early in life were 71% less likely to develop peanut allergies all the way up to 13 years of age, researchers found. (iStock)
“This is the first study to establish long-term oral tolerance as a protective strategy against peanut allergy.”
To prevent peanut allergy, young babies as early as 4 months of age should be given peanuts in the form of peanut puffs or peanut butter “regularly and frequently” — at least three times a week — over the first four to five years of life, the researchers recommended.
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“I was not entirely surprised, but nevertheless impressed by the strong protective effect of early peanut consumption preventing peanut allergy all the way into adolescence,” Lack noted.
“This indicates that lifelong tolerance may have been achieved.”
![Peanut butter baby](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/05/1200/675/peanut-butter-baby.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
“Early introduction of infant-safe peanut foods has been proven to help prevent peanut allergies, especially but not exclusively in infants at risk for peanut allergies,” a registered dietitian told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
Sherry Coleman Collins, a food allergy dietitian in Marietta, Georgia, was not involved in the study but shared her insights on the topic.
“Early introduction of infant-safe peanut foods has been proven to help prevent peanut allergies, especially but not exclusively in infants at risk for peanut allergies,” she told Fox News Digital.
“In this study, they found that even if children who ate peanut foods in infancy stopped eating peanuts for a period of time, they were still protected against developing a peanut allergy,” Collins continued.
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This supports the idea that tolerance to foods developed in infancy can extend into adolescence, according to Collins.
“Infants who have moderate to severe eczema and/or egg allergy should discuss early introduction of peanut foods to help prevent peanut allergies because they are at highest risk,” she advised.
“Infants who have moderate to severe eczema and/or egg allergy should discuss early introduction of peanut foods to help prevent allergies.”
The study did have some limitations, Lack acknowledged.
“One weakness of the study is that it was carried out in a high-risk population of babies with severe eczema or hens egg allergy,” he told Fox News Digital.
“However, the findings of the original LEAP study have now been replicated in other lower-risk normal populations and therefore are applicable to the general population.”
These findings could likely be effective for other types of food allergies, the researchers said.
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health.
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Health
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Health
Experts laud injection that reportedly offers 100% protection against HIV/AIDS
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- Twice-yearly shots used to treat AIDS were 100% effective in preventing new infections in women, according to a new study.
- There were no infections among the young women and girls who received the shots in a study of about 5,000 participants in South Africa and Uganda.
- The shots, made by U.S. drugmaker Gilead and sold as Sunlenca, are currently approved as a treatment for HIV in several regions.
Twice-yearly shots used to treat AIDS were 100% effective in preventing new infections in women, according to study results published Wednesday.
There were no infections in the young women and girls that got the shots in a study of about 5,000 in South Africa and Uganda, researchers reported. In a group given daily prevention pills, roughly 2% ended up catching HIV from infected sex partners.
“To see this level of protection is stunning,” said Salim Abdool Karim of the injections. He is director of an AIDS research center in Durban, South Africa, who was not part of the research.
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The shots made by U.S. drugmaker Gilead and sold as Sunlenca are approved in the U.S., Canada, Europe and elsewhere, but only as a treatment for HIV. The company said it is waiting for results of testing in men before seeking permission to use it to protect against infection.
A pharmacist holds a vial of lenacapavir, the new HIV prevention injectable drug, at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation’s Masiphumelele Research Site in Cape Town, South Africa, on July 23, 2024. The twice-yearly shots used to treat AIDS were 100% effective in preventing new infections in women, according to study results published on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)
The results in women were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine and discussed at an AIDS conference in Munich. Gilead paid for the study and some of the researchers are company employees. Because of the surprisingly encouraging results, the study was stopped early and all participants were offered the shots, also known as lenacapavir.
While there are other ways to prevent HIV infection, like condoms or daily pills, consistent use has been a problem in Africa. In the new study, only about 30% of participants given Gilead’s Truvada or Descovy prevention pills actually took them — and that figure dropped over time.
The prospect of a twice-a-year shot is “quite revolutionary news” for our patients, said Thandeka Nkosi, who helped run the Gilead research at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation in Masiphumelele, South Africa. “It gives participants a choice and it just eliminates the whole stigma around taking pills” to prevent HIV.
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Experts working to stop the spread of AIDS are excited about the Sunlenca shots but are concerned Gilead hasn’t yet agreed on an affordable price for those who need them the most. The company said it would pursue a “voluntary licensing program,” suggesting that only a select number of generic producers would be allowed to make them.
“Gilead has a tool that could change the trajectory of the HIV epidemic,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the Geneva-based U.N. AIDS agency.
![HIV shot](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/07/1200/675/HIV-2.png?ve=1&tl=1)
A pharmacist holds a vial of lenacapavir at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation’s Masiphumelele Research Site in Cape Town, South Africa, on July 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)
She said her organization urged Gilead to share Sunlenca’s patent with a U.N.-backed program that negotiates broad contracts allowing generic drugmakers to make cheap versions of drugs for poorer countries worldwide. As an HIV treatment, the drug costs more than $40,000 a year in the U.S., although what individuals pay varies.
Dr. Helen Bygrave of Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that the injections could “reverse the epidemic if it is made available in the countries with the highest rate of new infections.” She urged Gilead to publish a price for Sunlenca that would be affordable for all countries.
In a statement last month, Gilead said it was too early to say how much Sunlenca would cost for prevention in poorer countries. Dr. Jared Baeten, Gilead’s senior vice president of clinical development, said the company was already talking to generics manufacturers and understood how “deeply important it is that we move at speed.”
Another HIV prevention shot, Apretude, which is given every two months, is approved in some countries, including in Africa. It sells for about $180 per patient per year, which is still too pricey for most developing countries.
![HIV shot](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/07/1200/675/HIV-3.png?ve=1&tl=1)
A lab technician works with vials of lenacapavir at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation’s Masiphumelele Research Site in Cape Town, South Africa, on July 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)
Byanyima said the people who need long-lasting protection the most include women and girls who are victims of domestic violence and gay men in countries where same-sex relationships are criminalized. According to UNAIDS, 46% of new HIV infections globally in 2022 were in women and girls, who were three times more likely to get HIV than males in Africa.
Byanyima compared the news about Sunlenca to the discovery decades ago of AIDS drugs that could turn HIV infection from a death sentence into a chronic illness. Back then, South African President Nelson Mandela suspended patents to allow wider access to the drugs; the price later dropped from about $10,000 per patient per year to about $50.
Olwethu Kemele, a health worker at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation, predicted the shots could boost the number of people coming in for HIV prevention and slow the virus’ spread. She said young women often hide the pills to avoid questions from boyfriends and family members. “It makes it hard for the girls to continue,” she said.
In a report on the state of the global epidemic released this week, UNAIDS said that fewer people were infected with HIV in 2023 than at any point since the late 1980s. Globally, HIV infects about 1.3 million people every year and kills more than 600,000, mainly in Africa. While significant progress has been made in Africa, HIV infections are rising in Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.
In other research presented at the AIDS conference, Andrew Hill of the University of Liverpool and colleagues estimated that once production of Sunlenca is expanded to treat 10 million people, the price should fall to about $40 per treatment. He said it was critical that health authorities get access to Sunlenca as soon as possible.
“This is about as close as you can get to an HIV vaccine,” he said.
Health
What Happens If You Eat Eggs Every Day? Nutritionists Share the Benefits
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