Introducing children to peanuts early in life, from infancy up to age five years, may offer lasting tolerance to peanuts into adolescence, irrespective of subsequent peanut intake during childhood (1).

The study, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the third in the Learning Early About Peanut allergy (LEAP) series of long-term follow-up trials.

The LEAP research has tracked 640 children at risk of developing nut allergies.

The first study in the series found that introducing peanuts to infants (at 4-6 months of age), rather than avoiding them, cut the risk of peanut allergies by 81% at age five years.

An extension of that trial showed the effect persisted after one year, even if children stopped eating peanuts.

And this latest trial, the third in the LEAP series, and involving 508 children, set out to examine the ‘durability’ of peanut tolerance over time.

It investigated whether the peanut tolerance seen in the earlier trials was maintained, at 12 years of age, after years of ‘ad libitum’ peanut consumption – that is, periods of eating peanuts (in any amount, and as often as they wanted), or avoiding them altogether.

The findings showed that, at age 12 years, peanut allergy remained significantly more prevalent in children in the original peanut avoidance group, than in the original peanut consumption group (15.4% vs. 4.4%).

The protective effect of early peanut consumption, irrespective of further peanut consumption, lasted into adolescence.

This research suggests that long-term prevention and tolerance may be possible in food allergy.