Peanut allergies can be deadly and may even be at least partly hereditary.
However according to doctor, author, and TikToker Dr. Karan Rajan, it may be possible to reduce your child’s risk with items that are probably already in your kitchen cupboard.
In a recent TikTok, the doctor shared that “if you own a tiny human, you can reduce their peanut allergies by 71% doing this one thing.”
Which is?
Giving your child the “equivalent of a heaped teaspoon” of peanut butter thrice weekly once they can take solids may lower their odds of developing the allergy, he says.
That’s because, despite older advice to avoid the legumes until later in life, Dr. Rajan says “newer evidence suggests that avoiding peanuts in early age can actually increase the child’s likelihood for developing this dangerous allergy.”
Dr Rajan went on to reference what we assume is a 2024 King’s College and US National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) follow-up study, which caught up on a randomised trial which fed half of a group of 640 children peanut butter from weaning up until five years old.
The children in the experiment were chosen because of their “preexisting sensitivity to peanut extract” ― meaning all those in the study were already likely to develop a peanut allergy.
The first time they checked in on the then-five-year-old kids, those who were fed peanut butter regularly from weaning until they were five saw 80% fewer peanut allergies than those who hadn’t.
Recently, researchers checked the now-13-year-old group again and saw that those who had been fed peanut butter from weaning ’til the age of five still had 71% fewer peanut allergies than those who avoided it as infants.
That may not be the only advantage
“Starting children on peanut products early has a double advantage,” Dr. Rajan shared.
“One is that you’ll be able to prevent the vast majority of peanut allergies. And two, for the cases you can’t prevent, you can identify the children[’s allergies] earlier, where treatment is easier.”
Who knew the humble spread had such potential benefits for your little one?