To eat peanuts or not?

A new report out next week will site that Britain's allergy epidemic is being fuelled by Government advice to stop eating peanuts during pregnancy and to avoid giving peanuts to children at an early age.

The findings from the House of Lord's Science and Technology committee's allergy report will be expected to call on the Department of Health to change the advice it gives out. Ministers have admitted that current guidelines stating that parents with histories of hayfever, allergies, Asthma or Eczema avoid exposure to peanuts for young children or pregnant women was 'entirely wrong and counter productive'.

The current advice states that pregnant women and babies under three should avoid peanuts or products containing peanuts.

The crossbench peer Lord May of Oxford said: "In Israel, where peanuts are quite commonly found in baby food, there has been no increase of peanut allergies."

In Africa and Asia, where peanuts are an intergral part of children's diets, rates of peanut allegies are much higher than in the west. In China, peanut allergies are almost non-exisistent.

In the last ten years in Britain the number of primary school children who suffer from nut allergies has doubled to around one in 70.

The commitee is agreed that the Department of Health needs to take a good look at the current advice it gives out to pregnant women and parents of small children in case it is actually increasing the risk of peanut allergies. Lord May also remarked that: "It is quite striking that the increase in peanut allergies is rather in step with the increasing Government advice not to expose tiny children to them."

Scientists are also coming around to the idea that by repeatedly exposing your child to peanuts, will mean the immune system learns to tolerate the allergens found in peanuts.

Thanks to the Daily Mail, 20/09/07

If you are worried or confused about whether to eat peanuts in pregnancy or to give them to your children, gurgle suggests you avoid peanuts until the report is published next week, where we will take a closer look at the advise being given. Watch this space!

Want to know which foods to avoid in pregnancy? See our article What foods to avoid fro more information.