As annoying as it is to hear an older relative say something like, “In my day, we didn’t have all these allergies; we all ate gluten and we liked it!”, they’re not strictly speaking wrong.
Food allergies are on the rise around the world. Approximately 32 million people in the United States, including 6 million children, have at least one food allergy. But while we’re all increasingly aware of allergies, particularly when it comes to children, we’re still not exactly sure how or why they develop.
There appears to be a genetic or hereditary component, but little beyond that is all that clear. But new research from Sweden, published in the journal Pediatric Allergy and Immunology suggests that exposing your infant to a wide variety of foods early on can significantly decrease instances of allergies down the road.
“There is high-certainty evidence that early introduction of egg and peanut is associated with reduced egg and peanut allergy, respectively,” the researchers observe. “However, there is more uncertainty about timing and diversity of other allergenic foods.”
So, the team investigated the eating habits of more than 2000 6- or 9-month-old infants, noting the number of introduced foods and how frequently they ate those foods. They then revisited those children at 9 and/or 18 months and noted parentally reported and physician-diagnosed food allergies.
It turns out that children who tried 13 to 14 foods by 9 months, regardless of how often they ate them, decreased the odds of food allergy by 45% compared to those who ate 0 to 10 foods. This was even more profound when you factored out children with eczema or a family history of food allergies FA was seen for children with eczema and for children with no FA history in the family. Interestingly, “no association was seen between [diet diversity] at age 6 months and [food allergies] at age 18 months.”
In reviewing the results of the study on his popular TikTok account, Dr. Zachary Rubin, a pediatric immunologist said “I hope that more studies show that this is the case.”
He then urged parents to talk to their pediatrician about when it is safe to introduce their children to new foods. While most foods are safe to start incorporating into a child’s diet around 6 months, there are some you should avoid. While many of these foods should be avoided due to their choking hazard — whole nuts, for example — others, like honey, pose a risk for foodborne illness that can be more serious in infants.
So go ahead and incorporate a wide variety of foods into your baby’s diet. We can’t promise it will keep all allergies at bay, but it can’t hurt, either. And who knows: maybe you’ll get one of those toddlers that actually really likes broccoli as a result. (You can dream!)
