A recent study published in Pediatrics suggests that rates of peanut allergy in young children in the United States declined significantly following the publication of guidelines encouraging early peanut consumption in infancy.
The study set out to examine changes in peanut allergy incidence following the 2015 publication of a consensus statement backed by nearly a dozen medical associations that recommended early peanut introduction for high-risk infants. The publication of the consensus statement marked a key milestone in the shift away from the previous medical guidance instructing parents to delay introduction of peanut.
Using electronic health record data from around 40,000 children aged 0-3 years in US primary care settings, researchers looked at how food allergy diagnoses changed from the 2012-2014 pre-guidelines period to the 2015-2017 post-guidelines period.
The findings showed that the cumulative incidence of immunoglobulin E–mediated peanut allergy fell from 0.79% before the guidelines to 0.53% after their introduction—a relative reduction of around one-third. Rates declined even further, to 0.45%, after the release of addendum guidelines in 2017. The researchers also found that the cumulative incidence of tree nut allergy fell from 0.12% before the guidelines to 0.08% after their publication.
Overall, the findings suggest that the shift toward earlier nut introduction in infancy has been accompanied by a measurable decline in diagnosed nut allergies at the population level.
Gabryszewski, S. J., Dudley, J., Faerber, J. A., Grundmeier, R. W., Fiks, A. G., Spergel, J. M., & Hill, D. A. (2025). Guidelines for Early Food Introduction and Patterns of Food Allergy. Pediatrics, 156(5), e2024070516.