Background on The LEAP Study

Given its severe nature and the absence of a cure, prevention remains our best hope to reduce peanut allergy in children. But how exactly can peanut allergy be prevented?

To eat or not to eat...

Over the past several decades, faced with the growing problem of peanut allergy, health authorities in the UK, Canada, the U.S. and others have laid out recommendations that children at high risk for peanut allergy should not eat any peanut-containing foods under the age of three. The logic behind the recommendations are several-fold. Firstly, a programme of avoidance, if adhered to diligently, prevents risk of a severe reaction that can occur upon first exposure to peanut in young children harbouring a peanut allergy. This type of reaction is particularly troublesome in young children, when they are most at risk and parents are the least prepared. Secondly, medical evidence and biological theory have both pointed to exposure to peanut in the early years of life as a cause of allergic sensitization to peanut.

More recently however, scientists have begun calling this strategy into question. Many scientists now believe that by repeatedly exposing the child's immune system to peanut at an early age, their body learns to tolerate the peanut proteins (allergens) and therefore will not cause an allergic reaction as the child grows through his or her toddler years. Evidence for this theory comes from several other countries whose children typically consume high levels of peanut protein from infancy onwards, yet fail to show the high rates of peanut allergy observed in Western countries where peanut is generally avoided in early life.

...That is the question

Does eating peanuts during infancy make the immune system tolerant or sensitive to peanuts consumed later on? Does one approach work better than the other in preventing peanut allergy in children? With your help, these are the important questions the LEAP Study seeks to answer.

Keep reading about the LEAP Study...

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