First Product That Claims Prevention of PA

[GoingNuts]

Oy.

https://nyti.ms/2eYDLZq

[SilverLining]

Well...someone had to make money off it.

[gvmom]

I am horrified.  And, someone will make money off of it, until they are sued.  Hopefully no babies will die in the meantime. 

The fact that essentially they are marketing what is akin to preventative immunotherapy to babies, without actually knowing or having the ability to know, if they are allergic, before starting what is effectively a protocol, in the hands of parents who are scared their kids will develop the dreaded food allergies, just is so patently offensive I don't even know how to begin a coherent rant.

[spacecanada]

I am horrified.  And, someone will make money off of it, until they are sued.  Hopefully no babies will die in the meantime. 

The fact that essentially they are marketing what is akin to preventative immunotherapy to babies, without actually knowing or having the ability to know, if they are allergic, before starting what is effectively a protocol, in the hands of parents who are scared their kids will develop the dreaded food allergies, just is so patently offensive I don't even know how to begin a coherent rant.

This.  And praying this never comes to Canada.  Just. OMG.

[name]

FYI

The peanut industry has a hired registered dietitian (i.e., not a medical professional and certainly not an allergist) who is working the LEAP study hard, almost to the point of misrepresenting the outcome.  The reduction is not global, it is only in one segment.  I am really concerned how the findings in LEAP are metastasizing into product marketing, and that at least one prominent allergist has lauded the now allowed marketing claims on products as a way to increase awareness of early introduction.  A marketing claim does not translate into the rigor of LEAP with medical supervision for the 'at-risk' group that showed the most promise thus far.  Most consumers would not go on to develop sensitization regardless of introduction. 

[Janelle205]

So getting all the targeted ads because pregnant...

Saw this one last night: https://www.spoonfulone.com/

Uses the peanut early exposure stuff to suggest doing the same for top 8 + sesame.  Each packet has powdered peanuts, milk, eggs, almonds, soy, wheat, shrimp, cashews, hazelnuts, oat, cod, pecans, salmon, sesame, walnuts, and pistachios.  Suggests one packet a day mixed with food starting as early as 4 months.

It also claims to "support your child's long term immune health" which doesn't really seem to have a whole lot of meaning.

[becca]

 

[BensMom]

But there is the thing about how peanut-allergy rates are really low in Israel and they feed their kids bamba (a peanut snack) at a really young age. There is science behind this. I get that a baby could react, but the way many people find out their kid is allergic in the first place is when they had some pb at 6 months or whenever. Isn't the protocol today to not avoid allergens early on? So at some point, you're going to give your kid peanuts. This small dose sounds like reasonable way to do that.

[YouKnowWho]

Yes early exposure but one at a time.  If your child reacts to that concoction, do you just avoid top 9? 

A friend messaged me about what my thoughts were - I agree with early introduction.  But I said my opinion was to try single ingredients to figure out what child is reacting to if they react.  She has Celiac and a nephew/niece with food allergies.

[BensMom]

But it just has peanut, not all top allergens.

[gvmom]

The link from Janelle has more than just peanut.

I am going to just reiterate my horror at these products.  I also am going to add my dissent in believing there is validity to the science behind these products that meets what I would consider something I would accept for my own children.

The idea that early introduction is what keeps a child from getting food allergies, including what amounts to recommending the implementation of a quasi home immunotherapy, marketed to play on parents fears and extract money without proven efficacy, promising a medical miracle, is disgusting to me.

Where is the data that actually shows that any product, or study, that promotes or uses early introduction, actually kept a child from developing food allergies?  It isn't a given that a child will get them.  You can't tell a child has them because some dot shows up on their forehead indicating their presence.  So far, the studies I've seen, remove children who have life threatening food allergies before they start the study.  Then the studies are left with kids that have either no food allergies, or the levels they are reading are the kids that likely would naturally grow out of them without any intervention in the first place.

And, just for the record, I found out all of my kids allergens before the recommended ages of introduction.  We found out early.  We found out so incredibly luckily because of the random odd exposure.... and not because we had fed them a direct quantity hidden in their food for the express purpose of seeing if they'd have a reaction.  Which is a good thing because they all would have ended up dead. 

Hold a baby, that can't walk or talk, look right into their little face and think about just how much experimenting you are willing to do in order to what?  See if some little packet that you try and give them doesn't cause them to go into anaphylaxis?  Just so that some company can make money telling you that if you feed your baby the contents they won't get food allergies.  You will still be hoping that the first time you give it to them won't be the last time you feed them anything. 

Edited to add:  That telling people to eat something so they don't develop something they don't already have, and statistically aren't likely to develop if they don't already have it, is playing on people's fear.  I think instead of everyone trying to find a way to make money off of parents thinking the worst thing in the world is for kids to have food allergies, some money should be spent trying to figure out how food allergies occur in the first place.  Not to mention maybe developing better epinephrine auto-injectors made by different companies so that food allergic individuals aren't at the mercy of just a couple of companies and crappy medical coverage. 

[YouKnowWho]

But it just has peanut, not all top allergens.

She messaged me about Spoonfull of One which has the top 8 and sesame all ground into a powder to add to food or bottles. 

Advice was to avoid with DS2 until 2 - I wonder if it contributed to his PA.  I chose to ignore the advice with DD and we were good until we weren't - age 3.5-4.  DS1 was in all likelihood allergic from birth (eczema by week 1, FTT, etc).  We have a family history of allergies and other allergic fun though so who knows if DS2 would have been in the clear even with early introduction.

I grew up in a time where food introduction was early.  I was on rice cereal in bottles when I came home from hospital, baby food was given in first few months.  I remember babysitting in my teens and that still being the advice. But the rules changed when my kids were born and pushing for different first foods, later introduction.  MIL and my parents thought I was starving DS1 because he was just getting BM or formula. 

[gvmom]

What if the conversation about food allergies started with the presumption that children came out of the chute with them?

Nobody says that parents should feed their kid grass because they didn't rub them on the lawn when they came home from the hospital right?  They just figure the kid was born allergic to grass.  Or trees.  Or cats.  Or dogs.

Nobody is packaging dog hair powder or the bark of a birch tree to dump into bottled breast milk right?

When you've got a newborn and you are breastfeeding.... and your kid has eczema on their face.... is miserable..... what are you told to do?  Or asked?  What are YOU eating?  It isn't that somehow you didn't start giving them dairy or wheat early enough is it? 

They are reacting to ingesting something because something within their system is already there when they are born.  Right?

If anyone thinks this is a good idea, then you should also be for grinding up and powdering any number of other allergens to do this with.

I mean, if you just feed your baby enough grass, then over time, you won't have to worry when they play on the lawn.  Or, get a cat, you've got cat hair powder to add to their baby cereal.

Honestly, I have no doubt that my kids were born with their allergies.  The whole idea that somehow I didn't feed them the right thing early enough and that is why they are "cursed" with food allergies is nonsense.

And, you know what?  It isn't like somehow everyone is uniformly doing the exact things with all of their kids.  There are breastfeeders, formula feeders, milk ..... all sorts of varieties of things being fed to babies..... even in this country.  Not everyone gets that little bag at the hospital and follows the directions in every pamphlet, worrying that they'll break their baby when they get home.

Not everyone's kids have food allergies.  Not everyone's kids are going to get food allergies.  They aren't a given.  And, until anyone bothers to figure out why they are happening, it perplexes me as to why anyone would listen to people trying to make money off of the fear of maybe possibly "developing" food allergies. 

[spacecanada]

And yet, adults develop allergies out of the blue... After eating their now-allergens for years and years.

We need to know more about cause.  Early introduction is great, for those that can benefit in the high risk group, but we need to know more about that high risk group and what makes them high risk before we dose the world.  And yes, some infants are just born with allergies, I don't think anyone here would question that.

Also, has it ever been researched if early introduction to a high risk infant could lead to allergies that appear later in life?  Like someone doing OIT or the equivalent and then stopping and becoming allergic again, or an adult just having an allergy being switched on?  I am curious if a correlation exists.

[gvmom]

And yet, adults develop allergies out of the blue... After eating their now-allergens for years and years.

So, effectively, after years and years of exposure therapy by default, allergies still end up developing. 

We need to know more about cause.

I agree with you.  Nobody seems to care about this part. 

Early introduction is great, for those that can benefit in the high risk group, but we need to know more about that high risk group and what makes them high risk before we dose the world.  And yes, some infants are just born with allergies, I don't think anyone here would question that.

High risk groups are eliminated though.  That is the problem with all of these studies.  The deck is stacked when you eliminate an entire group that is what I figure is the group that would be the one to actually lend any validity to a hypothesis in a study. 

And, all of my infants were born with their allergies.  It would be interesting to know if people on this board believed their children were born with their allergies or got them because they weren't fed their allergens early enough.  I would guess that the statistic for children with life threatening food allergies supports being born with them.

Also, has it ever been researched if early introduction to a high risk infant could lead to allergies that appear later in life?  Like someone doing OIT or the equivalent and then stopping and becoming allergic again, or an adult just having an allergy being switched on?  I am curious if a correlation exists.

This would be interesting.  The problem is that not too many studies are being done, or have been done that have been around long enough to see if any of the kids in studies like the LEAP one are allergic as adults.  Not that I would believe accuracy with that given how they went about the study and the groups. 

My guess is too, that any adults developing allergies as adults would just be written off like it was because they didn't have early introduction. 

How much interest is there really in kids that rebound too?  They get swept under the carpet or mentioned super quickly and ushered off stage..... because..... nobody knows.  That isn't what is being studied.  It causes too much difficulty.