Breastfeeding may cause nut allergy?

[SilverLining]

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3544944.htm

Researchers have surprised the medical community with a finding that breastfeeding can encourage, rather than protect against, nut allergies.

Anyone know if anything else was compared in this research? 

-parental diet
-family history
-any other allergies developed?

[twinturbo]

If it's the recent Australian study I'm familiar with it's a lone-standing correlation based study meaning the findings have not been repeated elsewhere by others AND correlation is weak sauce without causation in these cases. Somewhere out there is Sicherer contextualizing it as such -- again, if this is the study I'm thinking of.

[SilverLining]

Yes, it's from Australia.

Discussion about peanutbutter being banned at a school came up on a non-foodallergy forum.  As often happens here, discussion sort of travelled around in various related topics.  Someone mentioned that breastfeeding causes nut allergies and I and another person called her on it.  She felt a bit ganged up on (not our intention) and she found and posted the above link.

I thanked her for the link, but also said it raised a lot of questions in my mind....questions for another forum.  I don't expect her to defend this article, but I feel it's very suspect.

I'll see if I can find the Scheerer response you referred to.

[twinturbo]

Look no further.

To explore the possible connection, the researchers analyzed more than 15,000 questionnaires answered by parents of kids entering kindergarten across Australia. The parents replied to questions about whether their kids were allergic to peanuts or other nuts. Respondents also indicated what they fed them in their first six months.

Overall, the researchers found the likelihood for developing a nut allergy was one and a half times higher in breast-fed children than in those not breastfed. According to the researchers, this replicated their previous findings, which also drew a link between breastfeeding and subsequent nut allergies.

But outside experts say that the connection is far from clear. "I am not aware of studies saying that breastfeeding per se causes a nut allergy," said Dr. Scott Sicherer, a professor of pediatrics at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

"In my opinion, none of the studies that the authors quote as implicating breastfeeding as 'a cause of the increased trend in nut allergy' actually do so," he continued, noting there are many possible variables, including genetic predispositions.

Other food allergy experts were even more critical.

"The conclusions drawn do not match the results of the study, therefore the implications that [the lead researcher] has been discussing are ridiculous and inappropriate," Dr. Katie Allen, a pediatric gastroenterologist and food allergy researcher at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Australia told the Australian site ABC Science.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2007 about 3 million children, age 18 or younger, had food or digestive allergies; these occur when the immune system mistakenly targets something as harmful, causing an abnormal response to a food. Among children with food allergies, peanut allergies have been the most common, followed by allergic reactions to milk and shellfish. The exact cause of the allergies is unknown.

One problem with the current study, according to Sicherer, is that it does not necessarily address the question of "reverse causation."

"Mothers of infants [might] have been told that breastfeeding [protects against allergies] because early studies showed that compared to having formula, infants [who were] breastfed had [fewer] allergic skin rashes and milk allergies," he said. Sicherer said that mothers may have been inclined to exclusively breastfeed their children for longer periods after seeing rashes in an attempt to protect them, thereby making it appear to researchers as though longer stretches of breastfeeding were tied to increased allergy risk. But really, it may have been the allergic signs that prompted certain moms to breastfeed longer, he said.

Far better established are some of the health benefits of breastfeeding; the practice has been shown to provide babies with key nutrients as well as antibodies to help fight disease.

I think both the study and people using it suffer from confirmation bias. It's when you are seeking to prove what you already believe to be true and will continue to believe it no matter how much data to the contrary you later are presented with.

[SilverLining]

posting for myself and anyone else interested.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/17/breastfeeding-nut-allergies_n_1680473.html

[SilverLining]

Didn't see your post until after I posted twinturbo.  I think the quote is from the same article.

As the other forum is closed for the weekend, I'll decide how to respond.  I don't want to seem like I'm arguing with the other member of the board, but I don't want people to decide to bottle feed over shoddy research.

[CMdeux]

I think both the study and people using it suffer from confirmation bias. It's when you are seeking to prove what you already believe to be true and will continue to believe it no matter how much data to the contrary you later are presented with.

Yup.