Eating peanuts at home may put infants at risk
London, Jan 1 (UNI) A word of caution for parents-- Eating lots of peanuts at home by family members may put infants at risk of developing a life-threatening allergy to the snack.
A British government-funded research showed that just a bag-and-a-half of peanuts a week could be enough to consign a child to a life-long peanut allergy.
Interestingly, the Food Standards Agency-funded research showed that the link applied not to nuts eaten by children themselves, but to those eaten by family members.
The study, carried out at Imperial College London, suggests that the greater a child's exposure to peanuts in the early months of life, the higher are its chances of developing an allergy, with even peanut butter causing harm.
Analysis showed that families with children with peanut allergies ate significantly higher amounts of peanuts than those that were allergy-free, the Daily Mail reported.
It is thought that oil and dust from nuts eaten by relatives enters a child's body through the skin or nose, disrupting its immune system and leading to an allergic reaction the first time the youngster eats peanuts itself.
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