EarlyNuts Study

Project status: Complete

Research area: Population Health > Population Allergy

The EarlyNuts Study measured changes to infant feeding practices following new recommendations for food allergy preventions and whether this has helped reduce the prevalence of food allergy.

Overview

Australia has the highest reported rates of childhood food allergy in the world with one in 10 infants diagnosed before age one.

Infant feeding guidelines were changed in 2016 to the recommended food allergy prevention strategy which introduces allergenic foods such as smooth peanut butter, cooked egg, dairy and wheat products in the first year of life.

The EarlyNuts Study involved 1933 infants who were 12 months old when recruited between 2017-2019. The study aimed to determine whether the 2016 infant feeding guidelines helped reduce the rate of food allergy.

The Population Allergy group researchers found that 88 per cent of infants were eating peanut before age one in 2017-2019, compared to only 28 per cent 10 years prior.

Although this was an excellent response to the new guidelines, EarlyNuts found only a small reduction in infants with peanut allergy – from 3.1 per cent to 2.6 per cent.

Further results published in 2023 also showed 1.4 per cent of 12-month-olds have a cashew allergy and 1.3 per cent a cow’s milk allergy.

This meant that more work was needed to help prevent peanut and other common food allergies and the next phase of the EarlyNuts Study is designed to do just that.

EarlyNuts Study six-year-old follow-up

We conducted a follow-up study to help understand how many children still have food allergy and whether changes to the infant’s diet have helped prevent food allergy up to school age. This phase of the study also assessed whether changes to infant feeding practices have affected other health outcomes, such as asthma and child growth.

We have now finished collecting data for our six-year-old follow-up, where parents were asked to complete a questionnaire about their child’s diet, allergy and respiratory history, their growth and development. Some children were also invited to have a free allergy assessment.

Our next step will be to analyse the data to address our study aims.