Me as an ardent reader of DWail - well, I was baffled twice today. First, the national service thing, and then a case when a family had to get off the plane 'because their daughter had a very severe nut allergy' and the ' the angry little captain shouted at us from the cockpit', even though other passengers were kind and willing to pass the word (and not open any pack of peanuts, I assume).
Now, that's confusing. As the allergy was so severe with "a volatile allergen and even if Rosie didn't come into direct contact with a peanut, if somebody was eating one on board she could die" - well, how can anyone guarantee that? Unless nobody eats anthing?
Is it the usual DW hype, or have there been serious problems with allergies for a while already? The "Natasha's Law" was mentioned in the article, but that's really extreme?
BBC weather presenter and her family are kicked off flight by 'angry little' captain after asking passengers to not eat peanuts because of her daughter's allergy
Allergens on board
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1DC
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Re: Allergens on board
Reference the peanut thing, it makes you wonder how the dear young thing makes it through daily life ?
Re: Allergens on board
Probably very carefully, carrying an Epi-pen, and with occasional rush trips to hospital if she needs to use it. Some people really are that sensitive to anaphylactic shock. Surprised that the family would even risk an aircraft - what if the previous flight had peanuts in the cabin with residues in the air system? Or one of the other passengers happened to have been eating peanuts while waiting at the gate and had contamination on clothing without realising it? As soon as you've got a closed air system like that, and you're potentially hours from medical care, the risk goes up dramatically compared to normal life on the ground.
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Fox3WheresMyBanana
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Re: Allergens on board
Quite right. The girl should probably not be in any closed air system for a long time where nuts may have been consumed.
Allergies have a huge scale of response - we had one pupil who was desperately allergic to strawberries, but this is relatively easy to control in a boarding school for such an uncommon fruit.
The girl never attended Speech Day, since parents brought their own picnic lunches, of which strawberries were likely to be a part.
Allergies have a huge scale of response - we had one pupil who was desperately allergic to strawberries, but this is relatively easy to control in a boarding school for such an uncommon fruit.
The girl never attended Speech Day, since parents brought their own picnic lunches, of which strawberries were likely to be a part.
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tango15
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Re: Allergens on board
I have been on numerous flights where the crew didn't serve peanuts because someone had an allergy, and for some reason, it's usually kids. Do they grow out of it later, or is it with them for life?
What I find odd about this whole thing is that peanuts are about as natural as any food can be (as are strawberries - unless they've been sprayed to death with insecticide), so why is the human body so adversely affected by them? Also, this seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon. I can't remember hearing of any of these allergies in my younger years, so what has happened to bring about these severe reactions?
The original dateline on the article is 26th May, so was this last Tuesday and had she taken the kids out of school during term time, or has the Daily Fail in its usual style got its twickers in a nist? Sun Express is a Turkish airline, so I can well imagine they would have little truck with allergies!
What I find odd about this whole thing is that peanuts are about as natural as any food can be (as are strawberries - unless they've been sprayed to death with insecticide), so why is the human body so adversely affected by them? Also, this seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon. I can't remember hearing of any of these allergies in my younger years, so what has happened to bring about these severe reactions?
The original dateline on the article is 26th May, so was this last Tuesday and had she taken the kids out of school during term time, or has the Daily Fail in its usual style got its twickers in a nist? Sun Express is a Turkish airline, so I can well imagine they would have little truck with allergies!
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Fox3WheresMyBanana
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Re: Allergens on board
Just discovered by UBC researchers last year - allergies appear to be due to imbalanced gut bacteria.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-08- ... rgies.html
Given the recency of the increase in allergies, especially among children, a study into what has caused the gut bacterial changes would seem to be called for.
My money would be on either pesticides, or processed food.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-08- ... rgies.html
Given the recency of the increase in allergies, especially among children, a study into what has caused the gut bacterial changes would seem to be called for.
My money would be on either pesticides, or processed food.
Re: Allergens on board
I think there are treatments that help reduce sensitivity in a lot of people, but they don't always work and do take quite a bit of time. I think it's a case of administer some of the allergen under controlled conditions so the body reacts but not too badly, then slowly increase the dose over time.
As to why, plenty of theories, a lot of which blame modern lifestyle and hygiene for not training the immune system properly and exposing it to all sorts of artificial chemicals.
I would have been happy with my child on a term-time flight because we educated him at home, freedom from all the attendance nonsense and other crap imposed on schools and teachers. We would pointedly not go places during half term or the longer school holidays - it was always much cheaper the week after they all went back to school in September, and the weather was still good. No one ever challenged us, which is probably just as well for them.
As to why, plenty of theories, a lot of which blame modern lifestyle and hygiene for not training the immune system properly and exposing it to all sorts of artificial chemicals.
I would have been happy with my child on a term-time flight because we educated him at home, freedom from all the attendance nonsense and other crap imposed on schools and teachers. We would pointedly not go places during half term or the longer school holidays - it was always much cheaper the week after they all went back to school in September, and the weather was still good. No one ever challenged us, which is probably just as well for them.
Re: Allergens on board
Introducing peanut butter during infancy can help protect against a peanut allergy later on, new study finds
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/28/health/p ... index.html
Reassuring new evidence suggests that feeding children smooth peanut butter during infancy and early childhood can help reduce their risk of developing a peanut allergy even years later.
Compared with avoiding peanuts, starting peanut consumption in infancy – as early as around 4 months of age, as a soft pureed paste, for instance – and continuing regularly to around 5 years old was associated with a 71% reduced rate of peanut allergy among adolescents in the United Kingdom, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal NEJM Evidence.
“I was not entirely surprised because infants in Israel are exposed to peanuts very early and allergy does not appear to emerge in adolescence or adults. This suggests the protection is long-term,” Gideon Lack, professor of pediatric allergy at King’s College London and an author of the study, said in an email.
“Peanut allergy develops very early in most children between six and 12 months of life. If you want to prevent a disease this needs to be done before the disease develops,” Lack said of exposing children to peanuts. “This biological phenomenon is based on an immunological principle known as oral tolerance induction. We have known for many decades that young mice or other experimental animals who are fed foods such as egg or milk or peanut cannot develop these allergies later.”
Starting in 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended delaying the introduction of peanuts until 3 years, but it ended that recommendation in 2008.
About a decade later, in 2019, the AAP updated its guidance to say that delaying the introduction of allergenic foods doesn’t prevent disease and that “there is now evidence that early introduction of peanuts may prevent peanut allergy.”
Food allergies have become a growing public health concern in the United States, and peanut allergy is estimated to affect about 2% of children in the United States, or nearly 1.5 million people younger than 18. Peanuts are among the food types that can cause the most serious allergic reactions, including the risk of the life-threatening reaction anaphylaxis.
“Today’s findings should reinforce parents’ and caregivers’ confidence that feeding their young children peanut products beginning in infancy according to established guidelines can provide lasting protection from peanut allergy,” Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a news release Tuesday. “If widely implemented, this safe, simple strategy could prevent tens of thousands of cases of peanut allergy among the 3.6 million children born in the United States each year.”
The new study, called the LEAP-Trio trial, included data on children in the United Kingdom who participated as babies in a peanut allergy study called the LEAP trial.
That previous study included infants with eczema and egg allergy who were followed through age 5, and it found that at that age, the prevalence of peanut allergy was about 17% in the group of children who avoided peanuts, compared with about 3% in the group that ate peanut products, representing an 81% relative reduction in peanut allergy.
The LEAP-Trio trial set out to examine whether that reduced risk of peanut allergy would last into adolescence.
About 500 children were assessed again for the LEAP-Trio trial, which looked at the rate of peanut allergy at around age 12.
At that age, peanut allergy remained “significantly more prevalent” among the children who originally avoided peanuts, with about 15% having a peanut allergy. Among those who originally consumed peanuts, about 4% had a peanut allergy, the researchers found. They wrote that represents “a 71% reduction in the prevalence of peanut allergy at the LEAP-Trio time point.”
But overall, when children started to consume peanuts in infancy and continued to around age 5, this appeared to provide “lasting tolerance” to peanuts into adolescence, according to the researchers, based in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The new findings are “a great reassurance” that not only did early introduction of peanuts reduce peanut allergies from developing, but the protection lasted until adolescence even when children stopped eating peanuts consistently after age 5, Dr. Purvi Parikh, an allergist and immunologist at NYU Langone in New York and a spokesperson for the Allergy & Asthma Network, who was not involved in the new research, said in an email Tuesday.
“So ideally if there’s no other risk factors we should continue to introduce these allergens early at 4-6 months and continue them consistently until age 5 but after that we don’t need to be as consistent,” Parikh said.
She added that introducing peanuts for children at low risk for allergies can be done around 4 to 6 months old under the guidance of a pediatrician, but children with severe eczema and egg allergy should see an allergist before early introduction.
“Since babies cannot have solids yet it is recommended for it to be a thin consistency similar to breast milk or formula and can be mixed into it to avoid any choking and can start with a small amount and slowly increase as tolerated every 3-4 days,” Parikh said.
When introducing peanuts into an infant’s diet, it’s recommended to use smooth peanut butter mixed into a puree and avoid chunks of peanuts that could pose choking hazards.
“It can generally be said ‘the sooner the better’ for parents, especially in babies with eczema,” Lack said, adding that babies with eczema are at much higher risk of developing food allergies and develop these allergies much earlier in the first year of life.
“However, the child needs to be developmentally and neurologically ready to eat solid foods and be able to coordinate chewing and swallowing without a risk of choking. Most babies will be able to start weaning between four and six months of age but each baby is an individual and needs to be assessed individually,” he said. “Also, the foods should be given as a soft puree to facilitate swallowing and reduce the risk of choking. We do not recommend introducing solids before three months of age.”
The finding that early peanut introduction induces tolerance has been supported by previous studies too, but introducing your child to peanuts should be a shared decision with your pediatrician, according to Dr. Daniel DiGiacomo, a pediatric immunologist at K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, New Jersey, who was not involved in the new study.
“The current expert opinion is to utilize a shared-decision making approach for food introduction once the infant is developmentally ready, and has tolerated a couple of other complementary foods without issue,” DiGiacomo said in an email Tuesday.
“I usually start off slowly introducing a pea sized amount, doubling the amount every day until you get to an age appropriate serving size (or at least 2 teaspoons). Then continue this in the diet several times per week,” he said. “I typically have the family mix the nut butter in a tolerated puree to the correct consistency, they can also dissolve peanut puffs (if doing peanut) in water, or make a peanut sauce out of powdered peanut butter or peanut flour. Again, we review the proper consistency and start slow with instructions to stop and contact your allergist if there are any concerns.”
PP
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/28/health/p ... index.html
Reassuring new evidence suggests that feeding children smooth peanut butter during infancy and early childhood can help reduce their risk of developing a peanut allergy even years later.
Compared with avoiding peanuts, starting peanut consumption in infancy – as early as around 4 months of age, as a soft pureed paste, for instance – and continuing regularly to around 5 years old was associated with a 71% reduced rate of peanut allergy among adolescents in the United Kingdom, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal NEJM Evidence.
“I was not entirely surprised because infants in Israel are exposed to peanuts very early and allergy does not appear to emerge in adolescence or adults. This suggests the protection is long-term,” Gideon Lack, professor of pediatric allergy at King’s College London and an author of the study, said in an email.
“Peanut allergy develops very early in most children between six and 12 months of life. If you want to prevent a disease this needs to be done before the disease develops,” Lack said of exposing children to peanuts. “This biological phenomenon is based on an immunological principle known as oral tolerance induction. We have known for many decades that young mice or other experimental animals who are fed foods such as egg or milk or peanut cannot develop these allergies later.”
Starting in 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended delaying the introduction of peanuts until 3 years, but it ended that recommendation in 2008.
About a decade later, in 2019, the AAP updated its guidance to say that delaying the introduction of allergenic foods doesn’t prevent disease and that “there is now evidence that early introduction of peanuts may prevent peanut allergy.”
Food allergies have become a growing public health concern in the United States, and peanut allergy is estimated to affect about 2% of children in the United States, or nearly 1.5 million people younger than 18. Peanuts are among the food types that can cause the most serious allergic reactions, including the risk of the life-threatening reaction anaphylaxis.
“Today’s findings should reinforce parents’ and caregivers’ confidence that feeding their young children peanut products beginning in infancy according to established guidelines can provide lasting protection from peanut allergy,” Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a news release Tuesday. “If widely implemented, this safe, simple strategy could prevent tens of thousands of cases of peanut allergy among the 3.6 million children born in the United States each year.”
The new study, called the LEAP-Trio trial, included data on children in the United Kingdom who participated as babies in a peanut allergy study called the LEAP trial.
That previous study included infants with eczema and egg allergy who were followed through age 5, and it found that at that age, the prevalence of peanut allergy was about 17% in the group of children who avoided peanuts, compared with about 3% in the group that ate peanut products, representing an 81% relative reduction in peanut allergy.
The LEAP-Trio trial set out to examine whether that reduced risk of peanut allergy would last into adolescence.
About 500 children were assessed again for the LEAP-Trio trial, which looked at the rate of peanut allergy at around age 12.
At that age, peanut allergy remained “significantly more prevalent” among the children who originally avoided peanuts, with about 15% having a peanut allergy. Among those who originally consumed peanuts, about 4% had a peanut allergy, the researchers found. They wrote that represents “a 71% reduction in the prevalence of peanut allergy at the LEAP-Trio time point.”
But overall, when children started to consume peanuts in infancy and continued to around age 5, this appeared to provide “lasting tolerance” to peanuts into adolescence, according to the researchers, based in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The new findings are “a great reassurance” that not only did early introduction of peanuts reduce peanut allergies from developing, but the protection lasted until adolescence even when children stopped eating peanuts consistently after age 5, Dr. Purvi Parikh, an allergist and immunologist at NYU Langone in New York and a spokesperson for the Allergy & Asthma Network, who was not involved in the new research, said in an email Tuesday.
“So ideally if there’s no other risk factors we should continue to introduce these allergens early at 4-6 months and continue them consistently until age 5 but after that we don’t need to be as consistent,” Parikh said.
She added that introducing peanuts for children at low risk for allergies can be done around 4 to 6 months old under the guidance of a pediatrician, but children with severe eczema and egg allergy should see an allergist before early introduction.
“Since babies cannot have solids yet it is recommended for it to be a thin consistency similar to breast milk or formula and can be mixed into it to avoid any choking and can start with a small amount and slowly increase as tolerated every 3-4 days,” Parikh said.
When introducing peanuts into an infant’s diet, it’s recommended to use smooth peanut butter mixed into a puree and avoid chunks of peanuts that could pose choking hazards.
“It can generally be said ‘the sooner the better’ for parents, especially in babies with eczema,” Lack said, adding that babies with eczema are at much higher risk of developing food allergies and develop these allergies much earlier in the first year of life.
“However, the child needs to be developmentally and neurologically ready to eat solid foods and be able to coordinate chewing and swallowing without a risk of choking. Most babies will be able to start weaning between four and six months of age but each baby is an individual and needs to be assessed individually,” he said. “Also, the foods should be given as a soft puree to facilitate swallowing and reduce the risk of choking. We do not recommend introducing solids before three months of age.”
The finding that early peanut introduction induces tolerance has been supported by previous studies too, but introducing your child to peanuts should be a shared decision with your pediatrician, according to Dr. Daniel DiGiacomo, a pediatric immunologist at K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, New Jersey, who was not involved in the new study.
“The current expert opinion is to utilize a shared-decision making approach for food introduction once the infant is developmentally ready, and has tolerated a couple of other complementary foods without issue,” DiGiacomo said in an email Tuesday.
“I usually start off slowly introducing a pea sized amount, doubling the amount every day until you get to an age appropriate serving size (or at least 2 teaspoons). Then continue this in the diet several times per week,” he said. “I typically have the family mix the nut butter in a tolerated puree to the correct consistency, they can also dissolve peanut puffs (if doing peanut) in water, or make a peanut sauce out of powdered peanut butter or peanut flour. Again, we review the proper consistency and start slow with instructions to stop and contact your allergist if there are any concerns.”
PP
Re: Allergens on board
Of course, that's the total opposite to what we were told 20 years ago. Back then it was recommended to avoid consumption of peanut products for the first five years, so he never got any. Fortunately there are no peanut allergies as a result of following that advice.
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Fox3WheresMyBanana
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Re: Allergens on board
I recall a large exhibition at the Science Museum in London, put on by the Medical Council, that we took the kids to.
It pointed out right at the entrance that being treated by a doctor only increased life expectancy, on average, after 1920.
Before that, on average, it decreased it!
Some stuff they know an awful lot about. A lot of stuff they know a lot about. Some stuff they think they know quite a lot about, but they are wrong.
I also recall a great cartoon, where the standard doctors' waiting room board that showed a sliding section for
'Dr Smith is IN/OUT', etc, had been replaced with one which read
'Coffee is Good/Bad for you', 'Red Wine is Good/Bad for you', etc,
depending on what the advice was this week.
It pointed out right at the entrance that being treated by a doctor only increased life expectancy, on average, after 1920.
Before that, on average, it decreased it!
Some stuff they know an awful lot about. A lot of stuff they know a lot about. Some stuff they think they know quite a lot about, but they are wrong.
I also recall a great cartoon, where the standard doctors' waiting room board that showed a sliding section for
'Dr Smith is IN/OUT', etc, had been replaced with one which read
'Coffee is Good/Bad for you', 'Red Wine is Good/Bad for you', etc,
depending on what the advice was this week.
Re: Allergens on board
- when I was a kid, we were told that you have to use a tourniquet when bitten by a viper, and go to the emergency as soon as possible.Now the strategy seems to be NOT to use anything blocking the blood stream, and I've forgotten why.
As for allergies, I quite agree - why fly if it's that serious? And how on Earth can the crew guarantee no-one is secretly indulging a bite, or is unaware of peanuts in some other product?
I've got the impression some allergies are inherited - my daughter had it for several types of food, especially anything sweet, incl bisquits and juice, but grew out of it. With her there seemed to be a certain amount reached in the 'system' that triggered the scratching and itching. But she grew up on unprocessed foods for about the first 4 yrs. Generally the additives and God-knows-what in food makes it really bad for some. I know of a case when a girl took a slice of ham with a fork that had been in the cheese platter (but was accidentally put on ham) and an ambulance was needed.
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1DC
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Re: Allergens on board
Whatever it seems the "angry" Captain made the correct decision. As they so often do..
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Rossian
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Re: Allergens on board
In Thailand they feed v. small children boiled peanut mush in small quantities and in about the same timescale very small amounts of chilli are added to rice.
Direct from the mouth of a Thai mother so I'll believe her. Makes sense innit?
The Ancient Mariner
Direct from the mouth of a Thai mother so I'll believe her. Makes sense innit?
The Ancient Mariner