Food and Drug Reactions and AnaphylaxisRising prevalence of allergy to peanut in children: Data from 2 sequential cohorts☆,☆☆
Section snippets
Methods
Parents of all children (n = 2878) born between September 1, 1994, and August 31, 1996, and registered with a general practitioner on the Isle of Wight were approached just after the child's third birthday as part of a study that examined the effect of artificial food additives on behavior and allergy. Approval for the study was obtained from the local research ethics committee. Parents of 1273 (44%) children (mean age, 3.2 years [SD 7.6]) agreed to participate and completed a questionnaire
Results
In the current study SPTs were performed on 1246 children (98% of those who consented, n = 1273) and 43% of the whole-population cohort (n = 2878). Forty-one (3.3%) children had a positive SPT response to peanut (Fig 1).
Children sensitized to peanut were highly atopic; half of them had a history of asthma, and nearly all of them had had eczema (Table I).
Discussion
Studies from the United States4 and the United Kingdom6 have estimated the prevalence of peanut allergy to be around 0.5% to 1% of the population. However, these studies were questionnaire surveys and are likely to overestimate the prevalence because self-reported food allergies are generally higher than can be proved with oral challenge.7 Moreover, there is a risk of bias because those with peanut allergy are more likely to agree to participate in any questionnaire surveys. Our previous
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the enthusiasm shown by the children and their parents who have participated in this study. We thank Linda Terry and Brenda Fishwick for administrative help and Carole Gant and Carina Venter for the dietetic support.
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Supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and The David Hide Asthma and Allergy Research Centre Trust.
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Reprint requests: Syed Hasan Arshad, FRCP, Consultant Physician and Director, The David Hide Asthma and Allergy Research Centre, St Mary's Hospital, Newport, Isle of Wight PO30 5TG, United Kingdom.