Should you feed your young child peanut to prevent allergy? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Early introduction of peanut into a child’s diet may help them avoid development of peanut allergy, a recent study concludes. Robert Wood, a childhood allergy expert at Johns Hopkins, says it’s just not that simple when it comes to understanding why food allergies and other allergic responses develop.

Wood: There are 10 things, probably another 15 we don't even understand that we think have influenced rates of allergy, including not just food allergy but asthma and eczema. Dietary factors, are there things that have changed the way we feed babies, the way foods are processed. We think there have been nutritional changes above and beyond just dietary changes,  that there may be some specific nutrients that may have beneficial or even deleterious effects on development of food allergy. The common theme relates to the hygiene hypothesis.                      :32

The hygiene hypothesis proposes that early childhood exposures may be helpful in creating a healthy immune system, Wood says. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.