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Peanut allergies have plummeted in children

(www.nytimes.com)
178 points JumpCrisscross | 2 comments | 20 Oct 25 18:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.67s | source
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evereverever ◴[20 Oct 25 18:36 UTC] No.45647475[source]▶
The kids I see that have peanut allergies lived in bubbles. It seems like it is self-inflicted but I have no scientific evidence.
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munchbunny ◴[20 Oct 25 20:01 UTC] No.45648561[source]▶
My oldest is allergic and spent plenty of time in the sand and dirt. They were exposed to nuts pretty regularly, and fed small amounts from basically as soon as they were taking solid foods.

The hygiene hypothesis is widely accepted, including by allergists, and there's definitely data supporting it, but we don't understand the mechanism, so it's hard to say that it's about any one specific thing vs. many contributing causes that correlate with hygiene and other aspects of the environment around the kid.

The advice about early exposure clearly works though, and there's data to support that early exposure even after confirming the allergy can increase the chances of outgrowing the allergy.

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1. freedomben ◴[20 Oct 25 23:15 UTC] No.45650610[source]▶
Always a good reminder that absolutism is dangerous. The medical field especially seems subject to this. It took me an insane number of years and multiple doctors and nearly being disabled from it to discover my thyroid condition in large part because "statistically it's mostly women who have thyroid issues" and the monstrously large range of "normal levels of TSH"
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2. tialaramex ◴[21 Oct 25 15:57 UTC] No.45657368[source]▶
Huh. I'm male, my Thyroid is shot, and they weren't even surprised. They ran tests, they saw TSH is high and there's barely enough Thyroxine produced, and they went OK, you need Thyroxine, here's infinite auto-renewals, take as directed, and please get re-tested once a year to see if the dose needs changing.