A pragmatic approach to infant feeding for food allergy prevention

Abstract

Early introduction of allergenic foods into an infant's diet is currently the most promising strategy to prevent food allergy, with infant guidelines around the world shifting from promoting avoidance to actively encourage the introduction of allergenic foods in the infant diet. Infant feeding guidelines vary according to regional public health priorities, and knowledge gaps remain, resulting in ongoing challenges for clinicians and families to translate guidelines into practical strategies for the introduction of complementary foods for food allergy prevention. Evidence from Australia demonstrates high community support and uptake of revised guidelines with most parents introducing allergenic foods in the first year of life, although this has not had the expected impact on substantially reducing food allergy prevalence. To uptake of guidelines from other countries is less clear, and several barriers have been noted in infant feeding RCTs, which may warrant intervention strategies. Further research is needed to understand additional strategies for food allergy prevention, particularly in infants who develop food allergy prior to when they are developmentally ready to commence solids. Several RCTs are underway investigating preventative strategies that target the window before allergen ingestion, such as vitamin D supplementation, emollient use, and immunizations that prime the immune response away from a Th2-driven allergic phenotype. Further research is also needed to understand the role of the environment and the host environment in the development of tolerance to foods.