Study finds eating Israeli Bamba drastically cuts peanut allergy risk in young kids

 

ating Bamba, Israel’s quintessential peanut-butter-flavored snack, is proven to reduce peanut allergies in children by 75 percent, according to a recent study in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, bearing out what many Israelis already know.

The longitudinal study began in 2008 when a group of British and Israeli researchers were intrigued by how peanut allergy in Israeli children was significantly less common compared to Jewish children in the UK with similar genetic backgrounds.

They hypothesized that the low level of peanut allergy in Israeli children resulted from their high level of peanut-flavored snacks from an early age. They set out to test it, eventually proving right their hypothesis.

The research created a buzz in the Hebrew media after Dr. Elee Shimshoni and Dr. Sagie Brodsky, two scientists who volunteer at Little, Big Science, wrote about the landmark study. According to its website, this organization is made up of volunteer scientists who explain science in simple Hebrew to the general public.

In their article, the authors explained the researchers’ Bamba study in easy-to-understand language with a bit of humor.

“Slackers, give yourselves a pat on the back for giving your children Bamba” instead of a “fresh and nutritious zucchini quiche,” Shimshoni and Brodsky begin. “You may have prevented your children from developing a peanut allergy.”

In their article, The New England Journal of Medicine researchers said that peanuts are a common culinary ingredient, and “hard to avoid.”

Treatments to protect children against reactions from peanut exposure “would improve the children’s socialization and the quality of life of the children and their families,” the researchers wrote.

Peanut allergy is a common cause of pediatric anaphylaxis, a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction that can cause a range of symptoms, including difficulty breathing, swelling, hives, and a sudden drop in blood pressure that requires immediate medical attention.

Although treatment strategies are emerging,  therapies for children under 4 years of age do not exist.

Unlike many other food allergies that develop in childhood, peanut allergy can persist into adulthood.

Science that melts in your mouth

Shimshoni, who was reached by telephone in Massachusetts, where she is enrolled in a postdoctoral program at MIT, explained how the study was researched.

Approximately 640 infants, aged 4 to 11 months, who showed a tendency to develop various allergies such as eczema and egg allergy were selected for the study. Half of those infants were already sensitive to peanuts; half were not.

Each group was then divided into two – infants who regularly ate Bamba until the age of five and those who did not.

It is not recommended to give nuts and peanuts to toddlers under the age of five due to the risk of choking. But in Israel, Shimshoni said, four-month-old infants who start trying solid food are given Bamba because “it sort of melts your mouth.”

When the infants turned five years old, the researchers found that only 10% of those who ate Bamba developed a peanut allergy; 35% of the children who avoided peanuts developed the allergy.

In the follow-up study, researchers again checked the children, who had turned 12.

They found similar results. In the group that avoided peanuts, 15.4% of participants had developed a peanut allergy. In the group that consumed peanuts, only 4.4% had the allergy. That means that the prevalence of peanut allergy among the children who avoided Bamba was about three times higher than those who ate the snack.

Shimshoni said that the researchers “assume that the resistance achieved by the children will remain for their entire lives,” but a follow-up study is needed.

More research is needed to create the ‘Bamba effect’

“There is nothing like Bamba,” one person said in a comment in an article about Shimshoni and Brodsky’s post that appeared on the Ynet news site, echoing a popular commercial to promote the product. Another wrote, “It was terrible to recommend giving processed food to children.”

Shimshoni said that she and Brodsky are not nutritionists; they were simply explaining the study.

Still, others wondered if Osem, Bamba’s manufacturer, paid for the study.

Shimshoni said that the research was funded partly by the American National Institutes of Health and the researchers “bought Bamba at a discount.”

She explained that any sort of peanuts would work, but diluting peanut butter in water is not scientifically accurate because there’s no way to determine the amount of peanuts. Some of the children in the research study were given peanut protein instead.

Although there have been other studies about children’s allergies to certain foods like peanuts, this is the only research done with Bamba.

Yet no study explains why some children get peanut and other food allergies and others do not. In an informal poll, a reporter asked parents in Shavei Zion, Western Galilee, about the Bamba effect.

Orian Kosokarov said she gave Bamba to her daughters, Hili and Anne, from when they were small to “expose them to peanuts.” Both girls are peanut allergy-free.

Yet her friend, Liraz Baleli, said that she gave her son, 5-year-old Maor, Bamba from when he was an infant, like three of her other children.

Maor is the only one who is allergic to peanuts, she said.

The post Study finds eating Israeli Bamba drastically cuts peanut allergy risk in young kids appeared first on The Times of Israel.