WEDNESDAY, Oct. 23, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Babies who breathe in polluted air tend to have higher rates of peanut allergy as they grow up, but the same wasn't true for immune-based conditions like egg allergy or eczema, Australian researchers report. Why the connection to peanut allergy in particular? That's not yet clear, said study lead author Dr.
Diego Lopez , of the University of Melbourne. “Air pollutants have an irritant and inflammatory effect that may boost the immune systems pro-allergic response, potentially triggering the development of food allergies,” said Lopez, a researcher at the university's School of Population and Global Health. “However, the underlying mechanisms of how air pollution increases the risk of a peanut allergy, and why eczema and egg allergy aren’t impacted in the same way, need to be explored further," he said in a news release from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute (MCRI).
The new research involved nearly 5,300 children living in Melbourne who'd been enrolled at the age of 1 and then followed up at ages 4, 6 and 10. Lopez' team was able to track local data on air pollution for whatever neighborhood the child lived in. They looked specifically at two types of pollution: fine particulate matter (PM2.
5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). As rates of air pollution rose, so did a child's odds of developing a peanut allergy, the team found. Food allergies were diagnosed using a food challenge, the "gold standard" for diagnosis.
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