Eating this Israeli Snack Food Reduces the Risk of Peanut Allergies

What does Bamba, a popular Israeli peanut snack, have to do with allergies? Evidently quite a bit. An attempt to discover why peanut allergies are significantly less common in Israeli kids, researchers hypothesized that this was a result of eating Bamba, reported The Times of Israel.

A follow-up to a 15-year study that began in 2008 and was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that eating Bamba reduced peanut allergies by 75 percent. But this was not news to Israeli parents who give their children Bamba at a very young age.

Peanut allergies are very serious because it is very hard to avoid this common ingredient in so many foods. In fact, peanut allergies make up 25 percent of childhood allergies. The symptoms can be very severe, according to the Mayo Clinic, including a life-threatening reaction  known as anaphylaxis.

About the study
In 2008, a joint British-Israeli study discovered that peanut allergies are less common in Israeli children than British ones. This led to an international team of researchers investigating if early exposure to peanuts could prevent this dangerous allergy, reported Ynet.

Around 640 infants aged four to 11 months who showed tendencies to develop allergies – so they were at a higher risk to develop peanut allergies – were chosen for the study. The researchers then identified the ones that were sensitive to peanut allergies by using a skin test.

The infants were divided into two groups, one group was sensitive to peanuts and the other group was not. Half of the children in both of the groups regularly consumed Bamba until they were five-year-olds. At that time. the children were tested for peanut allergies using a challenge test.

The results showed that  allergies were significantly lower in the children exposed to Bamba. This was also the case for the children who showed signs of a peanut allergy before the study. The study also found that children who had peanut exposure early showed a lasting resistance to peanuts.

Following up
The children were checked again when they were 12, according to The Times of Israel. The results were very similar. The children who consumed Bamba only had a 4.4 percent rate of peanut allergies while the children who didn’t developed peanut allergies at three times the rate. This is the data that was recently published.

The researchers believe that this immunity will last a lifetime but to test this, they plan to check back with the children later.

Professor Arnon Elitzur, Chairman of the Israel Association of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, told The Times of Israel that this research is essential in the approach to early exposure to allergic foods. “Similar efficacy was later found for eggs, and we assume it applies to other allergenic foods. The latest study in the series, recently published, tracked subjects until age 12 and demonstrated that regular peanut consumption until age five significantly reduces peanut allergy risk even 12 years later, despite irregular post-age five consumption with long exposure gaps.”

While the Bamba effect may be unique to Israel because of the popularity of the snack, this information could be adapted in other places. Who knew that Bamba could do so much good.