None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Regular consumption of traditionally allergenic foods, like egg and peanut, in solid foods can reduce food allergies, however this is too late for some infants. We have discovered that infant immune responses to egg can be beneficially enhanced during the first six weeks of breastfeeding when mothers eat more eggs. We now propose to investigate the effects of breastfeeding mothers eating higher dietary intakes of both egg and peanut for an extended period of the first six months of life. The key translatable message from this project will be to answer the question of whether higher maternal dietary intakes of eggs and peanuts during breastfeeding are needed to reduce the risk of food allergy development.
Interventions
The maternal diet rich in eggs and peanuts intervention group: Regular maternal consumption of 6 eggs and 60 peanuts (= 2 handfuls) per week from birth until 6 months infant age.
Participating women will be able to include all forms of egg and peanut, and egg and peanut containing foods, towards their weekly target of egg and peanut ingestion. They will be provided with a conversion table showing the amount present in common egg or peanut foods, for example peanut butter, or egg in quiche, or in
The maternal diet rich in eggs and peanuts intervention group: Regular maternal consumption of 6 eggs and 60 peanuts (= 2 handfuls) per week from birth until 6 months infant age. Participating women will be able to include all forms of egg and peanut, and egg and peanut containing foods, towards their weekly target of egg and peanut ingestion. They will be provided with a conversion table showing the amount present in common egg or peanut foods, for example peanut butter, or egg in quiche, or in baked goods. Both groups of women will be provided with a supply of both peanuts and peanut butter to reduce costs of participation in this trial and to assist with intervention compliance. Due to the reduced shelf-life of eggs these will need to be purchased by the participants themselves. Compliance: Participants will be in contact with the research team each month during the intervention period, either via a telephone call (at 1, 2 and 5 months of infant age) or in person at an appointment (at 3-4 and 6 months of infant age). During these contact time points the participants will be asked to recall their dietary intake of egg and peanut containing foods over the preceding week and this information will be used to assess intervention compliance. Comprehensive breastfeeding data will also be collected during these contact time points. The intervention group dietary advice will be given by the recruitment research assistant who will also collect dietary compliance data, but not collect any outcome assessment data. Our experience has found that monthly participant contact throughout the intervention period maximises compliance and follow-up.
Sponsors
University of Western Australia
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Prevention
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Eligible participants will be women who are planning to breastfeed for at least 6 months. Infants to have at least two family members (mother, father or siblings) with medically diagnosed allergic disease (asthma, eczema, hay-fever or IgE mediated food allergy).
Exclusion criteria
Women with egg or peanut allergies (<1% of adult population) will be excluded, as they would be unable to safely follow the intervention without an allergic reaction.
Outcome results
None listed