By Will Boggs
New York - Introducing cereals into the diet of babies before the age of six months does not increase the likelihood that they'll become allergic to wheat, a new report shows.
In fact, a delay seems to raise the risk.
"Delaying introduction of foods may not be protective against allergic disease development, and perhaps may be the wrong message," Dr Jill Poole from the University of Colorado and Health Sciences Center, Denver, said.
Poole and her colleagues studied more than 1 600 children followed since birth. Only 16 children (one percent) had confirmed wheat allergy at an average age of 13 months, the team reports in the medical journal Pediatrics.
Among the children who were first exposed to cereal grains before six months of age, four (0,41 percent) developed wheat allergy; the rate of wheat allergy was 1,8 percent among 654 children not exposed to cereals until after six months of age.
Age at initial introduction to cereal grains remained strongly associated with wheat allergy (a 3,8-fold increased risk when exposure began at or after age seven months), after factoring in breastfeeding duration, introduction of rice cereal, family history of allergy, and history of food allergy before six months of age, the investigators say.
"Our results support continuing the current recommendations of first introducing cereal products between four and six months of age," the researchers conclude.
"We attempted to define if very early exposure (less than four months) also influenced the risk of wheat allergy," Poole continued. "However, there were not enough children with wheat allergy to make any strong conclusions about very early exposure."
However, she concluded, "Based on the data from the early 1990s, which showed that very early introduction (less than two to four months of age) of multiple foods was associated with allergic disease, we do not recommend introduction of cereal grains before four months of age."
SOURCE: Pediatrics, June 2006.