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To reduce peanut allergy prevalence, infant feeding guidelines now recommend introducing peanuts in an age-appropriate form (such as peanut butter) as part of complementary feeding. However, due to a lack of randomized trial evidence, most infant feeding and food allergy prevention guidelines do not include tree nuts. The aims of this trial were to determine safety and feasibility of dosage consumption recommendations for infant cashew nut spread introduction.

Previous reports suggested that food proteins present in human milk (HM) may trigger symptoms in allergic children during breastfeeding, but existing evidence has never been reviewed systematically.

Debbie Susan Palmer Prescott BSc BND PhD MBBS BMedSci PhD FRACP Head, Nutrition in Early Life Honorary Research Fellow debbie.palmer@uwa.edu.au

Egg allergy affects almost 1 in 10 Australian infants. Early egg introduction has been associated with a reduced risk in developing egg allergy; however, the immune mechanisms underlying this protection remain unclear.

Associations between the human gut microbiome and health outcomes continues to be of great interest, although fecal sample collection methods which impact microbiome studies are sometimes neglected. Here, we expand on previous work in sample optimization, to promote high quality microbiome data. To compare fecal sample collection methods, amplicons from the bacterial 16S rRNA gene (V4) and fungal (ITS2) region, as well as short chain fatty acid (SCFA) concentrations were determined in fecal material over three timepoints.

Clinical studies supported by immunological data indicate early life intervention strategies to be promising in reducing the growing global burden of food allergies. The events that predispose to food allergy, including the induction of allergen-specific immune responses, appear to be initiated early in development.

The human gut microbiome has increasingly been associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which is a neurological developmental disorder, characterized by impairments to social interaction.

The dramatic increase in the prevalence of allergic disease in recent decades reflects environmental and behavioural changes that have altered patterns of early immune development. The very early onset of allergic diseases points to the specific vulnerability of the developing immune system to environmental changes and the development of primary intervention strategies is crucial to address this unparalleled burden.

This study highlights an unpredicted potential risk factor for the development of food allergy, that is, D pteronyssinus allergens in breast milk

Showed for the first time that the presence of an egg-derived allergen in breast milk is associated with a reduced risk of egg allergy in children at 2.5 years of age