Today is an extra class. Next week will be the start of our November class period. The start time for our class will be 10:00am. We will begin class with a casual conversation. Our reading today is about Pilates. Please try to read as much as possible. Underline any words or sentences that are unfamiliar. Our listening is about allergies. Please listen and follow the transcript. We will complete our grammar sentences.
Click HERE for the reading
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
A major study from 2015 changed our understanding of how to prevent peanut allergies. Ten years later, researchers say that approach is working. NPR's Bill Chappell reports.
BILL CHAPPELL, BYLINE: For years, American parents were told not to expose their babies to peanuts too early to prevent a potentially dangerous allergy. Dr. David Hill is a pediatric allergist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
DAVID HILL: And that was well-intentioned, right? These are the youngest, potentially most vulnerable of our society.
CHAPPELL: But in 2015, a landmark study found the opposite to be true, saying that if babies eat peanut products at an early age, around 4 to 6 months, they're less likely to become allergic. To gauge the success of early introduction, Hill and his colleagues conducted another study. They looked at the rate of food allergy in young children before and after the guidelines changed by analyzing the health data of some 120,000 children across the U.S.
HILL: What we found was that there was a 43% reduction in peanut allergy prevalence.
CHAPPELL: They also found more than a third reduction in any food allergy prevalence.
HILL: That equates to around 40,000 prevented cases of peanut allergy and around 60,000 prevented cases of food allergy altogether.
CHAPPELL: Their findings were published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
CORINNE KEET: I would definitely say I'm cautious about reading too much into it.
CHAPPELL: Dr. Corinne Keet is a professor of pediatrics at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (ph).
KEET: I'm looking for more information to confirm these findings.
CHAPPELL: Keet is an allergist who was not involved in the research.
KEET: I'm a little bit surprised by these findings 'cause I might have expected that we might have more diagnoses just because people were thinking about allergies more.
CHAPPELL: Keet wants to see more data to get an idea of the national picture, but Dr. Hill says his study is one more step in understanding allergies, and he has a message for the millions of children in the U.S. who have a food allergy.
HILL: We haven't forgotten about you.
CHAPPELL: Both Hill and Keet say there's more work to be done.
Bill Chappell, NPR News.