VOA慢速英语2019 婴儿吃花生可降低过敏风险（在线收听）

Doctors: Give Babies Crushed Peanuts to Reduce Allergy Risk

Doctors are advising parents to feed babies peanut products before their first birthday to reduce the child’s risk of developing a peanut allergy.

医生建议父母在婴儿一岁生日之前喂其吃花生类食品，降低孩子花生过敏的风险。

The advice appears in a new guide for health care providers. It was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).

这一建议出现在给医疗服务提供者的新指南中。该研究发表在《加拿大医学协会杂志》(CMAJ)上。

A team of allergy experts and child care specialists wrote the new guidance. They suggest adding soft, crushed peanuts to a baby’s diet beginning at four months of age. They say babies should continue to get “substantial” amounts of peanut products in their first year of life.

一支由过敏专家和儿童护理专家组成的团队撰写了这份新指南。他们建议从婴儿四个月大开始，在他们的饮食中添加绵软、压碎的花生。他们说，婴儿在出生后的第一年应该继续摄入“大量”的花生食品。

Doctor George du Toit is with King’s College London in Britain. He helped prepare the guide. He said it is important to speak with a doctor early on to make sure the child does not already have an allergic reaction.

乔治·杜·托伊特（George du Toit）博士就职于英国伦敦国王学院。他帮助准备了这份指南。他说，尽早咨询医生十分重要，以确保孩子没有过敏反应。

The new guidance is a “complete reversal” from earlier advice to parents, noted Doctor Ruchi Gupta. Earlier guidelines suggested waiting to feed children peanut products until they were much older.

古普塔医生指出，新的指导意见与此前给家长的建议“截然相反”。早期的指南建议，等到孩子长大后再让他们食用花生制品。

Gupta is a pediatrician and food allergy researcher at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She predicted that many parents will be fearful of following the new guidance.

古普塔是伊利诺斯州埃文斯顿西北大学的儿科医生和食物过敏研究员。据她预测，许多家长将害怕接受新的指南。

“There’s...resistance from parents because they’re fearful about doing this at home with their infants and what may happen,” Gupta told the Reuters news agency.

古普塔告诉路透社，“父母对此有些抵制，因为他们担心在家里让孩子食用（花生），以及可能发生的后果”。

Peanut allergies usually develop before age 2. They are a major worry for parents, who need to closely watch everything their children eat inside and outside the home.

花生过敏通常发生在2岁之前。对父母来说，这些是主要的担忧，他们需要密切关注孩子在家里或者外面吃的所有食物。

Allergic reactions to peanuts can include skin conditions, difficulty breathing and low blood pressure. The person can feel sick to the stomach, and develop swelling of the tongue, eyes or face. In severe cases, a peanut reaction can kill, unless the child is given an injection of epinephrine.

对花生的过敏反应包括皮肤状况、呼吸困难和低血压。患者会感到胃部不适，并出现舌头、眼睛或面部肿胀。在严重的情况下，花生的反应会致命，除非给孩子注射肾上腺素。

Because of such risks, doctors had been urging parents to avoid giving peanut products to babies.

由于存在这些风险，医生一直敦促父母避免让婴儿食用花生制品。

But a 2015 study led medical experts to reconsider the guidelines.

但是2015年的一项研究导致医学专家重新审视该指南。

The study involved 640 babies, all of whom were younger than 11 months. Each child had either an egg allergy or the skin condition eczema. Both disorders increase the child’s risk for developing a peanut allergy. But researchers found that when these high-risk babies were fed a small amount of peanut butter three times a week, only three percent went on to develop the allergy after five years. By comparison, 17 percent of children who avoided peanuts became allergic.

这项研究涉及640名婴儿，他们都不满11个月。这些孩子要么对鸡蛋过敏，要么患有湿疹。这两种疾病都会增加儿童患花生过敏的风险。但研究人员发现，当这些高危婴儿每周吃三次少量花生酱时，5年后只有3%的婴儿仍然出现过敏。相比之下，17%的不吃花生的孩子有花生过敏反应。

In the new guidelines, the experts propose introducing peanut protein as one of a baby’s first foods.

在新的指南中，专家们建议将花生蛋白作为婴儿的首选食物之一。

Christopher Warren works with Gupta at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He told Reuters, “A lot of people assume that this just means feed it to (babies) once, but it is really important that you feed repeatedly and over a longer period of time.”

克里斯托弗·沃伦（Christopher Warren）在西北大学范伯格医学院与古普塔合作。他对路透社记者表示：“很多人认为只需要给婴儿喂食一次（花生制品），但重要的是要反复喂，而且要持续较长时间。”

This, Warren added, will help the body’s natural defenses against disease learn how to process and deal with peanuts.

沃伦补充说，这将有助于人体抵御疾病的自然防御系统学会如何加工和处理花生。

The method of early introduction has also been tested with other major allergenic foods, like milk, egg, fish and wheat. The method has been especially effective for both egg and peanut allergies, experts note.

这种早期引入的方法还在其他主要致敏食品进行了测试，如牛奶、鸡蛋、鱼和小麦。专家指出，这种方法对鸡蛋和花生过敏尤其有效。

Words in This Story

allergy - n. a medical condition that causes someone to become sick after eating, touching, or breathing something that is harmless to most people

reversal - n. a change to an opposite state, condition, decision, etc.

pediatrician - n. a doctor who treats babies and children

swell - v. to become larger than normal

epinephrine - n. a kind of medication that is used in emergencies to treat serious allergic reactions to insects, foods, drugs or other substances. ?

introduce - v. to make (someone) known to someone else by name

assume - v. to think that something is true or probably true without knowing that it is true