Structured review reveals early allergenic food introduction prevents food allergy in infants, indicating dietary and microbial interactions drive oral tolerance.
Key Points
To examine how early-life nutrition interacts with the gut microbiome, epithelial barrier integrity, genetics, and environmental exposures to influence food allergy development and prevention.
Conducted a structured literature search primarily across PubMed and supplementary bibliographic databases.
Thematically synthesized findings across maternal nutrition, breastfeeding, complementary feeding, allergenic food introduction, dietary diversity, microbiome development, and environmental factors.
Timely introduction and regular ingestion of common allergenic foods, particularly peanut and egg, during complementary feeding demonstrated the strongest and most consistent preventive benefit.
Evidence remains insufficient or inconsistent to support maternal allergen avoidance, targeted micronutrient supplementation, hydrolyzed formulas, probiotics, or skin-barrier strategies as established preventive interventions.
Associations involving gut microbiome composition, medication exposures, pollution, and other environmental factors remain heterogeneous and largely observational.