Up to five per cent of children suffer from food allergies and 1.5 per cent suffer from peanut allergy and this incidence is rising.

Allergic reactions are often mild with tummy upset, sneezing or watery eyes but fatalities due to anaphylaxis can occur in susceptible individuals.

These reactions occur quickly within a matter of minutes and certainly within two hours.

Children with eczema and egg allergy seem to have a greater susceptibility to developing peanut allergy and the general advice to such children is to avoid all possible contact with peanut, have appropriate medicines to hand and for children generally to avoid contact with peanuts, perhaps until the age of three.

One in four Children who have mild allergy and who demonstrate this allergy before the age of two may out grow their allergy by the age of seven Despite these measures, the incidence of allergy is rising, although peanut allergy is quite rare in some countries such as South Africa and Israel where children have early and high exposure to peanuts.

There is some evidence to suggest that delaying the exposure of a child to wheat after six months may increase the risk of that child developing coeliac disease or wheat intolerance.

So what should a responsible parent be doing- encouraging early exposure or delaying exposure to peanuts in their child? Scientists are still trying to work that out.

This week scientists from Addenbrookes Hospital reported that by a process of desensitisation, they can cure patients of severe peanut allergy. Desensitisation is a well recognised process used to treat allergy whereby the patient is exposed to minute and then increasing amounts of the allergen and tolerance appears to develop.

It has been used to treat allergies such as hayfever but there are several problems with this approach. Clearly the exposure to the allergen may be dangerous in the first place and must be carried out in a supervised medical facility and not at home!

The process is often laborious and requires repeated exposure and in the case of the peanut desensitisation program, the children are eventually required to eat five peanuts a day.

Peanuts contaminate many manufactured foodstuffs including breakfast cereals and chocolate and peanut oil is used in a large number of moisturising creams, bath oils and even cream for mums sore nipples.

Whilst early exposure to peanut products may have some advantages, clearly for some susceptible children with allergy risk, it may be disastrous. How can you tell?

If your child suffers from severe eczema or other food allergies it could be worth asking your GP whether it might be worth performing either some skin prick tests or blood (RAST or IgE) tests between the age of six months and five years.

Have you a question for Dr Brown? Add a comment below or e-mail him by clicking here