Perhaps because of differences in feeding habits, white children appear to be at increased risk for peanut allergy compared with their non-white peers, new research suggests.

This is the first study to indicate a racial difference in the occurrence of childhood peanut allergy, according to findings presented here this week at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.

“In the last 4 to 5 years, I’ve seen a striking increase in the number of patients with food allergies, particularly children with peanut/tree nut allergies,” study author Dr. Paul J. Hannaway, from North Shore Medical Center in Salem, Massachusetts, told AMN Health.

“It occurred to me that most of the kids coming in were white children from the suburbs, even though my practice covers an area with a large minority population,” he explained.

To investigate his observation, Hannaway analyzed dispensing patterns for epinephrine - a drug used for allergy emergencies - in three Massachusetts school districts: two largely white suburban districts that enrolled 5855 students, and one mostly non-white urban district covering 16,020 students.

A total of 181 students were given epinephrine and all but 28 were white, Hannaway found.

Peanut allergy was the most common allergy, present in two thirds of cases, followed by stinging insect allergy. Seventy-five percent of children with peanut allergy were enrolled in kindergarten through 5th grade.

The epinephrine-dispensing rate for peanut allergy was much higher at the white school districts than at the non-white school district - around 1.2 percent vs. 0.30 percent.

Moreover, just 19 non-white children had peanut allergy compared with 99 white children.

Also, although whites were outnumbered by non-whites in the urban school district, they were still twice as likely to be given epinephrine for peanut allergy in this setting.

“Differences in feeding practices between white and non-white families might help explain the racial disparity in rates of peanut allergy,” Hannaway suggested.

For example, children in minority families may be introduced earlier to a broader range of foods, and this might help the body’s immune system get used to peanuts and thereby decrease the likelihood of becoming allergic, he said.