Short Wave - Peanuts, Pets And Poopy Shores

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

For most infants, introducing peanuts early can help prevent allergies later on — but a new study reveals most caregivers don't know that. Why? Plus — some summertime advice for keeping pets cool in the heat, and avoiding beaches contaminated with poop. (A lot of them are.) All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly joins Regina G. Barber and Aaron Scott to discuss those stories in our science news roundup.Have questions about science in the news? Email us at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, Shortwavers, Regina Barber here. Such a big episode today. Aaron Scott is back here with us. Hey, Aaron. Hello, Gina. Aaron will be hosting with me on Shortwave for the next few months while Emily Kwong is taking some time to work on another project.

Aaron, it's so great to have you back. It is a delight to be back here with you. And to start out with the Science News Roundup, which means that it is my turn to make an introduction, the one, the only, Mary Louise Kelly. So happy to be here. Hi, you too. Hello, hello. Mary Louise, thanks for playing hooky from your job, hosting all things considered, to hang with us. My pleasure.

And to hear about three science stories in the news lately. Here is our preview. They are about peanuts, pets, and poop. Hopefully not all together. I love that we're circling in on the peas this week. We'll spell everything out in just a minute. And because this podcast is brought to you by the letter P, you're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Okay, Aaron and Regina, you promised me stories about pets, peanuts, and poop.

I'm going to exercise, host prerogative here and say, let's do peanuts first before I totally lose my appetite. Yeah, so for a lot of parents, it can be confusing when it's safe to, introduce certain foods to your kids, especially things like peanuts. The current guideline today is, in most cases, that you should feed peanut products to infants early, around four to six months to help them avoid the development of severe peanut allergies. But a study out this month in the journal Pediatrics, surveying 3,000 people who care for infants, found that most people are not doing this. Well, because it seems so counterintuitive.

I mean, my personal experience, I have a son with a tree nut allergy, like walnuts, pecans, and so on. And we've spent his whole life avoiding them like the plague. So this guidance is really different from the guidance some of us have been given in the past. Right, exactly. I got the same advice over 10 years ago. But let's back it up. As I alluded to you, the medical advice as currently as a decade ago, was to avoid peanuts in infancy. And so now the new guidelines are counterintuitive.

And some parents in the study actually said that they were scared to follow the new advice, thinking that early exposure might result in a severe allergic reaction in their kids. that didn't actually happen. Only 1% of babies in the survey had reactions, and they were relatively mild. And research over the years has largely supported this idea that introducing peanuts to babies 4 to 11 months old is a good thing because it sharply reduces peanut allergies among high-risk kids. And that's why the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases released their current recommendations back in 2017 saying earlier introduction is better. But apparently that message is still. not getting through to a lot of folks. And do we know why not, why this message is not getting out? Yeah, well, not everyone is hearing it. It turns out that the guidelines are not being communicated to all the caregivers in the same way. For instance, the community is most likely to be aware of this new guideline are white,

higher educated, and wealthier. Which researchers say reflects unequal health care access. Dr. Wahita Samadhi, who led this study, says that even though the guidelines are starting to take hold. We still have a ways to go. and we specifically have targeted areas of the population that need this public health message. And just a final caveat here, caregivers should talk to their pediatrician about this if their child has a severe case of eczema or an egg allergy. They may need to be tested by a specialist before trying out peanuts for the first time. Okay. It is safe to say that in my long broadcasting career, I have never before pivoted from peanuts to poop.

So here we go, Erin, you have the honors. Lay it on me. I know. Well, I mean, nothing says summer fun like fecal contamination at the beach. Am I right? Yuck. Yeah, although we do keep seeing these headlines. It seems like every year beach is closing, and it's because of dangerous water quality.

How widespread is this? So possibly more common than you think earlier this month, an organization called Environment America issued this report that found that more than half of the beaches tested in the United States had potentially unsafe levels of fecal contamination at least one day last year. And then about one in nine of those beaches had unsafe levels at least a quarter of the days they were tested. Do I dare ask where it is coming from? A number of places. There is pollution from things like failing sewage and stormwater infrastructure. And of course, you know, heavier storms are coming with climate change. So that will likely include. and then from places like livestock and factory farms.

This is not making me excited to go swimming, Aaron. I'm sorry to say that it's not just the water. Other research has found that these fecal bacteria also live in beach sand. I spoke with Alexandria Bame. She's a professor of environmental engineering at Stanford, and she studies coastal contamination. And she said that both wet and dry sand are home to all sorts of bacteria, viruses, and other critters. And that's just natural. They are our friends for maintaining a healthy ecosystem at the beach. The problem comes when we have pollution at the beach that contributes microorganisms that may cause a health risk.

Okay. So yuck. However, it is hot and I love the beach. So if we're going to swim anyway, how do we do it in a way that's safe? No, I mean, go to the beach. Just kind of monitor your beaches. Like Environment America put all of this data into a dashboard online. You can look up beaches by state and see if they have past contamination. A lot of states themselves post this data, like the Florida Healthy Beaches Program. And then when you're at the beach, you just want to practice good hygiene, like washing your hands before you eat, covering up a cutter wound so it doesn't get sand in it and then probably keeping it out of the water. And, you know, keeping an eye out. If there's been a big rainstorm, you might not want to visit a beach with a history of contamination. Our third and final story, as we mentioned, it is hot in a lot of the kind of.

right now, really hot, and we've been talking about all kinds of ways to keep people safe. I want to talk about our pets. What's the advice? Yeah, so our NPR colleague, Rachel Treisman, wrote about this recently on NPR.org, and some of the stuff she heard from experts is easy, like don't walk your dog in the middle of day, look out for hot asphalt, keep an eye out for ticks and fleas, which are more active in the heat. But there's one thing you might not know in that is that pets can get sunburn, just like us. So, you know, this is, of course, a bigger risk for animals that are hairless or that have thin or short coats or, you know, like noses with lighter pigment. But it can be an issue for even the hairier beasts like a husky or a golden

retriever if you're grooming them with shorter hair. That can increase the risk of sunburn. I had no idea. I keep our dog's hair cut really short in the summer because I figured it's keeping him cool. Are we supposed to be putting sunscreen on our pets? I mean, you can. They're actually special sunscreens designed for that. But the easy, The easier thing is just not to keep them outside too long. Or if they are outside, make sure they have lots of water and shade. But you don't want them in an enclosed place without airflow, like a doghouse. And then just keep an eye on that furry friend.

You know, if you notice they're drooling a lot, or if their tongue has taken on kind of a deep red or purple color, or they seem a bit shaky, those could be signs of heat stroke. In which case, if you've got a pet thermometer, take their temperature, anything above 105, and you're going to want to cool them down. And how are we supposed to cool them down? Like, do we run through the sprinkler or hop in the pool? What? I mean, those things work, right? And the key is to cool them slowly. So you could also use towel soaked in cool water, just not an ice bath.

Because if they get cold too quickly, it can cause their blood vessels to constrict, which will actually make it harder for them to cool off. And like Regina mentioned, the hot asphalt and pavement earlier. One expert did tell NPR that if it is too hot for you to touch with the back of your hand, it could also be too hot for your pet's paws. So in that case, you know, seek out somewhere shady or walk them in the grass instead. Thanks again to Mary Louise Kelly for dropping by. And as always, if you see a science headline you'd like us to explain in the roundup, tell us about it.

Email us at shortwave at npr.org. This episode was produced by Burley McCoy and Michael Levitt. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez, Brent Buckman, and Christopher Enteliata, Brit Hanson Check the Facts, Hans Copeland and Maggie Luthar were the audio engineers. Our Senior Director of Programming is Beth Donovan, and our Senior Vice President of Programming is Anya Grunman. I'm Aaron Scott. And I'm Regina Barber. Thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR.