New treatment for peanut allergy in kids
Researchers have found a possible way to overcome the often fatal peanut allergy. What’s more, the remedy has been found in the very element that causes the allergy.
Slow feeding of safe doses of peanuts could gradually build tolerance against certain allergy causing proteins in kids, according to research conducted by the Berlin's University Hospital Charite and the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.
Peanut allergy is considered one of the very difficult medical problems to be managed and currently few options are available to tackle the reactions. It usually lasts a lifetime of an individual and is unlike other food allergies which might disappear as the kids grow up.
Kids get various allergic reactions on consuming peanuts. The nature and severity of reactions may vary widely. An accidental ingestion of peanuts could lead to a mild rash or a life threatening response.
The study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology accepts the fact that there is no way to make peanuts completely safe for people who are allergic to them, as of yet. They, however, suggests that an experimental therapy may make them less deadly still.
The experimental therapy made use of tiny amounts of crushed peanuts to be given by mouth to build up tolerance to peanut proteins in 23 children who recorded a history of peanut allergy.
As a precaution all children enrolled in the study were admitted to hospital for the first week of therapy to manage any eventuality in case of a fatal allergic reaction to the peanuts. The tiny doses were gradually increased.
It took an average of 7 months of increasing doses for the kids to develop tolerance to 500 milligrams of crushed peanut in children, the researchers found. Once the children reached the level where they could consume 500 mg of peanuts daily without side effects for eight weeks, they took two weeks off only to face a fresh peanut challenge.
All children who participated in the study reported allergic reactions ranging from an upset stomach to wheezing. Four of them even dropped out because of a bad allergic reaction. Among the 14 children who made it to the final food challenge, all but two of them were able to tolerate one gram of peanut compared to 0.19 gram at the beginning of the study.
Of course, the research holds hope for the hundreds of thousands of American kids who are allergic to peanuts. More research, however, needs to be completed before the therapy is ready for the markets, researchers noted.
Peanuts and tree nut allergies are the leading causes of fatal and near fatal food- allergic reactions in the US, according to official figures.