Peanut Allergy Treatment Brings Hope for Long-Term Tolerance

A possible new treatment for peanut allergies involves daily incremental doses of the allergen.

A recent study conducted by researchers at Duke and Arkansas Children's Hospital suggests that long-term tolerance in children with peanut allergies may be achieved through carefully administered doses of peanuts.

The therapy consists of exposure to the peanut allergen at doses starting as small as 1/1000 of a peanut and increasing in size up to as much as 15 peanuts a day. This incremental dosage of peanuts changes how the body's immune system responds to the presence of the peanut protein that causes the allergic response.

Doctors involved in the study reported their findings of key immunologic changes, the factor that indicates the children's tolerance is likely long-term.

The body appears to build tolerance quickly, as tests of several immunologic indicators suggest. Dr. Wesley Burks, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at Duke states, ‘At the start of the study, these participants couldn't tolerate one-sixth of a peanut. Six months into it, they were ingesting 13 to 15 peanuts before they had a reaction.’

The treatment is still in initial stages and is not currently recommended for patients. One remaining question is whether the decrease in response to the peanuts coincided with a natural outgrowing of the allergy. The next phase of testing is conducting a blinded study in which treated children are compared to a control group.

Nevertheless, the study is promising for families who struggle with peanut allergies. The allergy is among the most deadly. In fact, almost half of the 150 annual deaths attributed to food allergies are caused by peanut allergies. However, as Dr. Burks states, the treatment ‘gives other parents and children hope that we'll soon have a safe, effective treatment that will halt allergies to certain foods.’

NOTE: THIS TREATMENT SHOULD NEVER BE TRIED WITHOUT STRICT MEDICAL SUPERVISION.

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