"allergen" news and stories

At Duke University, researchers have been engaged in an experiment that could change the lives of those with severe food allergies. Those allergies trigger approximately 30,000 emergency-room visits each year and are sometimes the result of an exposure to a very tiny amount of allergen. This new study suggests that gradually increasing exposure to even smaller amounts of the allergen can build up a resistance - especially in children - and prevent one mouthful of the wrong food from becoming deadly.

In the study, children were given amounts of defatted peanut flour or an egg powder - very common, but serious, allergens - as small as 1/3,000th of a peanut or about 1/1,000th of an egg (under supervision at the Duke Hospital). Taken in pill form daily, the dosage was increased bi-weekly until the children were consuming the equivalent of 1/10th of an egg or 1 peanut, which became a maintenance dose that they took daily throughout the study, which lasted about 2 years. At that point, 4 of the 7 egg-allergic children could eat two scrambled eggs without any type of reaction (2 more could eat that much before reacting) and many of the peanut-allergic children could eat up to 15 peanuts before starting to experience a reaction.

At this time, researchers strongly recommend that you do not try this type of treatment at home, because it can be dangerous without careful monitoring. To the parents who joined in, however, the success could prove to be a lifesaver for their children and, as a result, researchers are optimistic that there could be a highly effective treatment available to parents and children within five years.

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Peanut and other tree nut allergies generally produce the most severe reactions. Approximately 0.6% of Americans have peanut/tree nut allergies, out of a total of 1.6% with food allergies of some kind. Unlike some other allergies, which seem to be outgrown by children, the reaction to these nuts does not fade with age and can increase in severity with each exposure. In fact, the number of people who have food allergies seems to be increasing, according to Dr. Hugh A. Sampson of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in the Journal of Pediatrics, though he notes that the reason for the rise has not yet been determined. It is thought that the increase may be due to an increase in the number of trace exposures to allergens, a concern that has contributed to the FDA's push for new labeling laws.

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