February 26, 2009

God Save The Queen! The Peanut Regime! Four English Kids Can Now Eat Peanuts

Trail mix for everybody! Our long peanut-allergic nightmare may be over.

Allergists at Cambridge Hospitals have published the results of an experimental treatment course for peanut allergies that successfully lifted the sensitivity thresholds for all the kids involved.

Dr Andy Clark and friends used oral immunotherapy [OIT], which uses controlled doses, gradually increased, to desensitize a person to an allergen. In this case, peanuts. They built the tolerance thresholds of four [?] kids from a quarter peanut to five peanuts in just two weeks. It was so successful, they expanded the study to 18 kids.

Which is great. OIT was also the treatment used successfully by Johns Hopkins researchers last fall to overcome milk allergies [press release, abstract]. And Duke University is assembling an OIT peanut study right now. [Here's a PowerPoint of their plan.] Unlike allergy shots, OIT could be used with kids under 5yo, too. Someday.

I was going to get all huffy about why haven't they figured this out sooner, but I can't figure out who to be huffy at. OIT and its related treatment, sub-lingual immunotherapy [SLIT] are both used in Europe for other allergies, but they aren't approved by the FDA. And yet OIT-happy Euros are barely getting around to testing OIT for things like milk and peanuts. In the absence of any actual information, then, I must blame single-payer health care, unions, and godless socialists.

Clark, AT, et al, Successful oral tolerance induction in severe peanut allergy. Allergy 2009 17 Feb. [abstract at nih.gov via bbc, thanks dt reader sara]

3 Comments

Great, now if only they'd get around to confirming exactly what's causing all these allergies in the first place... is it lack of breastfeeding, antibiotics killing off good gut bacteria, or maybe the rise of celebrity reality shows (hey, I'll spread a lie just to reclaim the airwaves)?

I wonder if this is related to why countries where they eat a lot of peanuts from a young age (China, Israel) don't have a high incidence of peanut allergies, though?

I thought it was our love of cleanliness. If we were willing to lose a slightly higher percentage of children to childhood diseases and washed out hands less we should get rid of most allergies in no time.

Our immune systems have too much time on their hands.

It is proably a combination of things. My dd was/is allergic to peanuts, but I kept them in the house. She didn't eat them, but I did. The allergist said it was probably enough for her body to build immunities to it and kept her from getting worse.
She can eat a couple now ( before she couldn't eat any).

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