A real headache for children and their parents, peanut allergy could be completely eliminated between one and three years of age thanks to oral immunotherapy.
- Peanut is a very common legume that is found in many foods: cereals, breads, milk, yogurts, drinks, sauces…
- 0.7% of the French population is allergic to it.
While allergic reactions to peanuts can be very serious, even fatal, researchers have successfully cured children suffering from this intolerance problem. Their results have just been published in The Lancet.
A window of opportunity
“Our research indicates that a window of opportunity in infancy exists to cure peanut allergy via oral immunotherapy,” says Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “We hope that the results of this study will lead to the development of treatment modalities that will reduce peanut allergy in children and the mental burden it places on a daily basis,” he continues.
Nearly 150 American children between the ages of 1 and 3 took part in his trial. Only pups who had an allergic reaction after ingesting half a gram of peanut protein (about one and a half peanuts) or less were included in the cohort. They were randomly assigned to eat, for two and a half years, either flour containing peanut protein or a similar-looking placebo flour. The mixtures were mixed with foods such as applesauce or pudding to mask the taste. Nobody, except for a pharmacist and a dietitian participating in the study, knew who received the different foods until all the data was collected and analyzed.
71% of children desensitized
At the end of the experiment, 71% of children who had regularly consumed peanut flour were desensitized, against only 2% of those who had ingested the placebo. The majority of the first group could eat 5 grams of peanut protein without any problem.
The final takeaway: younger toddlers and those who started the trial with lower levels of peanut-specific antibodies were the most likely to achieve allergic remission.
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