Progress Against Peanut Allergies

Baking mixes, breads, muesli, health bars, artificial nuts, egg rolls, chili, Worcestershire sauce, ice cream, many African, Chinese and Mexican dishes, saliva, passed along from sharing utensils or straws with someone who has recently eaten peanuts, even sunflower seeds that may be manufactured on equipment also used to produce peanuts…and that’s just for starters.

How does someone, especially a child, avoid eating a product with hidden peanuts? It used to be that the answer was simply to avoid peanut products, but that has become more and more difficult, and accidental eating of peanuts often happens.

One seven year old looks carefully at the birthday party foods at her friend’s house and says, “Ingredients?” True. Her teachers need to be warned about the dangers of bringing any peanut product into the classroom or cafeteria. Even the waiters at the local restaurants must be quizzed about what is used to make every item on the menu. And…wherever she goes, she must carry in her backpack, an Epi-pen used for life-saving injections.

Some 11 million Americans suffer from food allergies and 150 to 200 people die each year from unknowingly eating the wrong food.  Allergy to peanuts is one of the most dramatic, and deadly, examples of food allergy.  It has doubled in children in a five-year period.

Now there is progress against peanut allergies. It includes oral immunotherapy, in which small doses of peanut protein, given for months under medical supervision, can desensitize children with peanut allergy, reducing the risk of a reaction if they accidentally eat peanuts. This is according to a new study  presented recently at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

Scott David Nash, M.D., of Duke University, is an author of the desensitization study. “What we would like to have happen is for their food allergy to go away. For now, however, we have essentially proven they can tolerate an accidental ingestion. We think our patients now are at reduced risk for anaphylaxis."

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