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New Treatment Testing Offers Hope for Children with Peanut Allergies
Filed under: In The News, Research Reveals: Big Kids, Research Reveals: Tweens, Research Reveals: Teens
New research could lead to a treatment for peanut allergies. Credit: Getty Images
The days of bringing your own cupcakes to birthday parties, avoiding Chinese takeout and scouring food packaging labels like an archaeologist studying the Rosetta Stone may soon be over for parents of children with peanut allergies.
After the success of a small program to desensitize allergic children, a British hospital is undertaking a broad study into the treatment.
The new research project, set to begin next month, will follow 100 children between the ages of seven and 17 over the course of three years, a spokesman for Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, England tells ParentDish. It will replicate the earlier program, in which children were fed daily doses of peanut flour, where children began with tiny amounts and built up their tolerance gradually over six months.
After the success of a small program to desensitize allergic children, a British hospital is undertaking a broad study into the treatment.
The new research project, set to begin next month, will follow 100 children between the ages of seven and 17 over the course of three years, a spokesman for Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, England tells ParentDish. It will replicate the earlier program, in which children were fed daily doses of peanut flour, where children began with tiny amounts and built up their tolerance gradually over six months.
By the end of the study, the children could tolerate the equivalent of five peanuts. That may not sound like much, but it's liberating for children who react to even trace amounts of peanuts.
In an earlier study, researchers at The Duke University Medical Center and Arkansas Children's Study reported a similar outcome. They noted that tolerance isn't a cure, but it makes the allergies more manageable.
"Every time people with a peanut allergy eat something, they're frightened that it might kill them," Dr. Andy Clark, who led the Addenbrooke's Hospital program says in a press release. "Our motivation was to find a treatment that would change that and give them the confidence to eat what they like. It's all about quality of life."
Clark's first study involved four patients, and the second 23. The new, larger study will mark the first time he has used a control group against which he can measure his results, the hospital spokesman tells ParentDish.
One of Clark's previous patients was 9-year-old Michael Frost, who had been severely allergic to peanuts since he was a baby. His life has been changed by the treatment, his mother, Kate Frost, says in the press release.
"It's very hard to describe how much of a difference it's made – not just in Michael's life, but for all of us," she says. "A peanut allergy affects the whole family. You can't go out to a restaurant. If your child goes to a birthday party, he takes a packed lunch."
Michael, who turns 10 next month, will celebrate with a trip to a Chinese restaurant -- a place normally off-limits for nut-allergic children because of the frequent use of peanut oil.
Desensitized patients must continue to consume peanuts to keep up their tolerance. All of Clark's original patients now eat at least five peanuts a day, and some even more.
Clark presented his research at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego, and says he thinks that within two to three years there will be "a treatment that works."
Scientists still do not know if the results are permanent .
Related: Peanut Allergy - When Snacks Can Be Deadly
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