New treatment could reduce kids' peanut allergies

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Associated Press

LONDON (AP) -- An experimental therapy that fed children with peanut allergies small amounts of peanut flour has helped more than 80 percent of them safely eat a handful of the previously worrisome nuts.

Although experts say the results of the carefully monitored study are encouraging, they warn it isn't something that parents should try at home.

Peanut allergies are on the rise globally and affect about 1 in 50 children, mostly in high-income countries. The consequences can be life-threatening - peanuts are the most common cause of fatal food allergy reactions. There is no way to avoid a reaction other than just avoiding peanuts. Allergy shots used for environmental triggers like pollen are too risky.

Doctors at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge started by giving 99 children aged seven to 16 with severe peanut allergies a tiny 2-milligram dose of a special peanut flour mixed into their food. Slowly they increased that amount to 800 milligrams. The dose increases were given at a research facility where the children were observed for any dangerous side effects - the most frequent were itchiness in the mouth, stomach pains or nausea.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_MED_PEANUT_ALLERGY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-01-30-02-27-15

[glowing]

1. Why? Why are kids having an increase in peanut allergies?

I really just don't get it! Is it our environment and the many chemicals we are inindated with? It's similar with allergies and asthma in general. I feel like I have too ask, who doesn't have an allergy or an asthmatic trigger when I have my sons friends over or plan something ijnthenclassroom.

[Aristus]

5. My opinion, formed from inside the medical profession, is that there isn't

necessarily an increase in the allergies themselves as much as an increase in the fear of the allergies. When I was a kid (now this is anecdotal, not science) I didn't know any kid who had a peanut allergy. Every kid I knew happily wolfed down peanut butter sandwiches every day at lunch, or gorged on roasted peanuts at the ball games with no problems.

I think the fear I mentioned above, coupled with the phenomenon of helicopter parenting has created a perception of wild, unchecked rampant peanut allergies raging from one end of the continent to the other, laying waste to family hopes and dreams everywhere. As a counter-balance to the anti-vaccination stridency going on, there seems to be a cotillion of stridently hyper-alert parents on the lookout for the slightest histamine abnormality in their children.

I can just envision the conferences some teachers have to endure:

"My boy is special! And you have to remember his special needs!"

[Sienna86]

6. I was just like you Aristus

Until my 11 year old developed a peanut allergy. Fine one day, then dealing with a swollen lip and itchy throat the next day.

I thought some of these parents were being a bit extreme but it's funny how serious it becomes when it affects someone you love.

[Aristus]

7. I didn't say that such allergies don't exist, simply that I think (and I said it was an opinion)

that they are overdiagnosed.

Your child's allergy seems to be fairly mild as such things go. I'm happy to hear that.

I wonder if de-sensitization treatment might be helpful.

[HockeyMom]

9. I had citrus allergy as a child in the 1950's

I broke out in hives. OJ was the worst. As an adult it did change a bit. I found I could eat navel oranges and tangerines, but still not the juices. No hives, but my mouth and lips feel like they are on fire. I learned only very recently that different oranges have different acidic levels. It must be the high acid ones that give me the most trouble.

I was also told by my OB 30 years ago that if I had allergies my children probably would also, BUT they might not be the SAME ones I had. As a child my daughter had dairy allergy. As an adult, that milk allergy changed into a beef allergy. Her doctor said that is actually more common than most people know.

[Gormy Cuss]

8. I guess there is the same rate of helicopter parenting in the UK, Canada, and Australia

since all have similar rates of peanut/tree nut allergies as the U.S. The best data available show an increase in the rate of childhood nut allergies over the past few decades. The rate of nut allergy in the U.S. is about one percent.

That's all peanut and tree nut allergies, from minor to severe. Now if you were to contend that the focus on nut allergies is out of whack, you may have a point since twice as many American have seafood allergies, but then again seafood is not as prevalent in processed food as nut products.

Just curious, but how are nut allergies overdiagnosed? Are scratch tests and follow up blood tests not used?

[dipsydoodle]

16. One of life's great mysteries.

Apparently peanuts were part of the staple diet for troops in WW1 and yet their are no recorded instances of allergies. I also don't recall any kids at school here in the UK having issues across the fifties into the sixties.

[HockeyMom]

2. My daughter is pregnant

and her doctor told her to eat peanuts twice a week during her pregnancy. He said to prevent a peanut allergy. Who knows? Certainly cannot hurt I suppose.

[ck4829]

3. Works for nut allergies, babies with peanut eating mothers were 69% less likely to develop it

[marions ghost]

4. This is

homeopathic in principle.

Oh yeah we know that's woo and it doesn't work....

[FloridaJudy]

10. Nope. It's standard de-sensitization practice

Just done orally, rather than by injection. Homeopathy is woo because it claims the more something is diluted, the stronger it is.

Some theorize the increase in allergies in developed countries is due to the decrease in intestinal parasites, or to the decrease in GI pathogens, period, due to increased sanitation. While kids in poorer countries don't have nearly as many allergies, they also have a large chance of dying in infancy due to diarrheal disease.

Take your pick. If it were my kid, I'd choose a nut allergy over cholera.

[marions ghost]

13. that's extreme

It doesn't come down to something as simple as "choosing a nut allergy over cholera"...

[FloridaJudy]

14. "Cholera" was probably a poor choice of example

Since most diarrheal diseases aren't Cholera (which is pretty easily treated if caught in time). But they do kill an alarming number of infants and children in undeveloped areas. The people who survive early childhood in those places do seem to have a much lower risk of suffering allergies of all kinds than do those in more industrialized areas.

It's an intriguing hypothesis, but one that would be difficult to test. You couldn't ethically give a lot of kids in Boston intestinal parasites to see if that lowers the chances of their ever getting hay fever. It could very well be that there's something else about growing up poor in rural Africa or Asia that leads to fewer allergies, and you would have made a bunch of kids really sick for nothing.

[mainer]

11. Peanut allergies unknown in Africa, where it's a diet staple

African kids eat peanuts from a very young age, and eat them almost daily, boiled or stewed. Does so much exposure desensitize them? Or does the Western way of peanut preparation (roasting, frying) make the nut more allergenic?

[Justice]

12. Lots of really "thoughtless" statements in response to this article, frankly

My child was born after mom ate a fair amount of peanut butter -- our child is deathly allergic to peanuts.

Carries ephiphen everywhere. Last exposure required two doses and an overnight hospital stay.

People minimizing the explosion of peanut allergic children on these responses when frankly many don't really have first hand knowledge. It is real, it has grown. Deal with the cause, don't minimize the problem or suggest it is due to helio-parents.

[marions ghost]

18. Absolutely, severe allergies are real

and should not be minimized. You make the point well.

[Bigmack]

15. I am relatively OLD, retired, and have had a SEVERE peanut allergy

and an allergy to ALL tree nuts, as well as buckwheat (it's the WORST for me - can't even be in the same room with buckwheat flour!) my entire life. Drove my mom crazy - she couldn't figure out why I got SO sick when my dear, sugar-holic aunt would let me lick the creamy insides of her chocolate candies. She finally found a young Dr. in our small town who was studying allergies, and he agreed to test me. Sure enough - the tests revealed the allergies. My mom was a typical, stay-at-home mom of the forties, and my dad was home for dinner every night. I reckon it's genetic, as I've cousins with food allergies - some more severe and numerous than mine are. I suspect the reason that more folks are turning up with food allergies these days is that historically folks like me probably would have died of anaphylaxis before they were old enough to reproduce. Now, thanks to science, we live fairly regular lives and reproduce and pass the allergy genes on to the next generation. Tho I didn't breed and am innocent of that biological misdemeanor. Ms Bigmack

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. Same principle as the desensitization shots I was given as a kid

When I was six, we moved from a quiet side street in one city to a house right along a busy highway in another city. All of a sudden, I had hay fever, spring pollen allergies, and dust allergies that I'd never had before. I would cough all night and nearly use up a box of tissues during the day. It was as if my respiratory system was in full rebellion. In the olden days, I probably would have died.

The ENT doctor tested me for allergies, and I tested positive for pollens, grasses, molds, and dust. I was put on antihistamines and scheduled for weekly desensitization shots. I had them for about two years.

I never completely got over the allergies, but the shots helped. I still had symptoms, but I no longer coughed all night or used up a whole box of tissues.

[alittlelark]

19. That is called 'holistic'

Almost 50 - 1st 'death' at 2prs old from anaphalqactic nut allergy. Oddly enough a Dr was working on a homeopathic remedy, (not cure). I lived am am posting now,.....