Researchers Continue to Make Progress Toward Curing Peanut Allergies
Researchers from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Australia “might have found a successful and low-risk method to cure children born with a peanut allergy,” IFLScience.com reported.
By combining exposure-induced immunity building with the probiotic lactobacillus rhamnosus, 80% of the study’s participants developed a tolerance to peanuts.
This treatment – known as the probiotic and peanut oral immunotherapy (PPOIT) method – was tested on 62 children over 18 months. Half were given the probiotic and peanuts, the other half were given the probiotic and a placebo. The follow up study that was performed 4 years later found that 16 children from the PPOIT group and 1 from the control group that received the placebo “have been able to eat peanuts ever since, while four PPOIT-treated participants and six placebo kids, who all had a tolerance at the end of the study, have since then had allergic reactions.”
“This treatment has the potential to help people with all kinds of food allergies, not just peanuts,” Professor Mimi Tang is quoted as saying on MCRI’s web page. “Eventually we want this treatment to be available to everyone.”
Read the full study in Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.
