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Peanut Allergy Treatment Trial In UK "A Success"

Posted by samzenpus on from the what-doesn't-kill-me dept.

cold fjord writes: "The BBC reports, 'Peanuts are the most common cause of fatal allergic reactions to food. There is no treatment so the only option for patients is to avoid them completely, leading to a lifetime of checking every food label before a meal. The trial ... tried to train the children's immune system to tolerate peanut. Every day they were given a peanut protein powder — starting off on a dose equivalent to a 70th of a peanut. Once a fortnight the dose was increased while the children were in hospital and then they continued taking the higher dose at home. The majority of patients learned to tolerate the peanut. ... Dr Andrew Clark, told the BBC: "It really transformed their lives dramatically, this really comes across during the trial. ... Dr Pamela Ewan added ... further studies would be needed and that people should not try this on their own as this "should only be done by medical professionals in specialist settings."' The story also notes, 'The findings, published in the Lancet, suggest 84% of allergic children could eat the equivalent of five peanuts a day after six months.'"

8 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Standard practice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    in treating various allergies in the past 10 years. Good studies since 70's.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/147019

    1. Re:Standard practice... by DMiax · · Score: 5, Informative

      Correct. But I suspect the hurdle here was to isolate the allergenic factor and administering it correctly. It is not as simple as splitting a peanut in 70 parts: you have to find the right protein, isolate it and dose it. It can be a bitch to do. The results prove that the protein was the right one and that the doses were ok. Finally, the treatment does not work with any substance: there are things that will remain lethal whatever happens as our immune system just cannot catch them. So that is another good news.

    2. Re:Standard practice... by marsu_k · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My daughter's milk allergy (yes, milk allergy, not lactose intolerance) was treated this way. It started with an almost homeopathic dosage, one drop of milk diluted to 1/20 per day, gradually increasing the dosage over six months. Now she's able to use dairy products freely, which is great. But the treatment doesn't really get rid of the allergy, it just builds a resistance for it, requiring that she gets at least some milk protein in her diet daily. I'll echo the summary though - don't try this without a medical professional.

    3. Re:Standard practice... by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 5, Insightful

      there is no really good reason that a tiny, tiny bit of peanut butter in a large meal won't work.

      Yes there is. Peanut butter, no matter how well you stir it, will have random clumps of the allergen and people will die. More stirring does not solve the problem. Random does not mean equal distribution. It means random distribution, some of which will be in larger clumps.

  2. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Allergy is an immune system reaction to something that shouldn't be a problem in the first place. It thinks that something (in this case peanuts) is dangerous, and launches a full scale defense.

    The trick here is simply to get the immune system used to the substance causing the reaction, so that it will think it's normal, rather than becoming defensive. This seems to work, as long as you increase the dose slowly. The method has been used with some success against other allergies for some time, but trying it on an often fatal allergy like peanut allergy is new.

    Now, why peanut allergy is so much more dangerous than all the other allergies, I have no idea. But as this trial worked, it does indicate that peanut allergy works like any other allergy.

  3. Re:the remaining 16% by sjames · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Contrary to the media hype, MOST people with peanut allergies don't have a fatal reaction. Just in case, the dosing was started in a hospital setting.

  4. Feed your kids, people by Gothmolly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Feed your kids real food, people, and let them play in the dirt. Get a pet. If you want your kid to have a healthy normal life, expose them to things in normal life. If you wrap them in Triclosan-scented everything and feel them gluten/soy/sugarfree Brawndo for years, they'll never learn to metabolize or tolerate anything else. Life carries risk, and as much as public education has taught you that causality is a human construct, it ain't - learn to deal with things or they'll deal with you, you pussies.

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  5. Re:suggestions are changing by mjr167 · · Score: 5, Informative

    And it is going to take a long time for those new recommendations to make their way into the general public. There are piles of parenting help books that old parents gleefully shovel onto new parents. There are articles and magazines and Grandma and the crotchety old lady down the street. Everyone has an opinion about how you should be raising your kids and how you are doing a shitty job at it and your kids are going to die or need therapy or be a bum because you didn't give them the special new omega whatever supplement that promotes brain growth.

    And the advice is constantly changing. My husband is the youngest of three. His eldest brother slept on his stomach as a baby. Their mom was told to put the middle one on her side using this bizarre wedge pillow everyone had to buy or your baby would die, and by the time he was born, we had decided that babies had to sleep on their back. They just recently came out telling us to keep kids in rear facing car seats until they are two and they are pretty much in booster seats until they turn 21 now.

    On top of that, you only ever really get one shot at being a parent. You might get a couple tries with different kids, but each kid is only ever a baby once.

    So give the parents a break. They've never done this before, are sleep deprived, are the scourge of all the non-parents in the grocery store, and all they really want to do is go home, drink a beer, watch a TV show that doesn't involve a super hero named 'Word Girl' from the planet Lexicon, fall asleep, and not get woken up by a 30 lb bouncing bundle demanding pancakes at 5AM on a Saturday.