New hope for treating peanut allergy in children

A treatment program designed for infants and preschoolers with peanut allergies has proven effective in helping children overcome this life-threatening food allergy, according to an allergist at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Sandra Hong, director of the Center of Excellence for Food Allergy at Cleveland Clinic, said that the program's result "is capable of changing the lives of allergy sufferers, and possibly saving their lives."

immune reaction

The expert explained that a food allergy is a condition in which the body's immune system considers a type of food, such as peanuts, a harmful substance, which causes it to turn into an attack mode to counter this threat by releasing antibodies.

This immune reaction can cause the child to shiver, vomit and, in worse scenarios, constrict the airways or even death.

Oral Immunotherapy

The Peanut Allergy Early Oral Immunotherapy Program is based on giving children who are allergic to peanuts and are aged four years or younger, doses of small amounts of peanuts that are gradually increased over several months, as part of precise procedures supervised by allergists. In order to build the body's ability to tolerate peanuts.

This approach reverses clinical guidelines, which allergists introduced a decade ago;

Dr. Hong explained that doctors recommended removing allergenic foods such as milk, eggs and peanuts from the diets of children at risk of developing allergies, in an approach that was followed as the number of people with food allergies began to rise in the United States in the 1990s.

However, this approach began to change when research showed that excluding certain foods did not slow the development of food allergies in children. Then came the pioneering study, published in 2015 under the title “Early Learning about Peanut Allergy”, and found that the development of peanut allergy was reduced. In children at risk of allergies, this type of food was introduced to them at an early age, which was the opposite of what was thought, according to Dr. Hong.

Peanut allergy treatments

Dr. Hong said that the ongoing treatment programs aim to improve therapeutic procedures, which arose from this early learning study.

More than 50 children with peanut allergy participated in the program.

The objectives of the study are minimal, to help these children tolerate the equivalent of at least one morsel of peanuts, which means that a child can eat two of these beans without an immune reaction.

The allergy expert explained that this protects against accidental ingestion of peanuts or their products, thus avoiding the occurrence of a health emergency.

But the immune response changed a lot in many of the participants, so that they could eat peanut products, Dr. Hong confirmed, who added that the basis is the age of the child, indicating that the immune response to food allergens is less severe in early childhood.

"Children's immune system is flexible enough to allow them to tolerate allergens, which gives us leeway that we may be able to effect change," Hong said.

The program includes a series of micro-dose to be taken by the participants, represented by eating small amounts of peanuts.

In the first treatment cycle, for example, the daily dose consisted of only 8 milligrams of peanut protein.

Small increases to this dose occur every two weeks if there are no relapses in children, until the process takes a period of at least four to six months, with the child continuing for at least a year to take doses that ensure the maintenance of levels of immune response and tolerance.

The child is given the increased dose of peanut butter in the allergist's office, in anticipation of any reaction;

Where the child is directly monitored for an hour after starting to take the higher dose.

More than 80% of the children participating in the program are able to tolerate a morsel of peanuts or have developed endurance capacity to reach this level.

a future vision

 One in five children with peanut allergy will outgrow the condition before puberty, but Dr. Hong said advances in treatment could reverse this picture, enabling four out of five children to leave their peanut fears behind in adulthood.

The doctor believes that the number of children suffering from severe allergic reactions to peanuts will soon begin to decline, and concluded, "We are moving towards treatment, and increasing families' confidence in their children."

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news