Peanut Allergy: Have We FINALLY Found A Cure?

It's an issue that worries parents the country over.

Anaphylaxis - the type of allergic reation that many people suffer as a result of eating peanuts - is extremely dangerous, due to its rapid onset and effects like throat swelling and low blood pressure.

This is a particular cause for concern when it comes to children - as they may experience more severe reactions and are often not capable of getting appropriate help or administering an epinephrine injection.

Around one-to-two per cent of children have a peanut allergy, so that's between one or two in every 100 children.

For parents who know how it feels to have a child with a peanut allergy, this recent news might bring some comfort.

What The Researchers Say

For a long time, people have floated the idea that giving a person tiny doses of the thing they are allergic to, over a period of months or even years, could help them to build up a tolerance for it.

But so far, this has been seen as a risky strategy, with inconclusive results, in the case of anaphylaxis.

However, Australian researchers, from the Murdoch Children's Research Institue in Melbourne, may have discovered a way to do this safely and with promising results.

The researchers gave 30 children with a peanut allergy a daily dose of peanut protein, together with a probiotic, for a period of 18 months.

They increased the dose little-by-little over this time, as tolerance grew.

And What Were the Results?

Well, apparently the results were really quite miraculous.

At the end of the trial, 80 per cent of the children could eat peanuts - whole, actual peanuts - without an allergic reaction.

“Many of the children and families believe it has changed their lives, they’re very happy, they feel relieved,” said the lead researcher, Mimi Tang. “These findings provide the first vital step towards developing a cure for peanut allergy and possibly other food allergies.”

However, what the trial has not yet proven, is whether these results are built to last.

In other words, if the daily dose of peanut protein is removed from the test subject's diet, whether they will still have a tolerance in, say, two years time.

The researchers in Melbourne are working on finding this out.

Should You Try This At Home?

In a word, no, not yet.

The researchers have warned that some children did have allergic reactions during the trial - so while the success rate was good, there is still a significant risk involved at the moment, to this kind of treatment.

Soon, though, more trials like this may become available and as they work on the peanut proteins used and the levels of probiotic it may become safer.

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What do you think of this sort of trial? If it becomes available in the UK, would you put forward your own child? Let us know in the comments!