Doctors Herald a Potential Peanut Allergy Cure

A team from the Addenbrooke’s Childrens Hospital in Cambridge claim to have effectively found a cure for peanut allergies.  By exposing affected children to tiny amounts of peanuts over a six-month period, beginning with doses of peanut flour as small as 5mg, they found that sufferers can build up tolerance until they are able to eat up to five peanuts without ill effects.

Peanut allergies can cause breathing problems, and in some rare cases as little as one percent of one peanut can cause severe anaphylactic shock and even death.  Four out of every five life-threatening cases of anaphylactic shock are caused by peanuts.  Sufferers face such restrictions on what they can eat that many are afraid to eat in restaurants or cafes because they can’t be sure that what they are eating is peanut-free.  Even a serving spoon that has been used to serve food containing peanuts can cause problems for an allergy sufferer if it is subsequently used to serve their food without being properly cleaned.

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The Cambridge doctors say that this is not a permanent cure, but as long as the patients carry on taking a small daily doses of peanut flour, they should maintain their tolerance and be able to eat food which may contain traces of peanuts without fear.

This is not the first time that de-sensitisation techniques have been used to treat allergies.  Sufferers of allergies to wasp and bee stings and pollen have been successfully treated this way before.  However, this is the first time that the technique has been used to treat a food allergy.

At present it is too early to say whether a cure has definitely been found.  This first study only involved four children.  A further study on 18 more children is being carried out, and Doctors say there is no reason why this treatment should not work on adults.

For the thousands of peanut allergy sufferers, it looks like help could finally be on its way.