Dr. Robert Wood

Food Allergies For Dummies

Articles

• Peanut Allergy Cure?
• Food Allergies: Nothing to Joke About
• Probiotics in the Prevention and Treatment of Food Allergies
• Household Cleaners Clarification
• Food Allergens in Non-Food Items
• Taking Food Allergies Back to School
• Assessing the Risks of Allergens in Schools
• 504 Plan for Food Allergies
• Debunking Alternative Food Allergy Tests and Therapies
• Testing for Food Allergies
• My Food Allergy Reactions
• Assessing the Real Risk of Airborne Peanut
• Busting Common Food Allergy Myths
• Beware of False Positives
• Will I Ever Outgrow My Food Allergy?
• Have You Outgrown Your Food Allergy?
• The Risks of Eating Out
• Food Allergy Epidemic?
• Food Allergy Blamed for Death at Dinner
• Does Breastfeeding Prevent Food Allergies?
• Choosing a Food Allergy-Friendly Camp
• Check Your Epinephrine Autoinjectors
• Diagnosing and Treating Celiac Disease

Peanut Allergy Cure?

Good Morning America On Call recently ran a story entitled "Is There a Cure for Peanut Allergies?" by Cathy Becker and Imaeyen Ibanga, reporting that doctors at Duke University Medical Center and their colleagues at Arkansas Children's Hospital have "found a way to desensitize children to peanuts by using the very thing to which the children are allergic – peanuts."

In Food Allergies For Dummies, we discuss several immunotherapies for allergies (not all of which can be used for safely treating food allergies), including allergy shots, sublingual (under the tongue) treatments, oral immunotherapy (as discussed in the Good Morning America report), modified protein vaccines, and DNA immunization.

Although oral immunotherapy sounds easy enough, it comes with one very important warning: DON'T try this at home. The treatment really needs to be performed and closely monitored by a food allergy specialist who is well prepared to deal with possible life-threatening reactions. Patients are started on a miniscule amount of the food they are allergic to, and the amount is increased very gradually over a long period of time. The amount of allergen being ingested must be carefully controlled in a clinical setting to protect the patient's safety and improve the chances of success.

We are very encouraged by these studies but they are still very preliminary with small numbers of patients. The cure may come, but we do not expect an FDA approved treatment for food allergy for at least 10 years – 20 years may be more realistic.