Health Day – Exposure to Peanuts May Build Tolerance to Allergy

More great news from the research front! This one includes a larger sample of people. An even larger study is hoped for soon.

Remember: “This is not something to be done at home”

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

SUNDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) — Exposing children with peanut allergies to a carefully administered daily oral dose of peanuts helped them build tolerance to the point where some of them appear to have lost their allergies, a new study found.

However, the researchers, from Duke University Medical Center and Arkansas Children’s Hospital, cautioned that the approach is still experimental and should not be tried by parents on their own.

“This is not something to be done at home,” said Dr. Wesley Burks, chief of the division of pediatric allergy and immunology at Duke and a co-author of the research. “It truly is an investigational study.”

But the children in the study did build long-term tolerance, with the researchers documenting key immunologic changes reflecting a lack of allergic response.

Burks and his colleagues were expected to present their findings Sunday at the American Academy of Asthma, Allergy & Immunology meeting, in Washington, D.C.

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