Food Allergy Desensitization – Rushing Now Could Jeopardize Long-Term Success

by Kelley Lindberg


Two weeks ago, I wrote about a new British study being funded to research desensitization for food allergies on a larger scale than some previous studies (“New Desensitization Research Project in England”). Whenever I write about a new study like this, I worry that allergic individuals will try desensitizing themselves – or, more worrisome, their children – without benefit of the careful dosing and treatment regimen that the studies’ doctors provide.

I talked to Dr. Douglas Jones, a board-certified allergist in Layton (Rocky Mountain Allergy, Asthma, Immunology), last week about this very issue. He had just attended the February meeting of the Utah Society of Allergy and Asthma and the Annual meeting for the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. He asked me to share with everyone some highlights of those meetings regarding this topic of food desensitization.

There are some limited studies that show some promising results as far as patients being desensitized and even becoming tolerant to foods they are allergic to (peanut in particular). There is not a standardized protocol yet. This is something that is currently under investigation and of high interest to allergists across the country and here in Utah. When there is appropriate medical evidence and support, food desensitization is something that will likely be offered by Dr. Jones and some other board-certified allergists in their clinics and under their supervision sometime in the near future.

Given the risks associated with this and the limited data, it is important to proceed appropriately and safely. Please do NOT try things at home on your own. Dr. Jones understands the frustrations of patients, your anxiety, and your desire to have safer and more effective treatment. He is just as anxious to try to provide a safe and effective treatment for patients with food allergies. He just wants to emphasize that it is important to go about things the right way, however. That way, when we do start using them in a clinical environment, we’ll have the best information and protocols possible for success. A little caution now is the key to long-term success. And that long-term success – in the form of a food allergy cure – is what we all want for our children and for their children in the years to come. Stay tuned, this is a rapidly developing area!

Many thanks to Dr. Douglas Jones for allowing me to share this information with my readers.

New Food Allergy Desensitization Research Project in England

by Kelley Lindberg


The British newspaper The Telegraph is reporting that a British doctor has been awarded one million British pounds to begin a new research project on the desensitization of children to their peanut allergies. (See “AAAS: Cure for Peanut Allergy ‘Within Three Years’.”) This study will involve 104 children – his previous study involved only 23 children, and 21 of them were eventually able to tolerate a limited number of peanuts without a reaction.

This new research project is expected to last three years, and the doctor, Dr. Andrew Clark of Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, England, expresses hope that his desensitization cure will help transform the lives of food-allergic people.

In his study, he gives children a minute amount of peanut flour mixed with yogurt. They ingest this amount at regular doses on a strict schedule, carefully desensitizing the child to the allergen over a long period of time. At the end of the study, he hopes to be able to transition to clinical treatment for other peanut-allergic patients. However, if I understand correctly, he does not yet know if these children will have to maintain a weekly dosing schedule to keep their immunity in place, or if the three-year treatment will provide a long-lasting tolerance. He says a separate long-term study is needed to determine how permanent the solution will be.

It’s exciting to see more and more studies like this being funded. Whether or not this treatment really turns out to be the “cure” we’re all hoping for remains to be seen over the next three years, of course, but this is definitely one of the more promising treatments that scientists are focusing on. As I’ve mentioned before in my blog postings, food allergy studies have a bad habit of contradicting each other, but in this case, desensitization studies seem to be showing a generally positive trend. They haven’t worked for all the participants, but enough that it’s very encouraging.

British writer Delia Lloyd, on the Politics Daily website (see “Parents Rejoice: Peanut Allergy Cure Within Sight, British Study Finds”), talks more about this study and how its results will ultimately affect food-allergic people. Her own son is allergic to peanuts, so her reaction to this study is not just informed, but personal. It’s interesting – do check it out.

Every day, I’m more encouraged about the progress I’ve seen in food allergy research over the last decade. Thanks to these dedicated scientists and researchers, maybe by the time my son is raising kids of his own, food allergies will be an easily treated or even preventable disease. It will be nice to know he can spend his sleepless nights as a parent worrying about something else, like dating, driving lessons, report cards…

Hope – But Don’t Try This At Home

It’s all over the news – friends are calling me and emailing me, telling me about the latest study reported last week at a meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. (Read the New York Times report here.) In this study, peanut-allergic children were given a daily dose of peanut powder to desensitize them to peanut allergens.

Basically, by introducing tiny, carefully controlled amounts of the allergen on a daily basis, doctors are slowly building up resistance in the patients’ bodies. Eventually, the theory is that the patients’ bodies are retrained, so that they no longer view the peanut proteins as allergens.

Most of the children in the study are tolerating the therapy without suffering from allergic reactions. This is great news. It means that for most of the kids in the study, their bodies’ immune systems are being slowly retrained, so that they can eventually eat a few peanuts safely.

The doctors involved in the study believe that in two or three years, an actual treatment for peanut allergy may be developed, based on the findings from this study and other related studies going on throughout the world right now.

This is wonderful! At this point, there are two promising treatments – desensitization, and the Chinese herbal treatment FAHF-2.

Though we appear to be on the verge of breakthroughs, we still need to be careful. Doctors involved in this study (and others like them) are worried that people will run out and try these treatments at home, on their own, with disastrous results.

One reason why caution is essential is that the treatment does NOT seem to work for everyone.
Four kids dropped out of the study because they couldn’t tolerate the therapy – even the tiny doses involved in the therapy still caused allergic reactions. Since the therapy starts with a dose equivalent to 1/1000th of a peanut, that’s pretty disheartening for the parents of those four kids.

Another aspect to consider is that these studies are relying on carefully measured doses, in carefully monitored lab situations where help for anaphylactic reactions is immediately available. Most of us don’t have the capability to measure 1/1000th of a peanut accurately, nor the detailed knowledge of the protocols used in the testing to administer these doses safely. A doctor’s guidance is essential.

A third reason for caution is that all of the studies I’ve read about so far are using children with only a single allergy right now. Multiple allergies are difficult to account for in a controlled study, so doctors are only studying how desensitization works on a single allergy – throwing lots of allergies into the mix could greatly change doses, reactions, and chemical interferences.

So while the outlook on the horizon is rosy, don’t throw away your EpiPens yet. Keep your eyes and ears open for news, talk to your board-certified allergist, and follow the study results carefully. But don’t try this at home just yet. But in a few years, perhaps life will be much easier and safer for many of our children. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.