New Food Allergy Treatment on the Horizon?

By Kelley Lindberg

Dr. Fred Finkelman
(photo courtesy of FARE)

FARE (Food Allergy Research and Education) is reporting today that they’re awarding a $734,986 research grant to leading immunologist Fred Finkelman, M.D., at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine/Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, in his efforts to suppress anaphylaxis. Dr. Finkelman is developing a therapy that may be able to desensitize a patient to ALL of their food allergies at the same time, and potentially in as short a time period as 24 hours.

With this therapy, a patient would probably be injected with a unique antibody that Finkelman and his team have developed in their lab. The antibody would then target mast cells and remove the IgE and IgE receptors on those mast cells, which are responsible for releasing the chemicals that cause the symptoms of an allergic reaction. In a previous study, Dr. Finkelman injected mice with this antibody, and the treatment prevented anaphylaxis.

In plain English, this means that after being injected with this new antibody, the patient’s body will stop reacting to food allergens!

Right now, Dr. Finkelman and his team are still working with mice, so human trials are still years away. And their therapy in mice has taken weeks to build up a resistance, so they are hoping to shorten that timeframe significantly with their future study. Dr. Finkelman emphasizes that his process would not cure allergies, but would suppress allergies. He believes it has the potential to suppress food allergies, skin allergies, and even asthma and environmental allergies (hay fever). But this is the type of therapy that so many of us are desperately hoping for, so I am thrilled and grateful to FARE for supporting Dr. Finkelman’s research with this significant grant.

To read more about this grant and Dr. Finkelman’s work, check out these links:

• “New Study Aims for Quick Suppression of Food Allergies”
• “A Conversation with FARE Grant Recipient Fred Finkelman,MD”
• “Suppressing Food Allergies Quickly Is the Goal of UC Research Team”

FAAN and FAI Merge into FARE

by Kelley Lindberg


If you've been in the food allergy community for very long, you've discovered the amazing food allergy organizations FAAN (Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network) and FAI (Food Allergy Initiative). Today they've announced that the two organizations are merging. Here is the announcement letter that went to FAAN members, and it contains links to the press release and a questions and answers page, so be sure to visit those pages for more details.

The combined power, influence, and reach of these two fantastic organizations can only mean good things for the future of food allergy research, support, and advocacy.


Dear FAAN Supporter, 

Today we are pleased to announce the completion of the merger between FAAN and FAI. Our new organization, dedicated to food allergy research and education, will be known as FARE.

Building on the significant accomplishments of FAAN and FAI over the past two decades, FARE’s mission is to ensure the safety and inclusion of all individuals with food allergies while relentlessly seeking a cure. We will accomplish this by:

• Funding world-class research that advances treatment and understanding,
• Providing evidence-based education and resources,
• Undertaking advocacy at all levels of government, and
• Increasing awareness of food allergies as a serious public health issue.

Thanks to dedicated friends like you, FAAN and FAI have made great strides over the years. We are deeply grateful for your support, and proud of the progress we have made together. The merger comes at a crucial time in the national discourse around food allergies, and we look forward to continuing to partner with you as we work to advance research, education, advocacy and awareness.

We are happy to share that the executive leaders of FAAN and FAI, Maria Acebal and Mary Jane Marchisotto, will remain involved in the merged organization. Maria will serve as a senior advisor and a spokesperson for FARE. Mary Jane will serve as the senior vice president of research and operations, with a primary focus on growing the organization’s research portfolio.

Through the end of 2012, you will continue to see the names FAAN and FAI on our events, public communications and websites. FARE will debut its new logo and website, which will be located at www.foodallergy.org, in early 2013.

You can read more about today’s announcements in our press release and questions and answers page. We will continue to keep you informed of new developments at FARE by email, via social media and by posting information on our websites. We’re excited about our plans for FARE and look forward to sharing them with you.

Sincerely,



John L. Lehr
Chief Executive Officer



Todd J. Slotkin
Chairman

Mapping Food Allergies Across the US

by Kelley Lindberg


A new study published in the July issue of Clinical Pediatrics, “GeographicVariability of Childhood Food Allergy in the United States,” attempts to map the prevalence of food allergies in children across the country. What an interesting idea, and even more interesting results! Dr. Ruchi Gupta, the lead author of the study, says that this study shows for the first time that food allergy rates are higher in denser population areas (like inner cities), and become steadily lower the more rural and sparse the population becomes. The study also reports that the states with the highest rate of food allergy (higher than 9.5 percent) are Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Alaska.

 

What does this mean? It means we have a lot of new questions to ask, and very few answers. But new questions are good! They add to the clues researchers need as they dig ever deeper into the causes of food allergies.

 

The data Gupta and her researchers uncovered also contained some surprises and some contradictions. For example, the researchers found that food allergy seemed greater in the southern states than in northern states, but that contradicts earlier studies that suggested greater exposure to sunlight (and therefore vitamin D) might help protect against food allergies. In addition, some of the states with the highest rates are close to water sources – does water affect food allergies?

 

In an interview in the Fall 2012 issue of Allergic Living magazine, Gupta explains that what this study does is show some intriguing trends, but we don’t have nearly enough information about them to explain the results. For instance, why are southern states higher? But if that’s the case, how do you explain Alaska showing up in the highest seven states? If proximity to bodies of water makes a difference, how does Nevada make it into the top seven? And if population density shows such clear differences in rates, what is causing it? Do people eat different foods in urban settings than they do in rural areas? Is it a difference of environment, rather than food? Education? Hygienic patterns? Something completely different that we haven’t even dreamed up yet?

 

Intriguing questions, for sure. And questions like these will undoubtedly spawn whole new areas of research, which can bring much-needed information to the table as we try to develop treatments, preventions, and cures for food allergy. And that’s what it’s all about, for those of us in the food allergy community.

 

Thank you, Dr. Gupta and your fellow researchers, for giving us more questions. Without those questions, we could never hope to find the right answers that may someday make a real difference.

FAI’s Food Allergy Prevalence Study

by Kelley Lindberg


In 2008, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimated that 1 in every 25 children had a food allergy. Now, just three years later, a new survey sponsored by the Food Allergy Initiative (FAI) estimates that 8%, or 1 out of every 13 children, has a food allergy.

Published in the July 2011 issues of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, this latest study analyzes interviews from over 38,000 households with at least 1 child under 18 years of age to discover “The Prevalence, Severity, and Distribution of Childhood Food Allergy in the United States.”

One out of every 13 children is an alarming number – that means 2 children in every classroom in the United States has a food allergy. This study verifies what many people in the food allergy community and in the medical profession have been feeling for some time – food allergies are increasing at an appalling rate.

Here are some of the other findings published in this study, published on FAI’s website:

• 38.7 percent of the children in the survey had a severe or life-threatening allergy
• 30.4 percent had multiple food allergies
• Children with food allergies were most commonly allergic to peanuts (25.2 percent), milk (21.1 percent) and shellfish (17.2 percent), followed by tree nuts (13.1 percent), and egg (9.8 percent)
• Severe reactions were most common among children with a tree nut, peanut, shellfish, soy, or fin fish allergy
• Children aged 14-17 years were most likely to have a severe food allergy
• Food allergies affect children in all geographic regions
• Asian and African American children were more likely to have a convincing history of food allergy, but were less likely to receive a formal diagnosis when compared to white children

While food allergy has been an increasing concern in the medical world, sparking a growing number of research projects and studies, this new study may help to propel even more projects into the funding spotlight. In addition to potential treatments and cures, research into the possible causes of food allergy, as well as identification of the individual protein molecules that cause reactions, will carry us much further towards a real understanding of this complex and frustratingly confusing disease.

In addition, the results of this survey may encourage more food manufacturers to examine their production processes and facilities for ways to more closely control cross-contamination with the major allergens. Especially for manufacturers of kid-oriented foods and snacks, knowing they are eliminating up to 8% of their potential customers by not adhering to strict allergen cross-contamination prevention may be just the catalyst they need to change their processes.

It would be easy to look at this study and see only the bad news: food allergies are becoming more wide-spread. But it’s important to look at the positive news this also represents: because food allergies are becoming so wide-spread, more researchers, manufacturers, chefs, teachers, doctors, coaches, colleagues, and neighbors will become committed to finding cures, treatments, safe practices, recipes, and other solutions to eliminating food allergy from our world sooner, rather than later.

Latest Study on Allergies and Allergy Testing

by Kelley Lindberg


Last month, a new study on allergy testing from Quest Diagnostics, manufacturer of the ImmunoCAP® IgE blood test for allergy diagnostic testing, was released. Quest Diagnostics used its access to the largest national database of allergy blood test results – with results from two million patient encounters – to analyze the effect of allergies on the health of Americans. The 4-year study didn’t measure the prevalence of allergies in the general population (plenty of other studies have done that). Instead, it looked at people who were already suspected of having allergies (both food and environmental allergies), in an effort to see how allergies are changing or affecting the allergic population.

Some of the study’s key findings include:

• The overall sensitization rate (patients having an allergen-specific IgE) increased by 5.8% over 4 years.
• The number of patients tested for allergies increased over those 4 years by 19%, which Quest says is significantly faster than the growth in general laboratory testing.
• Sensitization to ragweed and mold is increasing rapidly, which is consistent with other studies that show climate change may be linked to an increase in environmental allergies (because of the change in growing habits of plants, for example).
• Men showed higher sensitization rates than women.
• Children showed higher sensitization rates than adults.
• Peanuts were the most common food allergen in kids who were tested for food allergies, with 30% of the kids under 5 years of age and nearly 25% of the kids from 6 to 18 testing positive for peanut.
• Patients with asthma have more allergies (averaging 4.1 allergens per person) than patients without asthma (averaging 3.4 allergens).

Another interesting part of the study is that it confirms the “Allergy March,” which shows a disease progression where children with sensitivities often develop different allergic diseases as they mature, for example: moving from a single food allergy in childhood, to environmental allergies, to asthma.

In most cases, this study seems to be confirming what we already know or at last suspected about allergies and allergy testing from smaller studies. This study is significant, however, because of the sheer size of the patient base, and the fact that it used blood tests rather than patient-response surveys for its data.

To read the complete study and learn more about its findings, click Quest Diagnostics Health Trends Allergy Report 2011, “Allergies Across America.”

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…

Climate Change Increasing Food Allergies

I’ve written before about oral allergy syndrome – the concept that allergen proteins, whether in pollens or in foods, belong to a limited number of protein families, and that many pollen proteins are similar enough in structure to unrelated food proteins that a sensitivity to one can make you susceptible to the other, even though the two plants aren’t technically related. For example, an allergy to birch may make you allergic to peanuts, because some of the proteins found in birch pollen is similar in structure to some of the proteins in peanuts. So even though the two plants aren’t related at all, the birch pollen, which gets into your lungs freely because it’s airborne, can eventually trigger an allergic reaction to peanuts. (See "Regional Differences in Food Allergies.")

I also talked about how this oral allergy syndrome may explain why different foods are the allergic culprits in different parts of the world – because the weeds and trees in England are different from the weeds and trees in Africa, for example, the common food allergies also vary between the two regions.

Now there are starting to be several studies that show this oral allergy syndrome affect is increasing because of global climate change.

In a nutshell, researchers are discovering that with the longer warm seasons and melting ice caps, more land mass is staying warmer longer, producing more and more plants. Ragweed, for example, is thriving for more weeks every year in some parts of America. That means not only a lengthening of hay fever season for pollen sufferers, but also more exposure in expanding areas where people can become susceptible to the corresponding food allergens.

Australian scientist Dr. Paul Beggs was awarded the OSMR Jamkie Callachor Eureka Prize for Medical Research in Australia this year (Australia’s most prestigious science award) for his research on the effect climate change is having on allergens. As explained in the article “Global Allergic Reaction” from the Australian Museum, which awards the Eureka Prize, “Dr. Beggs published the first academic papers on the possible impacts of increasing temperatures and changing rainfall patterns on asthma; air-based allergens (such as pollen) and plant food allergens such as peanuts.”

Dr. Beggs isn’t the only one researching these links between climate change and allergies. For example, other scientists have shown that people exposed to higher levels of ragweed pollen and ozone together are more likely to suffer from allergies than from either substance alone.

The scientific literature is filled with studies showing direct, distinct correlations between climate change and various elements of human health, and the link between warming temperatures and both airborne and food-borne allergens is astonishing.

Just something to think about the next time we food allergy sufferers have an opportunity to do something proactive for the environment.

Good News from the Medical World

With all the stress, confusion, and uncertainty that comes with food allergies, wouldn’t it be great to get a little bit of good news for a change? How’s this:

Trials in mice of a Chinese herbal treatment called FAHF-2 protected peanut-allergic mice from anaphylaxis for more than eight months after the treatment stopped.

Really. Perhaps a type of vaccine is finally on the distant horizon!

Di. Xiu-Min Li, an associate professor of pediatrics and the director of the Center for Chinese Herbal Therapy for Allergy and Asthma at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and her colleagues published their findings in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology this month. Their findings reinforce previous studies showing promise for this particular drug, which has already received investigational new drug approval from the FDA. Read an article about this latest study on the Medical News Today website here.

Of course, this is great news for mice everywhere. But what’s even better is they’re conducting human trials right now at Mount Sinai to study the safety and effectiveness of FAHF-2 on even more food allergies, like tree nuts, fish, and shellfish, in addition to peanuts.

Ordinarily, it takes years and years for a new drug to go through all the testing, research, modifications, and approval process before the FDA will finally allow that new drug to become commercially available. So for most of us, even if this drug really works the way we hope it will in humans, it will be years before we will be able to take advantage of it. But even so, this news gives all of us hope for the future of food allergy treatment and prevention.

I can’t imagine how wonderful it will feel to have a medicine like this available for allergic people. Even if it meant the allergic person had a shot every month, it would be worth the peace of mind knowing that an innocent looking cookie would never again betray someone you love.

I am so grateful that there are brilliant minds out there working on this for us. As I sit here on this overcast, cold February day, it gives me a warm feeling of hope, like spring truly is on the way.